Building an Extreme Power Mac 9600

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Today, we're upgrading the ever-loving heck out of the Power Mac 9600!
LINKS:
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🍎 Radeon 9250 Mac OS 9 Driver: macintoshgarde...
🍎 @HrutkayMods SATA Flash video: • How to Flash a PC SATA...
🍎 Flashable SATA controller on Amazon: amzn.to/40hA2L9 (make SURE the listing says Sil3112 when you buy it!)
🍎 3D printable 9600 BlueSCSI & ZuluSCSI mount and faceplate: www.thingivers...
(Amazon links are affiliated links)
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💾 Support these retro computing shenanigans on Patreon! / actionretro
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Check out my Amazon page with links to my tools, adapters, soldering equipment, camera gear and more: www.amazon.com...
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💬 Come talk about old computers on the BitBang Social Mastodon! bitbang.social
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#Macintosh #PowerPC #MARCHintosh

[@reidster87]

One thing worth bearing in mind with the 9600 is that there are two PCI buses. The top three slots are on one bus, the bottom three on another. From the top, the first slot and fourth slot are the positions for the bus master cards. For optimum performance, a common configuration would be to put the video card in the top slot, and the hard disk controller in the fourth slot. The way they are installed at 11:53 has the video card as a bus master on the second bus, with the SATA controller as a lower priority device on the same bus. If you move the cards around as I described above, they won't be competing for PCI bandwidth.

[@ActionRetro]

Thank you!!

[@Mini-z1994]

@@ActionRetro For the 240 gb pny ssd you broke the sata connector on, push it back in place + hotglue the cable in place should let you keep using it, the piece of plastic is just a spacer too make the contacts push against the pins of the sata cable.

[@pseudotasuki]

@@Mini-z1994 Yeah, the pins look like they're still intact. Though super glue would probably work better than hot glue.

[@john_ace]

The top 3 slots are shared with the other IO of the 9600 (ethernet, ADB, ...). Typically the 4th slot would be for graphics and the top 3 for IO. If you want the optimal hdd performance but you don't care for graphics, you are right, though. Cards that communicate via DMA to each other (a video card that writes into the frame buffer of the graphics card or several SCSI-cards, for example) should be on the same bus.

[@john_ace]

I have tested the performance difference a bit and came to the conclusion that there is little impact with a G4 CPU and more modern cards. The biggest impact was around 10% less than the optimal configuration when i used 2 Quickdraw 3D accelerator cards and one were on the 2nd bus with the graphics card and the other was on the 1st bus 'alone'.

[@brokenelectronics3665]

For the record, the Silicon Power drive model is Ace A55. Yes, we can question the choice of font, but SP drives have proven to very reliable for me.

[@travosk8668]

This is insane, I imagine this could've been usable for actual work until the mid to late 00s

[@animatewithdermot]

Best advice I ever got was when buying a pick n mix system (laptop or whatever) just take the financial hit and max out everything. Otherwise you're just shortening the lifespan of the system. Spent 4600$ on this laptop, got it in jan 2016, and still totally fine for work, including animation and video editing. Hard to believe this thing is 7 years old and still fast.

[@txlv]

what the hell 1900???

[@ale6242]

@@animatewithdermot Eeehhhhh. I'd tend to disagree with the "max it out" philosophy. At a certain point you're paying big bucks for single % improvements in performance. There is certainly a balance to be struck

[@heavy0119]

@@animatewithdermot maxing out gives you exponentially diminishing returns after a certain performance threshold is reached

[@dkhl02]

😅es su dinero su tiempo además lo estás viendo consigo su propósito 😅

[@helfire23]

Thanks so much for sharing your 9600 face plate! Booting off the SATA card plus the ability to hot swap SD cards in BlueSCSI V2 makes this really useful for moving things around or switching cd's without rebooting.

[@Nikkerston]

a friend of mine actually has one of those A55 SSD's and its been fine for a year or two now

[@eggmane]

Yeah, they are ok for what they are. I have upgrade about a dozen friends and families computers with them over the years without any issues.

[@victorfigueroa9385]

ass drive hehe

[@mulad]

I would totally expect to need to back that A55 up, but the A55 being the backup was unexpected.

[@TommyCrosby]

10:44 happened to me, you can buy some sort of extension and after making sure all pins have a contact, you glue it there and you got a new connector! (And a longer drive, but since the PCB in today's SSDs are often half the size inside you can just crack it open and find your way to make a totally normal SSD with a new working plug!)

