Quiet Computing
From John Abraham
Dear Charles,
Thanks for your article in LEM titled Silence is Golden. Like you, I also live in a
rural area, and I am also distressed by the amount of noise that my
computer makes. I am writing to ask if you have any suggestions to tame
a PowerBook G3 FireWire
(Bronze Keyboard model). The drive that the computer came with was
always irritatingly noisy, but as it gets older it is really starting
to get on my nerves. I am thinking of replacing it (perhaps buying a
case for the original drive so I can use it for backup), but as I am on
a very limited budget I would hate to make a mistake. Is there any
brand that you would recommend?
I am also considering other possibilities. Could I perhaps boot the
computer from a shielded FireWire drive kept below my desk so I don't
hear it? (I use the portable capabilities of my computer only
occasionally).
In the good old days I used to use a RAM disk and a PB 100. By stripping System 6 down to
about 600K it was 
possible to get an entire
system plus a simple word processing application into the RAM disk.
Unfortunately, the current PowerBook won't boot from a RAM disk, so
this little trick is out - or is it? If you have heard of any way to
get the machine to be quiet, I would be very grateful - perhaps Bose
noise reduction headphones offer a way out.
Any help you give me will be gratefully appreciated
Yours sincerely
John Abraham
Hi John,
I would say that your best bet would be to upgrade to
a new, quieter hard drive and use your old one in a FireWire or USB
case as a backup unit.
The 20 GB Toshiba drive in my 500 MHz Pismo is still quiet after
2-1/2 years of use, but the 10 GB Toshiba I put in my WallStreet got noisy very
quickly, so brand names are not always indicative in this context. The
IBM (now Hitachi) TravelStars have a reputation for quietness.
Your idea of booting from a remote external drive
would work, but I would suggest that a new internal drive would be the
more satisfactory solution.
New World ROM Macs won't boot from RAM disks, period.
I recall fondly running my old PowerBook 5300 in blessed silence from a
RAM disk. However, I really can't complain about the noise levels from
either my Pismo or my new iBook.
Charles
Editor's note: Several PowerBook users are Compact Flash memory
cards as bootable drives. This silent, solid state memory is available
in a multitude of sizes, and you'll probably need something in the 128
MB to 256 MB range to hold the classic Mac OS, some favorite
applications, and some work files. It won't be as fast as a RAM disk,
but it can eliminate the need to spin up the disk, which makes for
quieter computing and improved running time from the battery. For more,
see Flash Memory Improves
PowerBook. dk
Power Mac Question
From Guillermo Aguirre,
Charles
Please help me with this one, I have a Power Mac 7500 upgraded with a
PowerLogix G3 Card (running at 400 MHz). The system has 64 megs of RAM.
I have installed OS 9.1. I have tried to update to OS 9.2, but it says
it is not supported on my machine. Since OS 9.2 is supported by G3
Power Macs, is there any way I can update mine?
Regards,
Guillermo Aguirre Infante
Environmental Chemist
Hi Guillermo,
OS 9.2 is not supported on pre-G3 Macs, even if they
have G3 or G4 upgrades installed.
There have been some hacks posted for getting around
this, but I can't find any URLs for downloads. Perhaps some of our
readers can help.
Personally, I like OS 9.1 better than 9.2.2 on my
PowerBooks, but there are a few software applications that require OS
9.2.2. If that's not an issue for you, I would suggest sticking with
9.1.
Charles
Pismo problems
From Scott Boveia
Hi Charles,
I appreciate the fact that you are a mobile machine user, so maybe
you have some advice about the trouble with my Pismo/400. For the second time
since I've owned this machine my sound out port has gone on the fritz.
The first time I sent it back to the Apple plant in Texas. I found out
it was more than just the port but the whole board. $300+ later I had
it back in good working form. I now have that same port out, though I
get sound from internal speakers indicating it's only the port
this time.
I have no desire (nor the cash) to send it back to Apple again. My
question is, with which of the workarounds do you have experience or
have you heard the best news? My budget is constrained to ~$100.
Griffin's iMic, M-Audio's Sonica, and the Echo Indigo PC Card adapter
seem to be the front runners. I'm wary of any extra drivers for the USB
devices, and I don't have any other use for my PC Card slot.
Advice? Any guidance would be appreciated.
