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Sparky's

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 11, 2004
871
0
Let me start from the beginning. I bought a Sonnet G4-500 CPU for my G3-400 I use at home. Installed the software shut down swappped out the old and in with the new CPU and now up a running under the guise of a G4-500!! Cool :D I then convince my boss that we need to upgrade our G3s at work so he tells me to (based on my home guinie pig use) to order the G4-800 "NEW" CPUs OK. Install the software, shut down, unplug the G3 CPU and go to plug in the "NEW" G4 and.....ooops it don't fit :mad:
I've included a couple of shots to proof this. The standard ATI Rage 128 video card that comes with a G3 almost touches the corner of the G3 CPU. When trying to install the G4 Its 3/4" to big to fit! Now I have a "non-returnable" CPU card and no fixes. I haven't had the chance to talk to Sonnet yet (maybe for the good, bcause I'm gonna rip someones head off) but when I do I thnk I won't be alone in this! :mad:

https://secure1.sonnettech.com/stor...d=118&osCsid=a1b60875efc9dcd49cba15f839a3b6c7

Anyone know what I'm saying?
 

mklos

macrumors 68000
Dec 4, 2002
1,896
0
My house!
Sparky's said:
Let me start from the beginning. I bought a Sonnet G4-500 CPU for my G3-400 I use at home. Installed the software shut down swappped out the old and in with the new CPU and now up a running under the guise of a G4-500!! Cool :D I then convince my boss that we need to upgrade our G3s at work so he tells me to (based on my home guinie pig use) to order the G4-800 "NEW" CPUs OK. Install the software, shut down, unplug the G3 CPU and go to plug in the "NEW" G4 and.....ooops it don't fit :mad:
I've included a couple of shots to proof this. The standard ATI Rage 128 video card that comes with a G3 almost touches the corner of the G3 CPU. When trying to install the G4 Its 3/4" to big to fit! Now I have a "non-returnable" CPU card and no fixes. I haven't had the chance to talk to Sonnet yet (maybe for the good, bcause I'm gonna rip someones head off) but when I do I thnk I won't be alone in this! :mad:

https://secure1.sonnettech.com/stor...d=118&osCsid=a1b60875efc9dcd49cba15f839a3b6c7

Anyone know what I'm saying?

Are you sure your installing it correctly? I've never seen anyone complain about this before. RTFM!
 

Sparky's

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 11, 2004
871
0
According to my CDW sales rep (whom we purchased the G3 from in the first place) this is the correct card. After all look at the link to Sonnet I posted. It says G3 Blue & White supported!!
 

Nermal

Moderator
Staff member
Dec 7, 2002
20,574
3,875
New Zealand
I think the first think you should do is calmly talk to Sonnet. Don't get mad, just ask politely, and they should be able to come up with a solution :)
 

Sparky's

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 11, 2004
871
0
mklos said:
Are you sure your installing it correctly? I've never seen anyone complain about this before. RTFM!

P.S. Yes, I lined up the corner that has the missing pin. Thats the only way you can plug it in
 

Mord

macrumors G4
Aug 24, 2003
10,091
23
UK
I would send it back as the preformence gain from 500MHz is negligable as it underclocks the system bus to 66MHz which makes all the components slower and bottle necks the system if you want performence get a 600MHz g4 from these lovely people http://www.macsales.com I just got a dual 450MHz g4 from them for my cube, now to start the modding :cool:

just look at the reviews here: http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/cpureview.lasso

some say even the 1Ghz sonnet is slower than his old 500MHz g4

have a look at the powerlogix 1GHz g3 don't sneer it is very fast and beats the 600MHz g4 in all but the most altivec enhanced apps.

the 800MHz sonnet is not worth the extra $$ i'm annoyed at sonnet for being so missleading both for weather it fits and the secretive bus downclock
 

blue&whiteman

macrumors 65816
Nov 30, 2003
1,210
0
my blue and white with a sonnet G4/500 is fast enough. its not a screamer but since the upgrade I have never thought it was too slow. I don't really see the point of a G4 700+ from sonnet as they lower the bus speed. my understanding of an upgrade is in every way to have more speed, not lower speed.

here is something that really sends a msg of how important bus speed is..
http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge.xhtml?doc1=56657&doc2=61509

its a 9600 with a G4/700 upgrade vs. my system with its G4/500. my system is 3 times faster and this is due to the 9600 only having a 50mhz bus vs. my 100mhz bus.
 

maxvamp

macrumors 6502a
Sep 26, 2002
600
1
Somewhere out there
Big problems here

I recently an into this issue when trying to upgrade the heatsink for this same machine.

Your right. The cpu is right against the video card. It won't do any good trying to swap the Rage 128 for a Radeon either, since the cards are the same length.

I would contact Sonnet and see what thier solution is.

