8500/XLR8 Carrier random booting issues

[grazer]

Thanks in advance for all the help that everyone here have already given me in my lurking, and for the hope of more help on this.

Pardon my lack of mac knowledge, but I am just getting my feet wet. Heres my machine

PPC 8500/150 MHz
512 MB RAM (interleaved, new from OWC 4x128)
PCI USB 1.1 card
19" PC monitor w/ mac adaptor

rest is stock 8500

That all worked just fine. Then I upgraded w/ an XLR8 CarrierZIF and an Apple 233MHz ZIF

Followed instructions, and away I went on my merry way. I knew that the 233 was just temporary until I could save the cash to get a faster G3/G4 ZIF. I did. I found an Apple G3/450 ZIF for a nice price and picked it up.

Here is where things went bad. I installed the ZIF, zapped the CUDA, checked and double checked the switches (9x50=450) and tried to boot. No chime and no monitor signal. Dropped the Carrier down to 400MHz and was able to get a chime and a partial load. Locked up at the XLR8 Extensions. I shift rebooted and disabled all extensions except the XLR8 one, but it still locked up. Put in the 233, worked fine.

To make a long story short, I have zapped PRAM and cuda many many times. Tried setting the Carrier to a dozen or so different speeds, seating and reseating the carrier... Occasionally I'll get a "Bus Error" while booting, although a CUDA reset usually fixes that. But now, I don't get a signal to the monitor from either ZIF at any settings that I have tried.

Tomorrow I will de-interleave the RAM but it is too late for me to wrestle w/ that case tonight.

Any other ideas that anyone may have?

Thanks again,
grazer

Sorry about the length of this post...

[JamesBell]

I upgraded an 8500 with an xlr8 CarrierZif card and had the same problem. The solution is simple but I don't really know enough to explain the whys and wherefores in a technical way. It boils down to: Stop zapping the pram

Something xlr8 needs is stored in the pram and when you zap it, it is gone, then you have to go back to the previous processor to re-install the xlr8 stuff over again. It seems you might have to go back to the original processor without the xlr8 CarrierZif card, install the xlr8 CD again, put in the CarrierZif with the new Zif, and restart *without* zapping the pram. I bet this works.

The result is that you can never zap your pram again on this machine without going through this again. I've gone for quite some time without zapping the pram without any problems. I think pram zapping is probably overrated.

I went through a LOT of frustration finding the answer and the people here were very helpful. Only one had the solution, though. Someone who had gone through the same problem.

I hope this solves yours. I'd bet money that it will.

Jim

[rwm]

That should fix it. I remember when James did his his - I think the CUDA reset also zappes the XLR8 data.

Randy

[This message has been edited by rwm2 (edited 10 January 2003).]

[M.Brane]

On the XLR8 install disk is a utility to make an emergency boot floppy. It says it's for G4's but it's saved my ass a couple times with my G3. Just pop it in when you boot up and it restores the virtual firmware into PRAM then ejects and the Mac will reboot.

[grazer]

Thanks for ll of the advice, and sorry for the delay, I was away for the weekend.

Tonight, I reseated the RAM, VRAM and put in the original processor. I uninstalled the XLR8 software. Rebooted, reinstalled the XLR8 software, shutdown, held CUDA for 5 seconds. I then put in the carrier w/ the 450 ZIF, pressed power, and got no screen, and no chime. Put on the G3 233 and it started up just fine.

So, I took this working opportunity to make the XLR8 emergency boot disk and booted from it. That did it's thing, ejected the disk and then rebooted. The 233 came up fine once again. Put in the 450, no go.

I am thinking that it is a bad processor? But I don't want to throw in the towel yet. Since I bought this used, I don't have OS cds, so I will order those when I get paid this week, probably the OSX/9.1 package just cause I know that I want to play with X eventually.

Any other ideas that anyone can think of?

[JamesBell]

Holding down the cuda IS zapping your pram. DO NOT do this. It UN-did everything that you did and created your very same problem.

I don't know about the floppy boot disk. I didn't ever make one because the documentation I read on it didn't tell me it would work with my G3 processor. I don't want to disagree with M.Brane but I still recommend that you follow my suggestion and I still think it will work.