[@stamasd8500]

It happened to me and a Seagate HDD back in the day. So what I did is: take a SATA cable, cut one end of it, clean up the wire ends and solder then directly to the drive PCB where the connector was torn off. I ended up with a drive with a SATA cable permanently attached to it. Worked fine for several years after that.

[@Taras-Nabad]

That is one of the best Macs ever made. Indestructible.

[@MichaelEilers]

Mac OS X on a CRT is a very surreal experience.

[@dcfuksurmom]

Not quite as surreal as Gentoo booting on a PS2 on a CRT TV in 480i over component video though.

[@goclunker]

Emacs had it, it was great

[@mustasheolll2020]

It’s like a sleeper because OS X on a Beige box

[@superstar64]

iMac G3, and eMac, as well as the CRT options available for Power Mac G3 and G4 towers at the time of their release.

[@mediocrefunkybeat]

I've been using an SP SSD in various devices over the last two or three years and it's been absolutely fine.

[@moth.monster]

I've used their SD cards for a while now with no issue. They have good capacity and speed for the price.

[@AliceC993]

I bought a 64 GB, USB 3 flash drive from them about 9-10 years ago and it still works to this day

[@Pasi123]

I have an old dead 4GB Silicon Power USB flash drive. It just shows up as a drive without media, pretty much like how a card reader without a card shows up

[@patrickelliott2169]

Hmm.. I just don't trust anything with misspelling and weird names. Often it ends up being an SD card, hooked up to an SSD controller, with the internal device ID and specs changed so that once you hit 64gb, or what ever the SD card size is, it loops back and starts overwriting data. Short of running some absurd time intensive tests, or breaking open the case to see if it's real, there is no way to tell if it is fake.

[@ArniesTech]

I absolutely wonder how on earth this fella gets his hands on all that amazing retro hardware 🙏😱 I plan on covering retro Windows machines and revive them with Linux but I am lucky to find stuff from around the early 2000s 😁

[@superstar64]

eBay is a blessing and a curse. You can find almost anything on there, but everything is uber expensive for some reason.

[@VeronicaExplains]

This is Power Mac goals right here! I remember this Power Mac being "the good one" in my middle school. Seeing it installing Tiger - the native OS from my college laptop - is surreal.

[@stupidbeard3702]

I snapped the SATA connector off on a brand new Ironwolf NAS SSD a while ago. I was able to carefully superglue it back on and the drive has been fine since. Its worth a try if it's not too late.

[@scotthansen400]

I wonder if it is possible to swap out the teensy fans on the GPU and the CPU to make it quiet again. Looked like there was spare slot space, so you imght be able to 3D print a bracket that would hold an 80mm fan in the correct location.

[@adamburgess1287]

Used to lust after these things! When ProTools came out, I was amazed to be able to sequence MIDI and edit audio. My clone wasn't quite up to it. The render times were just so long! Needed a 8/ 9600!

[@trepanier01]

I do say silicon power SSDs SD cards are actually pretty well made and has worked for me quite well in the past

[@mudkipaway]

I did the same thing with my sata pny boot drive luckily I was able to super glue the plastic back on.

[@RuruFIN]

Well, you could do a similar processor upgrade with a Slot 1 motherboard (depending of a motherboard's CPU support) ;)

[@Pasi123]

Some can even take a 1.4GHz Tualatin with a slotket

[@chadmasta5]

I'll add to the comments mentioning silicon power ssds. They're great cheap ssds. No dram cache but their performance is still very good.

[@Azurael]

I put a Silicon Power Ace A55 in a friend's machine a couple of years ago and it's been fine. It is a somewhat entertaining name but I also had a camera called a Sony SLT-a55 which is arguably even worse so it's not just relatively unknown brands who do it :D

[@MistahMatzah]

It's even funnier if you pronounce PNY "Peeny."

[@orestes1984]

Hey Sean, This was one of the first Macs I wanted even after the G3 was released. They were beast, even back in the day with the dual 200mhz MP. While the support for multiple processors in OS 8 and 9 was rather limited, these computers were absolute beasts, back from the day when Apple actually made computers for professionals and not just for the middle market.

[@retropuffer2986]

Outstanding work! What a monster for mid-90s computer! 😵‍💫

[@benotsilent6703]

10:55 - ass drive, I had to pause it to wait to stop laughing so I could hear what you were saying next.

[@puwazatza]

a maxed out 9600 it's a dream machine. now you need a firewire card.

