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iMAXpowr possibly incompatible with OS 9.1

updated 02:30 pm EST, Sun January 7, 2001

Preliminary testing by MacNN has revealed that Newer Technologies' iMAXpowr G4 iMac upgrade is incompatible with Mac OS 9.1. Installing the operating system update, expected for public release on Tuesday, renders the iMac unable to boot. Both installing the OS over 9.0.4 and as a clean install proved unsuccessful. With the recent demise of Newer Technology, it's unknown if this problem—if proven to be widespread—will be corrected.

by MacNN Staff

(31)

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01/07, 02:53pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
This is surprising?

A company goes out of business after failing for a long time, and all of a sudden, driver development, a cause of hundreds of man hours of around the clock testing and engineering, falls out of sync with Apple's quickly changing operating system?

You make it sound scandalous, when it's really just a note to be posted.

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01/07, 02:53pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
9.1 odd

9.1 GM refuses to boot on my G3/300 too, nothing unusual except HDT 3.02 formatted drives. I guess that must be why it won't boot, but the whole thing really pisses me off.

I have a feeling the problem is on Apple's end, not Newer's or FWB's. Apple ought to be able to make it work. Of course, if they don't, yeah you Newer people could be kinda screwed.

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01/07, 03:43pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Not Apple's Problem

Apple makes its OS work with *its* hardware. OS 9.1 has been in development for a loooooong time. If someone is caught offguard with OS 9.1 in regards to hardware drivers then its the driver maker's fault - not Apple's.

Some changes MUST be made at times to improve stability or function that may break code that doesn't follow the rules or ties itself too closely to any specific OS version (like drivers often do).

OS 9.1 is not even officially released yet and so of course there have not been 9.1 compatible driver releases *yet*.

Just wait and see how it shakes out instead of running around yelling FIRE FIRE!

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01/07, 04:08pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Driver?

Does the iMAXpowr G4 even use a driver?

Is it also Apple's problem that Newer customers can't run Mac OS X now?

0

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01/07, 04:26pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
I don't know...

Maybe I'm just not as charitable as some Mac fans, but I get the feeling this is another one of Apple's dirty tricks. Remember when this happened with the Blue G3 (upgrade to a G4 and nothing boots after installing a Trojan firmware patch) and Beige G3 (OSX won't boot if it's been upgraded to a G4)? I get the feeling this is the same thing: deliberately crippling a system in order to force an upgrade cycle.

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01/07, 04:29pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Drivers - no

Newer's iMaxPower Upgrade Card doesn't require a driver at all. It's a simple replace the processor board upgrade.

While, I love Apple, beware this upgrade until it's released... and even then... "if it's not broke, don't fix it" might apply here.

Perhaps Apple wants all of the older iMac owners to upgrade, even though Mac OS X and 9.1 for that matter should run on them.

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01/07, 04:46pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
How about the iMAX G3?

Any word as to compatibility to iMAX G3s? I was thinking of picking one up at a potential liquidation sale.

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01/07, 04:54pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Newer should have known

It's just that if this is a problem at all (and not just something wrong with MacNN's iMac) Newer would have known a long time ago,

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01/07, 06:00pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Resourceful Programmers

Maybe someone with some free time will play arround with the current drivers and make a patch. If it was open source, I would too.

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01/07, 06:03pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
No bad intentions

I doubt Apple did this on purpose to render upgrades useless. However, I'm sure that they don't care one bit, and don't go out of their way to test any of these upgrades. Apple's recent actions prove that they disdain upgrades, so this is no surprise.

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01/07, 06:11pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
not neccessarily a bug

Just so that everyone knows and understands... this may not really be a bug/issue. It's only been reported by one user and we're still trying to decide if this is really an issue with the upgrade, or caused by some other problem that was pre-existing on the iMac Rev/A in question, or by the upgrade itself.

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01/07, 06:22pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Open Source & Abandonware

Whether the iMAX thingy uses drivers or not, lots of Newer's products do. This is yet another poster child for open sourcing software that is unavoidably abandoned. Those of us still stuck with IMS/ixMicro hardware would be ecstatic with the open sourcing of their IP.

Come on, Newer! Give a final farewell to the Mac community by releasing the specs and source-code to your products. [Including GURU, then at least someone can keep this wonderful resource up to date.]

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01/07, 06:30pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
9.1 works with 466 g3

I'm running os 9.1 on an imac rev. b upgraded with a 466mhz iMAXpowr G3 card. No problems here.

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01/07, 07:18pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Newer G4 Upgrade

For what it's worth, the 9.1GM runs fine on my biege G3/266 upgraded with a Newer G4/400.

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01/07, 08:03pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Newer G4 &9.1

Everything works fine, except that, at least here, the control panel does not work. the extension is still able to enable the cache via the pre 9.1 saved prefs, but the settings cannot be changed under OS9.1. Powerlogix and XLR8 software work fine...

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01/07, 08:50pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
developers?

Don't forget, 9.1 has been floating around among developers for QUITE a while now.. if Newer didn't bother to test their stuff with 9.1 devloper releases, that's hardly Apple's fault.

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01/07, 10:28pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
PowerLogix/B&W G3 OS9.1

My B&W G3 with a PowerLogix G3 500 upgrade will not boot with OS 9.1 and the PowerLogix G3 Cache profiler INIT. If I disable it, the Mac boots fine. What's Apple up to now?????

