ATI Rage 128 on B&W G3

J

jdill7

Registered
I have a B&W G3. Am working toward installation of a Zif G4 Sonnet Encore card. Successfully updated all firmare I could find. Used Apples upgrade to OSX site for help. Got OS 9.2.2 and OS X successfully installed and upgraded to OS X.3.8. But video is erratic. Sometimes photos are blown out all red and cyan. Others on internet are fine, but some are bad. ALL my old scans look blown out. A call to ATI and they say my card is too old to support, that I did not update the firmware because it doesn't exist. I thought I did, and most of what I see is fine. Anyhoo, I then tried to install the Zif G4 card. Installed Sonnets software and it worked fine. Saw briefly OS 9.2.2 but did not move around on it because I was thinking all was going well. Then installed the card and when I went to boot, nothing. No chime, no video. I quickly removed the card, put the old card back, rebooted and nothing. No chime, no video. I suspect it's the video card, as this happened before with a Sonnet upgrade card. But no response from Sonnet as yet, so I thought I would seek outside help. Anyone know for sure what my problem is...besides not having enough money to get a real G4 or G5? ;-) And if I need a new video card, what do I get? Aren't most of them too fast for my bus? I think the video can only do 33 mhz. Please help!!!
Jennifer :(
 
if i remember right, some of those ZIF cards would only work on certain revision mother boards, but a quick look on their site did not render any of that info, but i did find this:


*Power Macintosh G3 Blue & White users must disconnect any installed SCSI adapter cards and SCSI drive(s) from their computer before running the Sonnet Software installer and installing the Encore/ZIF G4. After disconnecting the SCSI card and drive(s), the computer must be booted from a hard drive connected to the internal ATA bus, and then the Sonnet installer (which installs files necessary to support Encore/ZIF G4) must be run. The SCSI card and drive(s) may be reconnected after the software installer has been run.
 
Sonnet says it could not be the video card. Since I don't get a chime, something is very wrong. I took the battery out and left it unplugged and un-batteried overnight at their suggestion. It still doesn't work. I assume this is the same as the PRAM reboot. Tech support then suggested I take it to a repair location as something is wrong and they "hope" I haven't done something to my board, etc. I was sooooo careful but I guess anything is possible. But the instructions never mentioned removing the scsi card (I have two--one came with and the other I installed to go with my old scanner)--and tech support didn't mention it. Also, no one mentioned rebooting from a drive connected to the ATA bus. I have a user-installed hard drive connected to the ATA bus. My 6 gig original is not, I believe. Oh me, I'm really bummed now. I wrote to Sonnet with latest questions. We'll see how they respond. Thanks for the info from both, and if you think of more, let me know. Jennifer
 
I finally gave up and took it to my local Mac fixit shop. They said it booted fine when they reinstalled the upgrade card. They did disconnect the add-on scsi card which means I have to get a new scanner. Oh well. There's too many variables these days with my setup. Gone are the days I can really spend the time to get it going. I'm trading time for money I guess. It's working now, but I still need a new video card because color is sometimes bad. Thanks for the pointers on Sonnet's site. The techy guys there said they "forgot" about that.
 
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