Do NOT zap your PRAM (OR reset the CUDA, it is the same thing) the next time you install your xlr8 software.

Hope it works out for you.

Jim

[grazer]

Thanks James. I was evidently confused by terminology. I didn't realize that pressing the cuda button and command-option-p-r both do the same thing. Is that right?

Anyway, I backed everything back out due to my P-RAM mistake, and attempted to boot with the 450 in. No chime, no monitor signal. I underclocked it to 400 MHz and it booted, but locked right after the little icon of the disks (PC Floppy in top left corner, drive box in the bottom middle, and something else in the top right) (sorry, I don't know what extension that is) loaded. I rebooted w/ the extensions all disabled and made it to the OS. I disabled all extensions except the XLR8 one to see if that would work. This time, I got the following error:

"Sorry a system error has occurred

Address error"

So I rebooted with all the extensions disabled again, and that is where I am at now.

Sorry about the mistakes, as I stated, I am new to the world of macs, and their terminology.

TIA
Jason.

[M.Brane]

Did you de-interleave your RAM? Also are all the RAM sticks the same speed? If you have any 70ns sticks in there I'd pull 'em.

The XLR8 emergency disk restores the vitual firmware settings into NVRAM/PRAM, so a cuda reset isn't a problem. If the machine is getting to the desktop then something else is screwy.

This is starting to look like a RAM issue, a corrupt system or both.

[grazer]

I now have the RAM de-interleaved, and the computer is booting all right with the processor at 400 MHz. Not what it should be at, but this is the best yet.

It locked up about 3 times after it made it to the desktop, prior to this reboot though. The first 2 times I tried to open the XLR8 control panel, and the 3rd time I was in the extension manager when it just stopped responding.

I am leaning more towards a RAM issue than anything now. What slots are the best for interleaving, 1-4? Also, what do you recommend I use to test the RAM? All 4 sticks were bought new from OWC at the same time as the Carrier (about 2 weeks ago) so I would assume that they are decent quality.

Thank you all a bunch for helping me get this far! Now if I can just get it to boot at 450...

grazer

[M.Brane]

Interleaved RAM should be installed starting with the largest sticks in the high #'d slots, with pairs in A&B banks respectively.

Example: 2 128MB DIMMs and 2 64MB DIMMs

A4-128 B4-128

A3-64 B4-64

Interleaving is not much of a performance boost, but every little bit helps. Sometimes it just won't happen with the faster processors.

To test your RAM use the PowerControl utility that's in the XLR8 folder. Some of the other tests won't work (it will tell you your processor speed is 0, don't freak) but the RAM test is good. Finds errors when others don't.

I personally have never bought RAM from OWC but others have. Do a search in the memory forum on OWC for some interesting reading.

[This message has been edited by M.Brane (edited 15 January 2003).]

[TZ]

It's going to be interesting to see if those G4/700+ upgrades work with the RAM we have, or whether only the 'best' (50 ns?) will survive.

If you do install Jag, its nice with that setup, not greatest, but okay. I had too many issues with XPF (did work eventually but not reliably) so I anti-upped for Sonnet's PCI Installer-X which works, better at enabling cache. If you end up deciding to give it a go.

[grazer]

That is how I thought that interleaved RAM should be, so I initially had it in A4 A3 and B4 B3, but now that it is de-interleaved, A1-4, I can at least get boots about half the time.

I'll look around for some reviews of the OWC RAM and see what experience others have had with it. Any other recommendations on where to get RAM from?

Once it was working last night at 400 MHz, I decided to try and slowly work the speed up. It seems that none of the 9X multiplier settings will work at all.

Thank you all for your help so far.
grazer

[TZ]

PMac 8500 specs

[grazer]

Wow, I was under the impression that the gurus were not selling hardware right now. Nice.

I'll order some of that when I have the time and money to do so.

Thanks Gregory,
grazer

[TZ]

I didn't mean to imply that the Gurus are selling hardware, just some reference diagrams and info on RAM and upgrades from the old site that might be useful