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Decked out PowerMac 9500

Decked out PowerMac 9500 Hardware 19 posts Jun 27, 2008 — Jun 30, 2008
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#1 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 - 01:21
this has got to be one of the more decked out PM 9500 Systems out there. Though not everything is as decked-out as can be, the harddrive is over kill

I picked up a PM9500 on Craigslist after posting a "mac wanted' and I had this guy that was kind enough (and desperate enough) that he dropped off a PowerMac 7500, 9500 and a bunch of other stuff, including Gigabit Ethernet cards (3 of them), as well as 2 Sonnet 604e 200Mhz and 250Mhz CPU Upgrades, and a MAChCarrier ZIF Daughter card 266 (OC'd to 300Mhz). I first started out by swapping in everthing I could:

First swap-in:

MAChCarrier ZIF. Replaced the 266Mhz with a 350Mhz G3 and OC'd that to 400Mhz. Gonna see if I can push it faster, but not sure if I want to, since at 400Mhz, it has a 50Mhz FSB

I decked out the ram with 12x 32MB RAM Modules (Interleaved) For a total of 384MB Memory.

I then pulled a Radeon 7000 32MB PCI Card and put it in one of the slots.

I put in a USB2.0/FW400 PCI Card. And a Gigabit card (RealTek, OS X Sees it).

I just now swapped in a DVD-RAM (SCSI) and put a Tada! PCI SATA (x2) Card. Where-upon, I stuck an extra 1TB SATA Drive on it!!!

So these are now the specs of the machine:

PowerMac 9500 400Mhz G3

384MB (Interleaved) RAM

1TB HDD, 4GB SCSI, DVD-RAM SCSI

Radeon 7000 32MB PCI

Sonnet SATA PCI Card

23" DVI/VGA LCD running off the DVI Port

External 8x3x24 CD-RW

I may swap in a Promise ATA/66 for under OS X (It will see it and use it, it just won't boot from it) just for the hell of it.

I also got like 2 PCI Slots free... Wonder what to do with these...

Dual Video anyone?

#2 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 - 01:28
what's funny about this is, this thing loads pages under Opera OS 9 as fast as my MacBook does under OS X with Safari/FireFox. It's just like "Bam, Bam Bam". It's loaded in less than a second to half a second. It's really zippy. Windows open instantly, and it just totally rocks. What do you think if a system like this existed back then, what would it have cost for a system like this?

#3 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 - 03:03
$12,000...just like the Daystar Genesis Mp!

I too have a maxed out 9500, but mine is not quite as nice as yours!

g3 300mhz Sonnet Upgrade

192mb ram

18.1gb SCSI 10k RPM hard drive

Internal SCSI CDRW

Rage 128 graphics

USB card

They are still decent machines...great for photoshop 5 work..or light web browsing.

#4 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 - 04:00
1TB hard drive? No way, tell me your secrets!

#5 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 - 04:07
Mine's fairly nice as well:

XLR8 carrier, 500 G3 ZIF

768 MB of RAM (interleaved FPM, 8x64 MB, 2x128 MB)

Tempo ATA/133 (with 80 GB IDE HD, IDE CD-ROM)

USB

FireWire

Dual Rage 128s (16 MB each)

#7 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 - 05:59
actually, i pulled it from a server that I have in my posession. It's my drive, but since we aren't using the server, I used the drive. It was the only SATA drive I have that has the 4-pin Molex

Also, I will be replacing it with probably an 80GB since that's all I need. If you want pics, I can show you :p

#8 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 - 06:27
pics or it didn't happen.

;)

#11 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 - 16:31
Yeah, those Sonnet IDE/SATA cards rule. They actually emulate SCSI (via the ROM on them), which allows them to work as far back as 7.5 without any problems.

#14 Sat, 28 Jun 2008 - 02:17
Wrong. Talk to defor sometime, he's got a 9500 running 7.6.1 with a Sonnet SATA card without any problems.

#15 Sat, 28 Jun 2008 - 02:21
Wrong. Talk to defor sometime, he's got a 9500 running 7.6.1 with a Sonnet SATA card without any problems.
Click to expand...
Incidentally, the second article QuadraMan listed says the following:

If you find a SATA controller card that is compatible with older Power Macs like my 7600 (the Sonnet Tempo SATA is listed as one such device, although it costs more than the OWC competition and only offers internal ports), then why not.
Click to expand...
#16 Sun, 29 Jun 2008 - 00:17
I'll have to start looking into Sonnet cards, then. I'd been staying away from SATA on the older machines because of those articles. Isn't putting a SATA drive a bit of overkill in a beige PCI Mac, though? Won't you saturate the system bus and waste most of the speed potential of the SATA drive?

#17 Sun, 29 Jun 2008 - 17:07
awww. crap! I just got to dinking around with the system, and found out the issue with video and stuff. EVERYTHING works in my PowerMac 7500 (Ram, CPU/Video/USB/whatever), but the PowerMac 9500 won't boot to video. I used to hear the chime, and now it just death chimes (glass breaking) right on boot. I have tried multiple ram chips, interleave, non-inteleaved, only one chip, multiple chips. I have gone through all the troubleshooting issues, and came down to it that the board is dead. I am not sure whether I want to hunt for a new board, or go buy a PowerMac 9600 and throw out the old case. I am not too fond of the case the 9500 came with. but I LOVE the pci slots :D

#18 Mon, 30 Jun 2008 - 02:57
Wait! Don't pitch it yet. Can I buy the front of the 9500 case? I have one on a 180MP that is messed up and ugly. You can unscrew it from the sheet metal that makes up the top and sides and ship it flat if you're willing.

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

#19 Mon, 30 Jun 2008 - 03:58
Wait! Don't pitch it yet. Can I buy the front of the 9500 case? I have one on a 180MP that is messed up and ugly. You can unscrew it from the sheet metal that makes up the top and sides and ship it flat if you're willing.
Thanks in advance for your consideration.
Click to expand...
Gonna send you a PM, but sure!

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