"Aloha Mike, I just got a cancellation notice from ATI today on my December 2006 Radeon X800 AGP card order.

"Your order (No. XXXXXXXXX) has been cancelled in our system. If you have any questions, please contact our Customer Care Team via email at service@Shop.ATI.com or by calling 1-888-974-6728, Monday through Friday, 6AM - 6PM PST, including holidays."

I called to ask why, and "Linda C.", a sales rep from many previous emails confirmed that they will NOT be shipping this product ever.
That means the only solution for dual link DVI on an AGP Mac is the old Radeon 9600, which is now shipping. I upgraded from the 9600 technology to the Radeon 9800 128 MB card available four years ago.... Looks like I will be looking for the next Mac Pro upgrade before a new monitor!
I have to say that my collection of ATI store employee apologies and guarantees and form letters is pretty amusing to look at in order....
Mahalo, John P.
Pioneer Digital Media
Hawaiian Islands"

Earlier this year there were comments on delays of some models being due to ROHS redesigns and back in May I had heard (from someone -not- at ATI) that the 9800 delays were due to a component supply problem. But last month I had heard there was still a chance for the backordered AGP cards to be shipped sometime in July (at least the X800s). I wrote an ATI contact to confirm the X800 has been discontinued and also to find out the status of the 9800 Pros.
BTW - Note that both the Mac X800 and Mac 9800 Pro are still listed at ATI's online store, with notes "Not in stock. Will ship when available".
OWC removed their page for the 9800 Pro awhile back to avoid any more backorders until product started shipping, and currently their X800 page shows "24 days". (That ETA was based on previous info from ATI.) As of tonight they do currently have stock on ATI X1900 G5 (PCI-Express) cards, ATI 9600 Pro Mac/PC Edition (AGP) and PCI 9200 models.
Note - Another reader with an X800 backorder since late Dec. 2006 also had his order cancelled:

"I noticed a posting you made back in May regarding the ATI X800 cards. I had a backorder for one placed back in late December, '06. Yesterday, I received an e-mail from ATI stating the order had been cancelled. I called to find out why but received no definitive answer from ATI. The person I spoke with thought maybe they were no longer going to produce them. Oddly, the web site still shows the item as able to be ordered and on back order. I was tempted to place a new order, but my patience has run out after almost seven months. I was referred to ATI pre-sales, who stated the best card they have available is the 9600 Pro....
-Tim"

I'm still waiting on some 'official' statement, but the X800 and 9800 may not be dead after all... but even so patience is wearing thin.

BTW - a reader with a Mac Pro wrote today that the Apple store shows 7-10 weeks for ATI X1900 XT Kit (card only order). He thought that may mean a new model is coming soon - but I wonder if that's just another sign of the times...

" I put a Samsung HM250JI into my MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo (2.33 GHz) two weeks ago. It generally works quite well, but:

1) performance sometimes is erratic

2) about once a week (I'm a heavy user) the OS gets stuck on the disk; all I/O activity appears to cease and the system hangs (beach ball). Hard switch-off required (a sleep does not help).

Not recommended.

(Can you check Apple system profiler for the drive firmware "revision"?)
It's version HS100-06... (full ASP info is in his drive db report)
Gruesse, Carsten
PS.: Samsung appears to have removed the drive from their website. "

I noticed that when I checked their site for info/specs and any alerts on the drive - that's not a good sign despite the fact some readers say they've not seen any problems with the drive. (The HM250 model isn't in the list of M series and searches on their consumer and business sites found 0 product pages, although there were support pages w/user manual downloads - I searched for their "support alerts" on it but none were found.)

" I have put the Samsung HM250JI 250GB SATA in my 15in Macbook Pro Core2 Duo notebook 2.33GHz (it came from an external freecom usb backup drive) and found very similar erratic transfer rates under HDtune. (Windows disk benchmark - www.hdtune.com)
Under osx I found the system sometimes unresponsive and I am putting  back my original 160GB drive in the macbook today.
Best regards, Alexandre "

BTW - to readers with this drive, rather than run a simple benchmark like Xbench (although it does do random access tests), try the Kona2 Benchmark (download link) and also set results to show a graph of I/O transactions, disable system cache and use a large test (like 4GB 1920x1080 file test). Of course don't have any other apps running during the test (and if a new install spotlight may be indexing the drive, which will also affect performance.)
Here's a reply from a C2D MacBook owner that says he's not seen any issues with the drive so far:

" Read your report about problems in early MacBooks with the Samsung 250 gb 2.5 inch. I obtained that drive as well as an external case from MCE Technologies. The Samsung is working as the internal drive of my MacBook C2D. No glitches after about a month of use.

