[zac4mac]

just installed an XLR8 Mach carrier and an OWC Mercury 400 ZIF card in my 8500. currently running at 58Mhz bus and 464/232 proc/cache. wondering what kind of top bus speed any tweakers are getting out of their macs. still trying to figure out the multiplier switches to see if i can eke out an 8.5:1 or 9:1 proc:bus ratio to further boost my top end

Not related to the bus, but take out the 256k cache that came with the 8500. I initially upgraded my cache to 1 MB, but after installing a G3 upgrade I found the system faster when the 1 MB cache (acting as L3) wasnt there. Good luck.

[zac4mac]

thanks kocher,
I had a 1Mb cache on the motherboard when i was running a 604e/233,but found i couldn't get past 400 mHz with it installed. after removing the cache card, I am at 57.7-58 mHz bus speed, giving me 460mHz on the processor. Just curious to hear if anyone else has gotten their bus this fast or faster

You can't do any multipliers between 8X and 10X with the OWC 400MHz ZIF cards. The "old" G3 can only do 8X bus and the "new" G3can do 8X or 10X - neither can do 9X (or 8.5X, etc...). Only the G4 can do 9X. I've got the same card in my Umax S900 (essentially a 8500). I've got mine running at 432MHz with a 54MHz bus - anything faster and it starts running too hot and locks up. Adding extra heat sink compound doesn't help much. Mine runs at 44- 48C. How hot does yours get at 468MHz??

[zac4mac]

hey matt

thanks for the reply

beginning to think there were no speed tweekers left

when i ran at 464/58bus, i was idling at 48 and hitting 52 in a hard bryce render, but i'm not sure how accurate the temp readings are.

i talked to an engineer at XLR8 and he confirmed the multiplier situation...8x is absolute max

i dropped down to 430 on the processor.was running smooth without crash in photoshop and bryce, but had no start chime and couldn't open SMI disk images

never really had a heat problem, put a small PC CPU fan blowing across the processor. i suppose one could make a better heatsink too, that aluminum plate supplied is really hokey later, zack