Scott Boveia
Hi Scott,
I think you're on the right track here, and the PC
Card adapter workaround is the way I would go in this circumstance.
I've had good luck with other Griffin products, and I expect the Echo
product will work as well. The Griffin iMic adapter worked fine with a
Macally USB PC Card in my old WallStreet.
Charles
Serial bus on an S900
From Kort Jackson
Charles,
I was wondering if you could be so kind as to help a reader of your
website with a problem? I would appreciate it.
I have an S900 (well, actually,
my brother has it now) that has been updated with a Sonnet G3 400 MHz
card. It's serial bus card was going bad a
long time ago, so put in a USB card and bought a new Apple USB keyboard
and laser mouse. There used to be only one serial port still working,
which was good in a fix. The problem would arise when I had to reboot
OS 9 with extensions off. The USB card in the PCI slot doesn't get
recognized until the machine is almost completely booted up. Thus, you
can't hold the button down and turn off extensions while booting
up.
Well, now the other serial port is not working either, and my
brother messed up his memory settings, and the machine just won't boot
up all the way. He tried plugging in the old serial keyboard, as I had
done in the past, so that he could boot without extensions, and what do
you know, it doesn't work. Now we have a paperweight that looks like an
S900.
What can he do? Is there somewhere to buy a suitable serial bus card
replacement? Is there some way to get it booted to a CD without using a
keyboard? Is there some way to get the USB card to be recognized at
start up?
The only thing I have thought of is to make an OS 9 boot up
floppy, but I don't know if I can make OS 9 fit on a floppy.
Help!
Thanks,
Kort Jackson
Hi Kort,
I assume we're talking about the ADB bus, not the
serial ports.
I wish I had an answer to your problem, but I can't
think of one. I use a USB keyboard most of the time with my S900, but I
keep an ADB one hooked up as well for forced restarts and so on.
OS 9 will definitely not fit on a floppy. OS 8.1 was
the last floppy-bootable Mac OS, and it doesn't support USB.
I don't know of any ADB PCI cards.
Perhaps one of our readers will be able to supply a
solution, if indeed such exists.
Charles
Re: Mac OS 9 Compatibility, Upgrades, and
Resources
From Ken Watanabe
Charles,
Great article.
"Note that any version of OS 9 - including OS 9.0,
9.0.4, 9.1, 9.2, and 9.2.1 - can be upgraded to the current 9.2.2 using
free updaters that can be downloaded from Apple's software support
site.
Here's a minor footnote to the above...
Except on NuBus Power Macs (such as the 8100, 7100, 6100, and related models). For
some reason, Apple does not allow the 9.1 updater to run on these
machines; the only way to install 9.1 on the first generation Power
Macs is to use a full-installation CD. This is not a "bug," since it is
so stated in one of the docs.
I mention this only because your article was so comprehensive.
- Ken Watanabe
Hi Ken,
Thanks for the supplementary. I was not previously
aware of that restriction. The only NuBus machines I've ever installed
OS 9.1 on are PowerBook 1400s
(soon uninstalled - OS 8.6 works better for them), and I did use a full
install CD.
Charles
OS X on the beige G3
From Tim Larson
Mr. Moore,
I am a big fan of your articles on LEM. I'm hoping that you may have
at least a suggestion for helping me out of my dilemma.
I've been trying to install OS X on my beige G3/300 (576 MB/40 GB) for
almost 2 months. I know about the 8 GB first partition and created
mine at 7.5 GB, followed by a 5 GB chunk for OS 9, followed
by 2 approximately equal sized parts. But no matter what I do,
OS X will not install. I boot from the CD, I uncheck all the
non-English language options, but otherwise I just click along. I am
never prompted for CD 2.
Upon rebooting, I am greeted by a white screen that says "can't
OPEN:" about two dozen times before it reboots itself, and then it
continues to do this forever. On the advice of Apple Support, I've
removed 3rd party cards, disconnected all external devices, even tried
removing the 3rd party RAM. Nothing seems to work.
If I install OS 9 on the 2nd partition and set the boot disk to this
part and then back to the X part, I will "fall back" to 9 when X fails
to boot. So I guess technically I have a "working" computer. But it's
hardly what I wanted after a 4 year wait for OS X, which was still
being called Rhapsody back when the Apple reps assured me that my
expensive new purchase would run the next gen OS just fine.