[@pepstein]

1:46 768 Megs gag was great😂

[@DangerousPictures]

thats a nice installation of Mac OAss 9

[@aswxwing]

Watching your builds are a highlight of my week. It's gotten me up and building my own vintage computers.

[@ora2j251]

I love how any powerpc mac on your channel usually siprals into a custom g4 beast.

[@dennisrohm6372]

I worked at a service bureau in the lat 90's. They bought a maxed out 9600 with a large monitor. Cost around $20k

[@OfficialiGamer]

The SP A55 are great I use SP (Silicon Power) SSD's in almost everything even use their SD and Micro SD Cards.

[@wildstar1063]

I have one of those, haven't looked at it in years, it probably still has a copy of Yellow Dog Linux on it. All the upgrades that you installed on yours makes me want to get it out again.

[@bruce11121314]

As a former hackintosher "Still waiting for root device" puts a special sort of fear in my heart

[@RealGengarTV]

Me; Well, i made it to your video, despite your directions Action retro: ah beloved viewer, welcome. I hope your prepared for an unforgettable Macintosh

[@OrDuckVet]

Your audio is so much better compared to a year ago!

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

Now I want a 3D printable drive bay cover for that slot-load DVD-ROM drive. (I have what I'm pretty sure is that same model in my tower beige Power Mac G3, sans drive bay cover.)

[@MatthewCenance]

That's a nice sounding printer you have at 7:53.

[@ran2wild370]

Ace ASS is ok. The next thing they put inside is ZHITAI... for certain markets.

[@zaxchannel2834]

Oh wow, I look forward to seeing what you bring in person

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

MORE POWER!! It'd be interesting to see what he could do with a power Macintosh with a Dos compatible card in it. Totally not a hint 😉

[@iceowl]

do you mean an Intel-based computer on a card? it would do whatever the Intel CPU does. there is no DOS for PowerPC afaik.

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

@@iceowl yes those, Apple called them Dos compatible cards. And some power Macintosh had Dos compatible written on the front of them. LGR did a video on them. His was a 6100/66 I believe

[@minty_Joe]

Sean, I think the OS9 partition has to be slightly under 8 GB. So, I'd do that, then set up another partition to continue for the remainder of OS9 related stuff, then OS X, etc.

[@WalnutSpice]

10:53 ASS always comin' to the rescue when the first option lets ya down

[@erikja1]

Wow some harsh comments mixed with the helpful! Thanks for the video. I like that you leave the learning experiences in the video.

[@tractorman7733]

6:42- I think this was a classic case of distraction by collogue.. I wonder what conversation lead to that being written down lmao!

[@parliamentarian6598]

Those silicon power harddrives slap, ive got a bunch of them in raid 0 in my laptop. I also just helped my friend build a new pc and we stuck 4x 1tb silicon power gen4 nvme's in it and raid 0'd 3 of them as a games drive. Benchmarked it at around 14000mbps while we also had files transferring all over the place at the same time.

[@faenethlorhalien]

Ow, laaawd, he comin'! What a heccin chonker or a Mac.

[@ericwood3709]

I have a soft spot for the 604e, it being a chip I drooled over back in the day when I was stuck with the gimpiest of gimped CPUs, a 75 MHz 603 in a 6200-series Performa. I finally got my hands on one in the form of a Power Mac 7300. I would never upgrade it! It's kind of cool having a good period system anyway, something to run System 7.6.1 and software of the time that might not work so well on OS 9.x.

[@richardbrobeck2384]

I was just looking at that Bambu Lab X1 that looks very nice I use at work a Flash forge 3d printer and I been wanting one for my own home .

[@andre-le-bone-aparte]

@07:45 - Question: Do you have videos on 3d printing parts for macs? - I'm sure a tutorial could be a Patreon bonus or something...

[@ScarlettStunningSpace]

I've owned one of those SP SSD's before (I don't think it was the A55) and it died. Meanwhile, I have a similar PNY SSD that still works to this day. You were right not to trust the A55. Another great video as always!

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

Sean that’s why I cannot find any upgrade cards you got them all LOL Great upgrades can’t Waite for part2

[@delscoville]

I had a 8000 series, that I had to carve the case a little to get a 9000 series mothboard in it with a G3 upgrade card. I ended up giving it back to the guy who gave it to me. But they helped me out when I needed it, so he deserved it. Oh, BTW, this was in 2003 so a G3 was still rather useful back then. I do have a Sonnet G4 1333 that fits in a PowerMac DA or Quicksilver just sitting on the shelf.