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01/07, 10:33pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Newer Card on 6100 & 9.0

I have a Newer G3 card for my 6100 and when 9.0 came out the drivers did not work with it. The 9.1 read me also says:

� Installing Mac OS 9.1 on accelerated NuBus PowerPC computers
If you have a Power Macintosh 6100, 7100, 8100, or 9150 with a third-party accelerator card that increases the speed of your computer, the Installer may not install Mac OS 9.1. Contact the accelerator card's manufacturer for help.

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01/07, 10:39pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Apple hates upgrades

ever since they screwed themselves with the Performa PowerPC fiasco (eventually losing to the FCC), Apple has been very skittish about upgrades. They are extremely reluctant to even acknowledge their existence, although you can bet that many Apple engineers have such machines of their own and try to at least make sure nothing intentionally breaks them. Don't expect Apple to ever sanction an upgrade of any kind again, though.

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01/07, 10:51pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
real possible answers --

Ok, your article doesn't state the resultant failure mode, but here's what I know --

1) NewerTech's iMAXpowr G4 upgrades simply replaced the G3 cpu on a stock Apple iMac Rev. A-D processor daughter card. No drivers are involved, except for Apple's.

2) Could 9.1 actually be checking for a G4 installed on original G3 hardware, and then choosing not to boot? Yes; but if so, Steve should know we'd find out eventually, and that many angry users would then hunt him down and... Well, Steve may be brilliant and insane, but let's hope he's not that dumb.

3) Here's my best bet on what's going on --

Is the iMac in question starting up to a grey screen without an arrow, and just sitting there interminably? If so, check to make sure that the boot partition in question is *entirely* contained within the first physical 8,000 MB of the hard drive.

It was formerly believed that such problems only affected original beige G3 machines. However, this is now a "known" problem, one that I've encountered myself on my iMac Rev. B with Mac OS 8.5.1, 9.0.4 and 9.1b2. I believe it also affects OS X.

Unless important system files on the boot partition are located within the first physical 8GB of the drive, the machine can't locate them to boot with. If you installed 9.1 over 9.0.4 on a partition that spans the 8GB boundry, the installer may have placed the new Mac OS ROM file or something else crucial outside the 8GB "limit." If so, there's the problem.

-Mark DeBooth

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01/07, 10:55pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
No Drivers

The only way there can be a conflict between 9.1 and and G4/433 is as a ROM issue, there ain't any drivers, period. Easy solution: get tome-viewer and pull the new elements outa 9.1 and individually install them. Avoid the installer completely and just check out the new finder against the old. This isn't high drama, just don't allow the installer to update the ROM.

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01/07, 11:00pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Powerlogix

There aint no mystery or conspiracy in relation to cache profiler, it can be a buggy P.O.S. especially after a hang/crash. I really don't think hApple have deliberately done anything over a piece of freeware! Come On!!!!!!!

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01/07, 11:51pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Firewire2Go ?

I've been wondering how long the Newer Firewire2Go PC card would continue to work, with new releases of Firewire software rolling out, and OS X looming on the horizon. Hopefully this is not a portent of the future life for all Newer products.

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01/08, 12:42am | report spam | close Reply | delete
I think Mark may be right

Mark,

I think that your 8GB issue might be the problem.

I have a new 45 GB drive in the machine with only one partition... after the machine started booting into Open Firmware and nothing else... I've decided to wait until after MacWorld to troubleshoot and fix the problem... thanks for the tip.

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01/08, 02:17am | report spam | close Reply | delete
8 GB magic number

Yea, the 8 GB problem also affects OS X. There are also situations where you must be booting from the first partition on the disk (at least with X and X Server).

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01/08, 08:31am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Can't run 9.1 without RO

Hi.

I tried going back to the old ROM file, and 9.1 gives me a message that some components are outdated and the computer won't boot unless the new ROM file is used.

This is on a 1999 Lombard (Bronze keyboard, pre-Firewire) PowerBook G3. I would expect all New World computers to behave the same way.

0

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01/08, 09:40am | report spam | close Reply | delete
iMAX G3 466

I have one and it works flawlessly with 9.0.4. I tired OSX and it was HORRIBLY unstable. I guess it could be anything, but I blame the upgrade.

0

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01/08, 10:11am | report spam | close Reply | delete
iMax G3

How is it that a processor upgrade, neither built, endorsed or covered by Apple, does not work with their software and yet some of you believe it's Apple's fault...even a conspiracy?!

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01/08, 10:14am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Newer Card Not Working

Come on, folks. The company is going out of business. It's main manufacturing supplier bailed it out in February (well documented), its problems are well known. And, we dare to act surprised when the go out of business. I looked at all of this when I bought my Sonnets upgrade card in February, and was so happy to avoid the Newer delimma. might pick up one of their cards ona firesale closeout, but with no expectations of future support and no plan to ever upgrade the OS beyond 9.0.4. Doing anything else would be optimistically foolish!

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01/08, 04:43pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
New Compatibility

If 9.1 does not work for an iMax card, 9.1 won't work in any iMac. The iMax is the same Apple core with a speed bumped processor, nothing else is different. There are no drivers!!! I think everyone is overreacting here to 1 failed attempt. I bet it does work. That is what was so great about Newer upgrade cards, because they were always compatible with future OS upgrades with minimal to zero drivers required. It's really a shame they had to go out of business, but I am confident that all my iMax and PowerMax cards will be compatible for years to come.

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01/10, 07:12am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Newer 250

I have a Newer card installed on an older 7300. I think it's 250mhz. WIll 9.1 work on this upgrade? This is one of the first cards made to upgrade to a g3 from the 040 chips. This computer does have drivers and a control panel installed to boot.

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iMAXpowr possibly incompatible with OS 9.1

updated 02:30 pm EST, Sun January 7, 2001

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