ROM SIMM slot on the 9600?

[Paul B]

My level of computer understanding is pretty low by most standards, but I've decided to upgrade my 9600/300 a *little* before saving up for a new G4 933MHZ.
I've fiddled around with putting in another CD drive, hard drive, extra memory, etc. But I've been stumped by this one SIMM slot right between my DIMM slots. What the heck is it there for? What possible SIMM could you put in it?

Also, I've noticed that the 9600's "expandiblity" is limited in the hard drive department. I've even considered pulling out the floppy drive to make extra room. However, since I've got a Sonnet Tempo sitting in the PCI slot, would it be possible to rearrange things to set up a mount in the bottom area?

-Paul

[rwm]

I am 99% sure it's nothing. OR nothing you can do with it to increase performance. I remember reading this somewhere on the fourms. Looked but could not find it. Sounds like you have done some good upgrades.

Here is a link to your board... Might shed some light. http://www.macgurus.com/shoppingcart/obj_show_page.cgi?mbppc9600.html

Someone will be around thats more familar with that machine and tell you for sure.

Randy

[rwm]

Here it is... http://www.macgurus.com/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000545.html
Yes, This post explains it. Apple put it there for whatever reason - no good to you. http://macgurus.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

Randy

[This message has been edited by rwm2 (edited 21 March 2002).]

[dragon_x]

Like rwm2 said - the ROM is a useless relic of the past. I think someone had this very questions a few weeks (days?) ago.

Actually the 9600 is probably one of the BEST PERSONAL COMPUTER CASES - EVER. Unlike most of Apple's cases it can handle three or four 5.25" external drives. It has a 390W powersupply and you can install drives on the floor of the system, but you might loose some PCI slots. The only case that might be considered better is the DayStar GensisMP case, which was a 9500 (very similar to your system) but had a very nice rack for side mounting about 4 to 6 drirves. On the downside it only had one bay for a 5.25" external (or maybe it was two?).

You should check out XLR8yourMac.com
Old Macs (http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems.html#oldmacs)
There are a bunch of things you can do. Not all of them are very expensive. Also keep in mind to upgrade what you can take with you to your next system. Memory will not migrate, but most drives and PCI cards will. There can be issues with PCI IDE/ATA cards in older Macs. Its not always an issue, but it can even affect low bandwidth things like MP3 and low res video. If you simply want to store data on the IDE drive then you should be fine. Of course most people need the HUGE & CHEAP IDE/ATA drives to store multi-media files like MP3s, MPEG1, MOV, WAV, AIFF, TIFF... etc...

G3 upgrades are inexpensive. An 18GB narrow SCSI is fairly cheap to and should last a LONG, LONG TIME.... five years.

As always, find out what you need and get MORE! http://macgurus.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif


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