Details as below....

Model Name: Mac
Model Identifier: MacBook2,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz

SAMSUNG HM250JI:
Capacity: 232.89 GB
Model: SAMSUNG HM250JI
Revision: HS100-06

(So to verify, you have seen no odd or erratic behavior or performance with it?
Do you have bootcamp/XP installed?
Or have Intech's/Speedtools disk benchmarks?)

Haven't noticed any erratic problems. This includes daily operation of the machine for continuously recording patient physiologic data in an operating room, compiling code, and general web usage. That means the machine is working about 10 to 12 hours /day. The only oddity I've noticed is a loud "clack" from the drive about every three or four days. Sounds like a head recalibration noise, but I haven't had any periods of unresponsiveness.

Don't have Bootcamp installed but do occasionally run XP under Parallels. Don't have Intech Speedtools to benchmark the drive.  Doesn't matter to me how it benchmarks so long as I don't feel any delays or have data loss.
Guy "

The reason I asked about the benchmarks is to see if the drive showed the major dropouts some others have seen (and oddly on the fastest area of the disc - the outer tracks), which some users may not notice perhaps depending on how they use it and how attentive they are to performance quirks.
I wish I knew why some said a) the drive wasn't usable at all on the onboard SATA and b) some have seen significant performance issues with it. I wondered if firmware versions may be a factor but one of the firmware versions mentioned was the same as yours.
BTW - Several reader replies to this post today were from other Samsung 250GB owners that said they've seen no problems. Some included Kona2 benchmarks that didn't look bad. (One reader sent Xbench results with low random access disk scores (10.x score overall, compared to 25.x with some other notebook drives.)

" Purchase a license for ASM now and save 40% off your order - Just enter discount coupon code ASM2007 when you place your order. Offer good through August 15, 2007.

ASM 2.1.9 finally supports dock menus on Intel based Macs too. Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later is required and you will have to enter an admin username and password to authorize the installation. Also, the version of the Dock that ships with Safari 3 Public Beta (3.0b2 only) is now supported. "

I install very few 3rd party addons like this, but this is one I have used for years as I really missed the Application switcher menu from OS 9.

DVD+R/RW + DVD-R/RW Drives:
• USB (cased) Lite-On SHW-160P6S used w/iMac G5 (OS X 10.4.x)
  (odd report - noted 10.4.10 OS but mentioned installing Patchburn3 which is for OS X 10.3.x. Patchburn 4 is for 10.4.x)
• IDE Matshita UJ-815-C in G4 Cube (OS X 10.4.x)
  (mentioned drive fit/adapter issues?)
  
  DVD-ROM Drives:
• IDE Matshita SR-8184 in G4 Cube (OS X 10.4.x)
  
  Hard Drives: (See above for copies of Samsung 250GB reports)
• IDE Hitachi 180GXP 120GB in G4 Cube (OS X 10.4.x)
  (includes notes on re-crimping HD power connector in Cube due to loose contacts causing problems)
• IDE (SerialATA onboard) Samsung HM250JI 250GB in (C2D 2GHz) MacBook (OS X 10.4.x) (drive OK he says)
• IDE (SerialATA onboard) Samsung HM250JI 250GB in (C2D 2.33GHz) MacBook Pro (OS X 10.4.x) (problems noted with erratic performance and a times requiring a forced restart he said)
• IDE (SerialATA onboard) Samsung HM250JI 250GB in (C2D 2.33GHz) MacBook Pro (OS X 10.4.x) (problems noted with erratic performance/unresponsive at times in OS X. Noted HDtune performance dropouts in Windows, as some others have reported)
• IDE (SerialATA onboard) Seagate 160GB ST9160823ASG (7200rpm) in MacBook (OS X 10.4.x)
• IDE (SerialATA onboard) Western Digital WD2500BEVS 250GB in (CD2 2.16GHz) MacBook Pro (OS X 10.4.x)

You can find full owner reports (latest shown first) by searching the database by drive/brand/interface/mac models (the latest reports are shown first in searches). The database includes reports on DVD +/-R, CDRWs, Combo DVD-CDRW, DVD-ROM, Hard Drives and Removables (tape drive, ORB, ZIP, MO drives, NAS, CF/Smartmedia readers, etc.) in all interface types (IDE, IDE RAID cards, SATA, Firewire, SCSI, USB, adapters).
If you've added a IDE, SATA, Firewire, USB, or SCSI, hard drive, Optical drive/burner, NAS (including Airport Extreme base connected USB drive), tape drive, etc., send me the details (drive info/mac model/OS used, etc. - *Please take a minute to test for booting from CD with Optical drives*. Thanks.)

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