"
I have had a frustrating week of configuring my G3 with a new Voodoo4 4500
card, and have put in many hours of troubleshooting time to find a way
around the problems I have been having. I'm hoping this message will find
it's way to other Beige G3 owners in case they have the same problems. Also,
I hope Apple and/or 3DFX can learn something from my time spent on this and
develop a solution.
I have posted this report on Apple's discussions board and am emailing you
to spread the info. If anyone wants to contact me about this, please do.
Contact me at circumflex@mac.com
So, first, here are the System hardware specs...
1. Beige G3/300
2. ATI Rage Pro PCI onboard video with 4meg upgrade to max out at 6megs.
3. Keyspan USB card with a Kensington USB mouse connected. Located in PCI
slot A.
4. Factory installed Western Digital IDE drive.
5. Factory Installed ZIP drive.
6. Rev B. ROM
7. User installed SCSI Yamaha CDR (6/4/16).
8. Both the IDE and SCSI busses are being used!
9. 256 megs of RAM (using two of the three slots).
10. User installed 2gig Seagate SCSI drive.
11. User installed V4 4500 video card in PCI slot B.
12. Monitor #1: 17" NEC Multisync A700 (using a NEC monitor dongle with support up to 1280x1024).
13. Monitor #2: 17" CTX Ultra Screen, model PR711F
Second, the System Software specs...
1. OS 9.0.4 with the latest updates from the Software Update control panel.
2. Latest drivers for the V4 installed (version 1.1.0)
3. System Folder on the IDE drive.
4. SCSI drive has data files only.
5. Keyspan USB and Kensington Mouse drivers installed.
6. Quicktime 4.1
The symptoms...
I installed the V4 per the instructions in the booklet. Originally, I put
the card in slot A, and the first time, the machine booted without a
problem. I installed the drivers on the disk (version 1.0.8) and I can't
remember if the next reboot went without problems, or if I got the grey
screen.
After that, every time I boot, the machine sends a signal to the screen.
Then the screen sits at that grey, at the high res I had it set at (1152).
but nothing happens after that. so I proceeded to due the usual Mac
troubleshooting things like Zap the PRAM, reset Open Firmware, reset the
motherboard by hitting the reset button next to the PCI cards, put the card
in different slots, and remove the USB PCI card. None of this let the
machine boot without some sort of intervention.
During this testing, I did get the machine to boot a few times, but I don't
entirely understand why. I called 3DFX, and they told me to return the card,
and thought the problem was with my Mac and not the card. I am inclined to
agree based on the symptoms, but I believe that the card isn't partially to
blame.
So I played with it some more, and have figured out that if I zap the PRAM,
then let it try to boot, I get a grey screen. Then after a few
command-control-power restarts (sometimes it's two, sometimes it's three,
sometimes it's doesn't work at all), it will eventually boot. This procedure
doesn't work if I start from the machine being 'off'.
In all cases, I see some odd artifacts on the grey screen, which is
mentioned in the control panel if VSync is turned off, however, I see these
artifacts if VSync is on or off.
The fixes/work-arounds/compromises...
If I keep the V4 in the machine, and attach a monitor to the onboard ATI,
the machine boots without a problem. I should note here that when the
machine does boot while using the V4, the machine runs without a problem, no
system errors or crashes. Apple System Profiler sees the card in the slot,
but Newer Technologies 'Slot Info' utility doesn't. 3DFX's control panel
sees the card and I can fiddle around with the settings without any
problems.
The next thing I tried was attaching two monitors to the machine. I put a
CTX monitor on the V4 VGA port, and the NEC on the ATI port. In this config,
the machine boots without any problems or delays, and I can set up the
monitors using the Monitors control panel without any problem at all. The
same is true if I switch the monitor connections, and I can boot reliably
every time.
After proving a reliable boot sequence, I tried changing monitor
arrangements in the Monitors control panel. You can set a monitor to get the
boot sequence (the Happy Mac, extension icons, etc). I made it so that the
monitor connected to the V4 would get this instead of the monitor on the
built in ATI port. I also made sure the correct volume was set in the
Startup Disk control panel, and did a 'Shutdown' to be sure that preference
was written to disk. I could NOT boot after setting up that Monitors
configuration. I zapped the PRAM, which set the boot monitor back to the
onboard circuitry, and the machine booted fine.
I can put a monitor dongle on the ATI port, with no monitor attached to it,
and boot the machine in a pseudo one monitor config. The dongle seems to let
the Mac think there's a monitor attached, and will send the boot screen
there. This is a less than perfect work around since I can see any bit of
the boot sequence now. I have the machine set to make the V4 connected
monitor the home monitor (by dragging the menu bar to the monitor in the
Monitors control panel), and it works just fine when the machine finishes
the boot sequence and sends all of the main screen stuff to that monitor.
Conclusions...
I can't make any conclusions other than that I need to multi-head the
machine in order to get it to boot properly.
I have tested the V4's 3d capabilities in the multi-head set up, and I'm
satisfied with the performance. I installed, updated and ran Unreal
Tournament (v436) with over a hundred megs assigned to the game. UT found
the V4 without any problem.
As I said I was satisfied with the performance, but under heavy fire-fights,
there was a certain level of choppiness. My guess is a drop to the 12 fps
range when running in 800x600 with all the eye candy turned on.
So, let the buyer beware.
Daniel Kapusta
"
Odd that the 'dongle' (I assume he menas mac/vga adapter) helped, since as noted at my www.mac3dx.com site last year leaving an adapter on a Beige G3 video (onboard) port was the cause of problems with a Voodoo3 (the mac thinks a monitor is there due to the adapter)
I asked him if he'd tried the 1.10 driver update/1.3.3 ROM for the Voodoo4 that a reader noted in last week's Voodoo4 4500 review here. (He later noted he did apply the update.)
I'd also suggested he post this at 3dfxgamers.com forums and
send 3dfx tech support a note. Since it's a non-apple card, there's
not much chance apple will do anything. The support burden falls to
3dfx, since in my experience Apple only provides support for
problems that happen with Apple supplied original equipment.
"
Mike,
I am having the identical problem with my Biege G3 and Voodoo 4 card as
is Daniel Kapusta.
The only way the Mac will boot is to zap the Pram on each boot. (I dont
have an extra monitor to try dual heading the machine) although I have
put a vga adapter onto the onboard video port, and then the computer
will boot, but since I dont have another monitor, I have no way to
disignate the V4 monitor as the "main" monitor.
Just wanted to let you know that Danial is NOT the only one with this
problem. I am running a Mitsibishi Diamond Pro 900u monitor, OS 9.4, 512
megs of ram. My G3 has a 400mhz zif in place. Ive never had any problems
with this system until now, and strangly enough, the Voodoo 3 2000 I had
in the system prior to the V4 worked just fine, with beta "unsupported"
drivers and all.
I have not, as of yet, contacted 3dFX about this, but intend to in the
next day or so. It will be interesting to see if they claim "It may be
your computer" as they did with Daniel.
Kelly Cederholm.
"