What can I do? Who can I ask? I've scoured the 'net, but nobody
seems to have quite the right answer. Upgrading is not in the budget
for some years yet. I am hoping you have some experience with OS X
on these machines.
Thanks in advance for any help you may offer, Tim
Hi Tim,
Your experience sounds pretty similar to what I
encountered trying to install OS X on my late, lamented, 233 MHz WallStreet
PowerBook. I wish I could say I finally prevailed, but I didn't,
not for lack of trying.
You actually are getting farther than I did. I never
succeeded in getting the WS to boot from the OS X install CD. We
tried using an external CD-ROM drive and even dragging OS X over
to the WallStreet from my son's Lombard via a FireWire drive.
No joy. The WallStreet simply refused to recognize
OS X, although plenty of WallStreet users have successfully
installed OS X on their machines. I have no idea what the problem
was. Incidentally, I had no trouble installing both SuSE Linux and
Yellow Dog Linux on that PowerBook.
My suggestion would be to purchase a used Blue & White G3 or early
G4 Power Mac tower
CPU unit and sell your beige G3 CPU to someone who will be happy
running OS 9 for the duration. You could try a different hard
drive, and there may be other workarounds that might work, but is the
aggravation really worth it? OS X works best on New World ROM
Macs.
Baucom
Computers usually has a selection of used Power Macs at
reasonable prices, and you could check the classifieds,
eBay, etc.
Charles
Editor's note: You might also want to check our Best Used Power Mac G3
Deals (updated every Wednesday) and our Best Power Mac G4 Deals:
New, Used, and Refurbished (updated on Tuesday). dk
PowerBook ATA hard disk replacement
From Thomas Wang
Hi
I read your article on ATA hard disk drive upgrades for PowerBooks
while trying to research a problem which I am having in the same area.
I have a FireWire 500
MHz whose original hard drive (12 GB Toshiba MK1214GAP) has
expired. I have a suitable slimline Fujitsu drive (40 GB MHS2040AT),
which I currently have mounted in an external USB enclosure and which
can boot the PowerBook.
However, when I fit the Fujitsu internally, the PowerBook does not
recognize the drive. The drive does not show up under Norton Utilities
or TechTool Pro. The drive, when remounted in the USB enclosure, works
fine. I am currently trying to find out if this might be ATA ID 0/1
issue or a slave master issue and how that might be resolved. However,
since this is the first time I've come across this, I would appreciate
any advice.
Rgds
Tom
Hi Tom,
That's very peculiar. Theoretically, the Fujitsu drive
should work fine in the PowerBook. Is there any way you could try a
third ATA drive in the PowerBook as a control? If it didn't work, the
problem could be deduced to be not the drive but the PowerBook.
I expect you've checked and double checked that all
connections are secure, etc.
Charles
Re: PowerBook ATA hard disk replacement
From Thomas Wang
Hi
Thanks for replying the email! I also did not ever consider there
was anything unusual about the Fujitsu drive that would present
issues.
However, I figured out the problem. My PowerBook had been down for a
while, what with the hard drive irrecoverable as well as requiring a
new power supply. After I obtained a new power supply, I installed the
Fujitsu drive. Initially, with the drive fixed internally, neither
Drive Setup, Disk First Aid, Norton, nor TechTool could see it.
I zapped the PRAM and checked again, and Disk First Aid, Norton, and
TechTool still could not see it. Then I installed it in an external USB
enclosure, and the OS saw it immediately, and that's how I formatted
it.
I reinstalled it internally, and the same utilities still failed to
see it.
What I didn't realise in all this was that since I zapped the PRAM,
I had not tried Disk Setup. Eventually repeating the steps carefully, I
found Disk Setup did see it, and it had to be initialised by Disk Setup
before it was visible mounted internally. It seems that for the drive
to be usable internally, a Disk Setup initialisation needs to be done,
and this is different from the OS initialisation performed on the drive
while it's mounted as an external USB drive. It is working fine
now.
Rgds
Tom
Hi again Tom,
Well, that's something I would not have guessed. My
understanding has always been that once a drive was initialized in a
Mac-readable format, it would work either internally or externally.
However, I can't argue with success. Glad you found a
solution.