[@stevencarlson5422]

Man I cant wait to see the performance of that thing with some power hungry games

[@cdw3663]

dont feel bad about the pny drive, i did the same thing to my 500gb pny dont know if its a quality issue with the plastic but didnt take much to snap it

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

Highly skilled + talented.

[@stamasd8500]

I did that to a Seagate HDD back in the day.

[@parkybob22]

You have re-inspired me to get my 9600 up and running!!! I have been tinkering with it for the past few years, i do also have the g4/1ghz and also a 700mhz card for the 8600 i also have. How tough is it to flash a video card? Altho the games i would run do not require much video ram. I have a scsi2sd, and i see you use the bluescsi, is it much easier to use?I Still have not figured out how to correctly flash to the sd card and thought i could just copy files to a partitioned drive on the SD card.

[@andre-le-bone-aparte]

@16:08 - Question: Could you have done this over firewire with a PCI Firewire Card for the install?

[@alanharkleroad4376]

I have an SP SSD in my laptop, and it runs fine. My desktop has a Kingston.

[@chrissoclone]

I bought 3 of those ass drives over the last couple of years, besides the name they work just fine and are always one of the cheapest options. The oldest must surely be 6 years old by now or so and in heavy use, so thumbs up from me for cheap upgrade options. Currently Intenso are often even cheaper, perfectly fine too.

[@morecrappysketches]

It should also be noted that some of the madlads over at Macrumors have figured out how to get an Nvidia Geforce 6200 PCI working in old world ROM Macs. There are some ROMs available and other such goodies. No OS 9 support, of course, but it would definitely be faster than a Radeon 92x0. In theory thanks to the bottleneck of the PCI bus. But it supports Core Image!

[@Trylen]

The Silicon Power drive is actually a good drive, I have an A55 512GB as the boot for my Server.

[@Pickle136]

maybe one thing to consider going to a modern power supply might not be the right answer. I dont exactly for this mac but older PC's ran most of the devices off of the 5v rail (meaning it needs to support higher amperage) and modern supplies moved the higher amperage supply to the 12 V rail.

[@JessicaFEREM]

I like SP drives. They're the cheapest cached drives you can buy. And the cheapest SD card with large capacity worth buying. Nothing wrong with them but the packaging is bad lol

[@EweToobUsername]

This takes me back to my 8500 with a flashed Radeon 9200 and one of those sonnet 3-in-1 cards on it. I did have better luck with Panther than Tiger though. Also, IIRC, the OSX installer is super picky with that slot an external drive controller (PATA, SATA, or SCSI) is in when you do a 9500 or 9600 because of how 6 slots work in those machines. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any of that myself though.

[@BigBadBench]

That SSD got Toom Much Action!

[@charliesretrocomputing]

10:52 I laughed SO hard 😂😂😂

[@alextirrellRI]

8:38 - I was all ready to freak out on you about the 8GB rule, but apparently it doesn't apply to PCI cards.

[@ActionRetro]

oh yeah haha, using the SATA card skirts right around that rule!

[@milky__1748]

I love these crazy upgrades videos!!

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

What about a Corsair 1KW PSU usually designed for use in a normal PC.

[@TheDustin151]

That shot of Meg made me laugh.

[@carltonleboss]

Now it's a MAXintosh

[@morcatko02]

Incredible. 🙂 Like a best cake in the cake shop. 🙂

[@dilianvt]

I have broke a ssd before but breaking an ssd at the sata connection is actually pretty rare and because of that there’s very little chance of it being successfully repaired because of simply how hard and tedious it is to fix but remember if personal data is on that ssd then it’s time to put a sledgehammer to it because you ain’t gonna fix that ssd without a long hard fight with all the tools you need and how much money it’s gonna cost, even down to the time. It’s not worth it because repairing a broken sata connection on an ssd is bound to turn south and more things will be fried just from the heat of the repair process which just means that a repair like this needing to be done could mean bad news!

[@michaelmullett7327]

Very very cool My Friend!

[@joseluisarenasperez3855]

Great video ❤ can you share the link for the power supply cable mod thanks 😉🦾

[@kramerdesign9443]

Could 3D print a thin front plate for the superdrive for a bit more of a stock look?

[@pseudotasuki]

The drawer bezels are somewhat standard. You can often swap them around.

[@BilisNegra]

@@pseudotasuki I guess that's right, plus 3D printing of course is still no match to injection molding.

