Pismo Power!

[AphoticD]

I don' know about your circuit but the voltages only add if the batteries are connected in series.
So it kind of make a sense if you are measuring 6V assuming the black wire lays in between the 4 in series connected batteries.
What do you get if you measure between the red and white wire?
9V ?
Did you measure the cells individually?
Maybe one is shot (0V) ?

Measuring red (+) and white (-) reads ~3V

So it goes:
TOP: Red, connected to (+) of top row
MID: White, connected to (+) of bottom row
BOTTOM: Black, connected to (-) of bottom row

Each cell reads ~3V

Here are some photos of the operation:


1. The original PRAM battery, unplugged from the logic board and removed from the battery holder/sheath attached to the bottom case. To get to it, the DVD drive needs to come out.


2. The new 4x VL2330 cells (with tabs) in from Hong Kong (2pk was AU$10).


3. I sliced open the existing brown sheath and peeled it back (to be re-used). here's the circuit of the existing battery. Tabs go across the top (+ to +), under the top row (- to -), and the same for the bottom row. A single tabs connects the circuit between the top and bottom rows. (+ to -)


4. I peeled off all of the existing tabs with a pair of pliers, to possibly reuse them and noted the position of the wiring for the connector.


5. Here's my build of the new battery with the same circuit and wiring (as far as I can tell).


6. Finally, the outer sheath is back on and everything is taped up (I ran out of nice black electrical tape, so clear packing tape will have to do).
[doublepost=1509876692][/doublepost]Well, I had a think about it and I am pretty sure it is correct, so I installed the PRAM battery.

1. Booted up A OK - Date & Time and Startup Disk are all set OK.
2. Shut down.
3. Removed the main battery.
4. Waited 5 minutes.
5. Pressed the power button to drain any residual power.
6. Pushed the main battery back in.
7. Pressed the power button.
8. Startup was instant.
9. Date and Time are still set OK.

I will keep an eye on it and test as I drain the main battery during use, but I think I have the PRAM battery resolved.

Pismo Power!

 

[philgxxd]

Great.

I can confirm that the voltage readings are absolutely fine.

 

[AphoticD]

Pismo CPU Upgrade

A mini update on this Pismo - which is still going strong and receiving semi-regular attention (I'll typically put it to use once every week or two).

I recently purchased a G3 500Mhz CPU card for the PowerBook G3 Pismo to bump up the speed from 400Mhz. The speed increase is noticeable and makes for a nice upgrade to this solid old Mac.

Geekbench score is up to 252 (from 204). This is not far behind my Mercury Titanium PowerBook G4 400mhz which scores 273. The Pismo and the 1st generation Titanium share a very similar system design, so this is not surprising.

So now that I have a spare G3 400Mhz CPU card to play with, I think I will need to set myself up with the right tools to do a G4 CPU swap and learn the ropes with BGA rework!

 

[weckart]

I need to check my 400MHz cards to see if the only difference is the clock setting via resistors. Might be a quick way to add a crafty speed boost.

As for Motorola 7410 processors, the price of these has dropped by half recently. Literally a day after I ordered one for $20. . Now is a good time to buy if you are thinking of doing this anytime soon. Freescale ones are even cheaper, although I have no idea if these are balled or not. Probably not.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5-PCS-X-...C74XX-450MHZ-360FCCLGA-Freescale/332256658005

If you want to reach 550MHz, I would stick with the Motorola 500MHz processors.

 

[AphoticD]

Thanks for the link! Is that price for 5 of? If so that's ridiculously cheap.

My G3 400Mhz CPU is a PPC750L-FB0B400 and the 500Mhz CPU is the PPC750L-FB0B500

I imagine the 400Mhz card will likely overclock to 500Mhz anyway and I think the 500Mhz card should clock up to 550 or even 600 without too much convincing.

The 500Mhz card is running nice and cool as you can see. I think it is pretty much on par [temperature wise] with the 400Mhz unit.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I need to check my 400MHz cards to see if the only difference is the clock setting via resistors. Might be a quick way to add a crafty speed boost.