Max
 

Sparky's

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 11, 2004
871
0
maxvamp said:
I recently an into this issue when trying to upgrade the heatsink for this same machine.
Your right. The cpu is right against the video card. It won't do any good trying to swap the Rage 128 for a Radeon either, since the cards are the same length.
I would contact Sonnet and see what thier solution is.
Max

I know about thr radeon I put one in my G3 at home. (radeon 7000 32mb)

Just to refresh the issue; the G3 in question is a 450mhz machine, and the Sonnet CPU we purchased is a non-returnable item. (CDW policy) that's why I was very certain they made sure it would work. I put the G4-500 in my home mac and it's perfect, my boss saw the G4-800 and decided that an almost 2-time increase would be better. So unless somebody out there wants to take this off my hands for $350, until I can talk to a Sonnet tech and try to come to some resolve on the issue, I'm screwed.
Tomorrow is Monday I will try my luck at noon (east coast vs left coast thing) :D
 

jeremy.king

macrumors 603
Jul 23, 2002
5,479
1
Holly Springs, NC
Just a thought. Have you tried pulling the video card, installing the CPU, then reinsert the video card? Seems to me that the extra PCB of the CPU upgrade might actually fit under the video card.
 

maxvamp

macrumors 6502a
Sep 26, 2002
600
1
Somewhere out there
An idea to partially resolve this issue

I have a question...

Why don't you move the card to one of the 64-bit slots. I know that you give up the 66MHz slot, but I have not found anything that says that the Radeon 7000 makes use of it. Furthermore, in my testing, I didn't see the difference.

This should give you the space needed for this extended heatsink.

Max.
 

Sparky's

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 11, 2004
871
0
OK, OK, OK, If I had a picture of someone with a whole bunch of egg running down their head, that picture would be of ME!!!

I shut down the mac today just before calling Sonnet (thank G I did this) and this time had my reading glasses on when I looked at the PIN configuration at the bottom of the CPU Chip I saw it had TWO missing pins instead of the 1 that the original did. YUP when I turned the chip 90° it fit just fine. :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Except now I can't boot in OS 9, Panther works just fine and my system Profiler thinks it's a G4-800 Mac. Since we're not ready to fully migrate I had to swap out the G4 and put the old one back in. I lost about an 1 1/2 of production time but I still have my job :rolleyes:
 

NusuniAdmin

macrumors 6502a
Nov 19, 2003
870
1
did you make sure you orgered the zif one for YOUR computer, i know sonnet just came out with specific cpu designs for beige g3 models or b/w g3 models.

[EDIT: oh nvm did not read the post b4 this one *duh*]
 

blue&whiteman

macrumors 65816
Nov 30, 2003
1,210
0
Sparky's said:
OK, OK, OK, If I had a picture of someone with a whole bunch of egg running down their head, that picture would be of ME!!!

I shut down the mac today just before calling Sonnet (thank G I did this) and this time had my reading glasses on when I looked at the PIN configuration at the bottom of the CPU Chip I saw it had TWO missing pins instead of the 1 that the original did. YUP when I turned the chip 90° it fit just fine. :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Except now I can't boot in OS 9, Panther works just fine and my system Profiler thinks it's a G4-800 Mac. Since we're not ready to fully migrate I had to swap out the G4 and put the old one back in. I lost about an 1 1/2 of production time but I still have my job :rolleyes:


did you get a chance to run any benchmarks?
 

Sparky's

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 11, 2004
871
0
Sorry blue&white, I'm an end user Graphics Professional not a techy, I wouldn't know the first thing about how to go about doing any benchmarks, but ask me anything about Photography, retouching, Illustration, Lithography, Commercial Printing, etc.
 

Mac_Max

macrumors 6502
Mar 8, 2004
404
1
Ya know blue&whiteman that 9600 is half as fast as my 7300 with a G4 800 card that comes in at a 40 in XBench all tests done. I haven't interleaved the memory either which usually gives a point or two extra (I deinterleaved my memory when i removed all of my slow, old, unstable, 16MB Dimms). I'd also expect more from the Radeon 7000 :-/.

Something sounds amiss in your 9600 there.

Results 40.16
System Info
Xbench Version 1.1.3
System Version 10.2.8 (6R73)
Physical RAM 408 MB
Model Power Macintosh
Processor PowerPC G4 @ 800 MHz
Version 7450 (V'ger) v2.1
L1 Cache 16K (instruction), 16K (data)
L2 Cache 256K
Bus Frequency 50 MHz
Drive Type IBM DNES-309170
CPU Test 88.25
Thread Test 48.19
Memory Test 17.00
Quartz Graphics Test 54.27
OpenGL Graphics Test 98.06
User Interface Test 52.46
Disk Test 28.00
 
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