[@eDoc2020]

Another possibility is paint.

[@dkhl02]

Bonita cachanga lo que me sorprende que exista aún repuestos incluso para repotenciar y en las PC obligando prácticamente ah comprar otra PC nueva

[@BrianJones-wk8cx]

First rule of shenanigans-Always trust in A55.

[@nebular-nerd]

You can fix that PNY SSD, straighten the pins, pop the connector on with the remains of the plastic still wedged in, apply copious amounts of hot glue, enjoy. Ask me how I know... 🤣

[@Rabbit_AF]

ACE A55! Nice!

[@goqwertygo]

How dare you leave us hanging like that😩

[@Caisuno]

Amazing as always

[@RudysRetroIntel]

Awesome video and work! A must-subscribe channel! Thanks for sharing

[@chrisliddiard725]

subscribed. Can't wait to see what you do with this beast. ;0)

[@notation254]

This channel is awesome!

[@JonRowlison]

I saw another one of those Crescendo 1ghz G4 cards. Are they supposed to work on the 7200/7300/7500/7600 boxes so far as you know?

[@thumbtak123]

Here is a video idea. What is the maximum operating systems you can fit on one of your computers. 10?

[@AnthonyChopra]

this is why old tech like the MacPro5,1 i feel could get a modded Cpu upgrade to get to 2015 speks or even managing to make a mode to force it to use the 2020 intel chip im sure someone in prob 5 or 10 years could mke it happen. tho prob modding the pc case and building a normal pc inside will happen as macos leaves intel

[@Taras-Nabad]

Apple is an ecosystem and as an Apple owner you are a part of that ecosystem.

[@Realaudiosith]

This is so cool. I love all your videos.

[@g3monster89]

It is possible to get a fx5200 in a pci mac however it's not mac os 9 compatible...but it supports core image

[@markaz2kk]

“Shut up, Meg!” 😂

[@EpicShitForYou]

Does a G4 at 1 GHz even make sense under a front side bus of 50 MHz? Back in the day they said anything beyond 400 MHz will not increase your systems performance much more as the FSB is too slow. But i'm no expert. Maybe that's rubish. :D

[@thefferan1987]

I have a Macintosh tower that is identical on the outside but mine says PowerMacintosh G3. Would love to get mine working again. Where do you find all of those old parts?

[@svgaming234]

Yours is a similar model but with a faster CPU

[@dcfuksurmom]

You pretty much have to get lucky with eBay or Amazon. It'd be nice to have a proper online store for retro computing stuff.

[@pseudotasuki]

@@svgaming234 But fewer slots for RAM and PCI. I don't remember if they have SCSI.

[@thefferan1987]

I know it is a faster CPU and has less ram slots. I just don't know where to find parts or what is actually compatible, however thanks for the info about the differences between the two towers. Is it possible to get a G4 cpu in it?

[@BilisNegra]

You need that Xfacto thing to run Tiger on a G4 (like this is with the upgrade CPU card)??? I thought it should run natively.

[@bonaventura_AKA_ben]

Can this dual boot off the sata pci card idea work on a quicksilver g4 800 FireWire? Everymac tells me that this particular g4 can not boot OS 9, but has to rely on ‘classic mode’ running on OS X. Any info would be appreciated including links to your other vids and others you know of. The 1.5 g ram is hilarious btw

[@SuJuMcKronklin]

Would this run the Mac version of Doom 3 perhaps?

[@V-Yakob]

Can you share the project of the SSD bracket? 🥺

[@rager1969]

It's already ridiculous with that hump/bump-out on the side. Like it wasn't wide enough. And it being shorter than the case makes it stand out in a bad way. Don't get me wrong, I love the video.

[@pex2582]

I have the same SSD but 1T no problems with it or the PNY graphics card.

[@Alepf2]

Very nice! How about trying to install MacOS X on this very machine but with the original processor? Is there a faster 604 you can install or the 300 MHz is the maximum allowed?

[@pseudotasuki]

Fastest would be a 350MHz 604ev. They also had a dual-CPU card, but those were 200MHz.

[@EweToobUsername]

I saw where a modified kernal would let you run 10.4.3, but I think 10.2.8 was the last version of OS X that could run an unmodified kernel on a 603 or 604 processor.

[@pseudotasuki]

@@EweToobUsername He's done that on this channel.

[@idahofur]

Ah, yes. The engrish never fails to show how great a product is.