As for Motorola 7410 processors, the price of these has dropped by half recently. Literally a day after I ordered one for $20. . Now is a good time to buy if you are thinking of doing this anytime soon. Freescale ones are even cheaper, although I have no idea if these are balled or not. Probably not.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5-PCS-X-...C74XX-450MHZ-360FCCLGA-Freescale/332256658005

If you want to reach 550MHz, I would stick with the Motorola 500MHz processors.

while this may seem nice and cheap, the seller once had some 7448s and a friend tried to order some, only to get told "sorry we dont have any" so you can try and buy but make sure to keep an eye on your ebay comms...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/322679142203 this has been my current source of cheap 7410s, hopefully he does not bump the price up like the last guy did.

BTW the parts marked "RX" "HX" or "VS" are meant to come with balls, id avoid the "VS" models since those have lead-free balls which are a PITA

(also yes indeed Pismo CPU speed is set by some PLL resistors on the back, keep in mind PPC750Ls dont clock up that well 50Mhz is generally the norm 100Mhz if yer lucky http://web.archive.org/web/20030219004112/http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp:80/~t-imai/pbg3e3.html heres a guide )

also for people swapping CPU cards around like this, remember the serial number is stored on the CPU Card it self and not the logic-board (since the BootROM is on the CPU card)

 

[weckart]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/322679142203 this has been my current source of cheap 7410s, hopefully he does not bump the price up like the last guy did.

I bought one from the last guy but at least he shipped via Germany, which has a higher VAT threshold, so that I wasn't stung for VAT by HMRC.

I have another 7410 on the way from this seller https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1PCS-MPC7410RX500LE-Encapsulation-BGA-REV-1-4-1-8-05V-105C/152799461355 but I also have your seller above bookmarked for further purchase if the two I have go well.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I bought one from the last guy but at least he shipped via Germany, which has a higher VAT threshold, so that I wasn't stung for VAT by HMRC.

I have another 7410 on the way from this seller https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1PCS-MPC7410RX500LE-Encapsulation-BGA-REV-1-4-1-8-05V-105C/152799461355 but I also have your seller above bookmarked for further purchase if the two I have go well.

Cool, looks like "Last Guy" "hkutsource" has dropped his prices down by a couple quid, still more expensive then the others (he was originally inline but then doubled his prices...)

PS its worth mentioning that @dosdude1 bought some 7410s which came re-balled with lead-free balls which are a PITA to work with and also dont match the thermal co-effcient of the RX package. sadly I cant recall who the seller was hopefully he can chime in so we can stay clear of that seller. (I know its not hkutsource or jotrin-electronics both of their chips came with leaded balls thankfully)

 

[dosdude1]

Cool, looks like "Last Guy" "hkutsource" has dropped his prices down by a couple quid, still more expensive then the others (he was originally inline but then doubled his prices...)

PS its worth mentioning that @dosdude1 bought some 7410s which came re-balled with lead-free balls which are a PITA to work with and also dont match the thermal co-effcient of the RX package. sadly I cant recall who the seller was hopefully he can chime in so we can stay clear of that seller. (I know its not hkutsource or jotrin-electronics both of their chips came with leaded balls thankfully)

It was chipsgate that was selling the ones with lead-free solder. I've had to re-ball each one with leaded balls before soldering.

 

[weckart]

PS its worth mentioning that @dosdude1 bought some 7410s which came re-balled with lead-free balls which are a PITA to work with and also dont match the thermal co-effcient of the RX package.

Presumably the Pismo shipped with RoHS joints so apart from the higher melting point why are they a PITA? It's not as if even the 7410 gets hot enough to cause joint cracking worries.

 

[dosdude1]

Presumably the Pismo shipped with RoHS joints so apart from the higher melting point why are they a PITA? It's not as if even the 7410 gets hot enough to cause joint cracking worries.

No Apple product shipped with RoHS before 2006.

 

[weckart]

Ah. For some reason I thought RoHS was a mid-90s thing.