Charles
Q. re: Macintosh MTU for IP over Ethernet...
Editor's note: VPN is a Virtual
Private Network. MTU is the Maximum Transmission
Unit (found after several pages of links to Michigan Tech on
Google). Without these definitions, many readers won't be able to make
heads or tails out of the following email. I had to look up MTU - and I
used to work as an IS manager. dk
From Jens Petersohn
Hi Charles,
I've been reading your columns on LEM, and I hope you might know the
answer to this question. I have a Macintosh Color Classic
with System 7.1 with the usual ThreadManager, DragManager, CFM, etc.
added.
I'm trying to use the machine on the VPN connection provided by a
Cisco VPN 3002 hardware VPN client. When I use MacTCP 2.1 (see www.mactcp.org.nz) it works, albeit
slowly and with compatibility issues with some software. OpenTransport
1.1.2, on the other hand, hangs on larger transfers.
I performed some packet traces and discovered that the MTU handling
between the VPN box and the Mac is not compatible. Cisco recommends
setting the client machines to an MTU of 1400 manually instead of
relying on the automatic MTU discovery. This works fine and well for
machines were you can actually set the MTU, but on the Mac it's a
problem. Neither MacTCP nor OT seem to provide a solution for setting
the MTU.
Some of the PPP or SlIP drivers allow the setting of the MTU on the
dialup interface that they support, but there seems to be no such
setting for MTU over ethernet. Since the Mac connects to the VPN box
via ethernet, that is what needs to be set.
I discovered a program called OT Advanced Tuner (now IPNetTuner),
but this program costs $30, which is what I paid for the Color Classic.
Seems to be a bit expensive to set one lone IP interface parameter.
Help!
Thanks,
Jens Petersohn
Hi Jens,
Wish I could help, but this is way over my head. I am
anything but a networking expert.
Best I can do is throw your question out to the
readers and see if anyone can help.
Charles
StarMax modem
From: Frank Parks
Is there an internal modem that will work on a StarMax 3000DT?
Hi Frank,
I won't say categorically that there isn't, but I
can't think of anything currently available.
Charles
Editor's note: I've never heard of a PCI modem that worked in a Mac
either. dk
Redux Backup-Redux
From mike webb
Hello, Charles!
It's been awhile since I've written, but now I've got a question,
for which I hope you can give me some answers or at least some
leads.
Almost a year ago, you wrote a
column where you discussed some ways of getting more out of Redux
Backup. What I'm hoping you (or a reader) can help me with is
getting Redux Backup. Every time I mention Redux, someone comes
along wanting a copy. But it's almost disappeared!
The last version (which had become freeware) that I have found out
about is 2.6.2. The release included five packages;
- a 68K version
- a FAT version
- a PPC version
- a Manual in PDF
- a Manual in HTML
I have a copy of the PPC version and have found an old copy of
version 1.5 of the 68K variety. That's it, despite all my
searching.
My limited experience with 2.6.2-PPC tells me it's a good, decent
basic backup program. It would be great to use with low end Macs, and
maybe the LEM site or some other site would agree to host it, if the
packages could be found and the present owner would consent.
I have so far had no success with the last known host for Redux,
Evatac Enterprises (the old URL [deleted] is now a "come-on" page for a
porn site). The first times I tried to contact them, their entire site
was being overhauled (and the website is still a mess); the FTP site
wasn't even accessible, and my emails/phone calls to Tom Carstensen,
the president of Evatac, went unanswered despite several attempts. I am
now starting to try again; I don't know if I'll get any help this time
or not. Perhaps a call from you would get some results.
Evatac's contact info is: Evatac Enterprises; P.O. Box 1381; Coeur
d'Alene ID, 83816-1381 Voice: 877.287.8618 (toll-free), Fax:
209.821.4723 e-mail; Tom Carstensen (president), <tom@evatac.com>
Website; <http://www.evatac.com>;
more email addresses are on that site.
Do you have any working links to the other files of the 2.6.2
series, and/or do you have contact information whereby I can reach the
present owner of Redux Backup?
I'd sure appreciate the help.
God bless,
Mike Webb
Hi Mike,
I you have more information on this topic than I do,
but lets put it to the reader community and see what they can come up
with.
Charles
Editor's note: I have also been in correspondence with Mike Webb. If
we can get the files and resolve permissions issues, we will be hosting
Redux on Low End Mac. dk
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