 

[YYsMD]

Went ahead and made a video about my Pismo. Probably isn't anything here that everyone here doesn't know already as we're all enthusiasts, but I do feel that it's more extensive than most video content on the Machine out there at the moment

 

[trifid]

Went ahead and made a video about my Pismo. Probably isn't anything here that everyone here doesn't know already as we're all enthusiasts, but I do feel that it's more extensive than most video content on the Machine out there at the moment

Awesome video, congrats. Kudos on the tip regarding the dead battery not letting you boot. Only thing I have to point out is I disagree on your assessment about the looks of the machine, IMO it's one of the sexiest notebooks ever made!

 

[Macbookprodude]

Went ahead and made a video about my Pismo. Probably isn't anything here that everyone here doesn't know already as we're all enthusiasts, but I do feel that it's more extensive than most video content on the Machine out there at the moment

Very good video ! I have a Pismo.. nice machine indeed, wish video was 1GB though.. its only 8MB. But, for internet use its quite slow. I also have a DLSD G4 which also doesn't load pages fast.

 

[AphoticD]

I have a Pismo.. nice machine indeed, wish video was 1GB though.. its only 8MB. But, for internet use its quite slow.

I found that TenFourFox runs pretty well on my G3 Pismo with an SSD and 1GB of RAM, but anything less is painfully slow. There's a guy selling G4 550Mhz upgrade Pismo CPU cards over on the MacRumors Marketplace. This would substantially improve general performance and TenFourFox has a number of Altivec-only (G4+) optimizations.
[doublepost=1530248393][/doublepost]

Went ahead and made a video about my Pismo. Probably isn't anything here that everyone here doesn't know already as we're all enthusiasts, but I do feel that it's more extensive than most video content on the Machine out there at the moment

Excellent work! A very well produced video. I like the I/O sequence with every jack plugged in. It just goes to show how versatile the machine was.

Was the Pismo the only dual-FireWire 400 portable Mac? I guess the 15" and 17" PowerBooks and the Aluminum MBPs had 1x 400 and 1x 800, but it was convenient to have two of the 400 ports on hand like that.

I recently bumped my G3 Pismo up to 500Mhz with a replacement CPU card and it is a great little performer for me running Xcode and Photoshop 7 in Tiger. I did a multiple OS installation and have Panther and Jaguar on there as well as Tiger and OS9, but I find Tiger is the best choice for the hardware and it seems to keep up surprisingly well.

With some of these Pro-level Macs, I always wonder if there was a special kind of something in the hardware design which brought out performance beyond what it should have been capable of. If I run my 500Mhz iBook G3, it just doesn't zip along anywhere near the speed of the Pismo. I know the bus speed was different, but I like to think that there is a little Pismo-magic under the hood.

 

[dbdjre0143]

With some of these Pro-level Macs, I always wonder if there was a special kind of something in the hardware design which brought out performance beyond what it should have been capable of.

It is quite an interesting phenomenon. When I got my first Mac back in 2010, a Lombard, I was shocked at how fast that machine was with a 400 MHz G3. Of course, at that time, I didn't know what a G3 was, relative to anything else, but when I compared that machine with sub-1GHz Windows machines I had used, it seemed like a rocket!

 

[AphoticD]

It is quite an interesting phenomenon. When I got my first Mac back in 2010, a Lombard, I was shocked at how fast that machine was with a 400 MHz G3. Of course, at that time, I didn't know what a G3 was, relative to anything else, but when I compared that machine with sub-1GHz Windows machines I had used, it seemed like a rocket!

I remember dabbling with a Leopard Hackintosh rig back around '08 with a donated, single core Pentium 4 running at 1.5Ghz with 1GB of RAM. Performance did not live up to my expectations of what a 1.5Ghz machine should be. My 1.5Ghz PowerBook G4 15" blew it out of the water.. and that's saying something. I mean, it worked, but the P4 was truly lacklustre compared to the G4. It wasn't just clever marketing on Apple's part.

 

[Dronecatcher]

I mean, it worked, but the P4 was truly lacklustre compared to the G4

The Pentium 4s were awful - I had a 2.8Ghz one that was so lacking I couldn't even get an Amiga emulator to work fluidly on it. The Pentium M that came after was a huge leap however, my Panasonic Toughbook packs a 1.6Ghz one and it crushes my DLSD by comparison.
Even my 900Mhz Celeron M netbook effortlessly plays the above mentioned emulator the 2.8 P4 couldn't!

 

[weckart]

I remember dabbling with a Leopard Hackintosh rig back around '08 with a donated, single core Pentium 4 running at 1.5Ghz with 1GB of RAM. Performance did not live up to my expectations of what a 1.5Ghz machine should be. My 1.5Ghz PowerBook G4 15" blew it out of the water.. and that's saying something. I mean, it worked, but the P4 was truly lacklustre compared to the G4. It wasn't just clever marketing on Apple's part.

My first hackintosh was a Dell D520 with a 1.6GHz Banas Pentium M running Tiger. Even without fully accelerated graphics due to the lack of Intel drivers for the Radeon 9000, it left my 15" PB G4 1.5GHz for dead. I was horrified.

 

[amagichnich]

Toshiba A210 with AMD Turion x64 1.8Ghz JasAMD 10.4.8
There were so many settings on that DVD and only a small number of combinations actually worked. After 3 days of continuous choosing and installing it booted on the desktop for the first time - I remember my war cry as it where yesterday... Quite stupid, as it was in the middle of the night and the house was asleep
That was 2009 and I fancied one of them new Uni body MacBooks a lot but never had the money to buy one. If only I had a Pismo these days...

 

[AphoticD]

My first hackintosh was a Dell D520 with a 1.6GHz Banas Pentium M running Tiger. Even without fully accelerated graphics due to the lack of Intel drivers for the Radeon 9000, it left my 15" PB G4 1.5GHz for dead. I was horrified.

Well that's another feather in the cap for the Pentium M. Wasn't the original AppleTV based on this chip?

I should mention that my underwhelming Pentium 4 Hackintosh experience did include full GPU acceleration with an AGP Radeon 9700 non-Pro (128MB). The very same card which is now flashed and humming along beautifully in my Sawtooth. Come to think of it. The 700Mhz 7450 G4 CPU (with it's 1MB L3 cache) in my Sawtooth would more than likely outperform that P4 in every way.

Without doing any research on the subject, I have a feeling it was something to do with the SSE2 (or was it SSE3?) emulation which was required to boot x86 Leopard.

 

[dbdjre0143]

I remember dabbling with a Leopard Hackintosh rig back around '08 with a donated, single core Pentium 4 running at 1.5Ghz with 1GB of RAM. Performance did not live up to my expectations of what a 1.5Ghz machine should be. My 1.5Ghz PowerBook G4 15" blew it out of the water.. and that's saying something. I mean, it worked, but the P4 was truly lacklustre compared to the G4. It wasn't just clever marketing on Apple's part.

Showing what a n00b I am to Mac-land, I didn't realize Hackintosh had gotten off the ground that early. Now you're making me tempted to see what might be possible with my 1.6 GHz P4 machine currently running Windows 98 and old games (also happens to be my first computer, got it for my 9th birthday).

 

[AphoticD]

Showing what a n00b I am to Mac-land, I didn't realize Hackintosh had gotten off the ground that early. Now you're making me tempted to see what might be possible with my 1.6 GHz P4 machine currently running Windows 98 and old games (also happens to be my first computer, got it for my 9th birthday).

And now you’ve set yourself a challenge!

 

[weckart]

Showing what a n00b I am to Mac-land, I didn't realize Hackintosh had gotten off the ground that early. Now you're making me tempted to see what might be possible with my 1.6 GHz P4 machine currently running Windows 98 and old games (also happens to be my first computer, got it for my 9th birthday).

Just be warned it was a lot harder to get stuff up and running then unlike today. You had the choice of risking a distro with god knows what on it or working out everything yourself.

I would head off to the osx86project and look at the hardware compatibility list to see what works with your legacy PC hardware.

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Historical_Page

And then look at the relevant forums for Tiger and Leopard at insanelymac.com