SATA? In an old world PCI Power Mac?! IMPOSSIBRU! (2025 Edition)

[Trash80toG4]

Thanks! Do any of the ports work, maybe twop of them?

Does anyone have a solution for an OS9 card? Gotta be, there's a vid of a TAM fanatic using SATA.

 

[phipli]

Thanks! Does anyone have a solution for an OS9 card?

If you can find a Sonnet Tempo Serial ATA, that would work great - but they're expensive.

Or something like a Firmtek / Seritek 1S2... but they rarely turn up. Until recently you could actually still get them new.

They're basically the same card and both will boot Classic Mac OS from System 7 and up. Once you get to OS X it tends to depend on the exact version of the firmware and the driver combined with the version of OSX I think.

The cheap option is to get a generic card based on the same Sil3112 chip that those two cards use and flash them to use that firmware. There are a couple of little complications, especially to do with G4s and sleep, and sometimes beige G3s, but you should be fine with your 7600 if that was what I saw you mention.

I haven't read the start of this thread, but given the title, but I'd guess this thread has more detail on this already?

 

[bakkus]

I feel like this thread has come full circle
Yes, the methods outlined in this thread work for OS9 - hell, I've even done OS 7.6!

What kicked off this whole endeavour was the scarcity of the Seritek and the Sonnet cards.
So yes, what's done here is flash off-the-shelf "modern" hardware with modded FW so they work in our beloved old-school macs.
I'm pretty sure this recipe has been successfully done on a TAM as well.
I personally know of 4400, 9600, G3, Sawtooth, MDD - I'm sure there are more.

 

[speakers]

I got a PowerMac 7600. Nice condition but the original hard-drive was deceased; the CDROM was seized; the floppy needed service, and more RAM would be nice. Obviously this was a candidate for the PCI-SATA treatment.
...(strange behavior)...
Explain that. Supply rails iffy on the 7600 and the bad card misreads its eeprom???

It was the eeprom (MX29LV040). It worked fine for a while. Then I pulled it from its socket to try something. On replacement, it became flakey and soon failed completely - it didn't read correctly on my TL866II+ and wouldn't flash. Another eprom (SST39LV040) was fine .. flashing it in situ with dosdude1's fine patched flasher and ROM.

In addition, a new chinese SIL3112 (with AM28F010 replaced with SST29SF010) works fine in the PM7600 also.

 

[phipli]

It was the eeprom (MX29LV040). It worked fine for a while. Then I pulled it from its socket to try something. On replacement, it became flakey and soon failed completely - it didn't read correctly on my TL866II+ and wouldn't flash. Another eprom (SST39LV040) was fine .. flashing it in situ with dosdude1's fine patched flasher and ROM.

In addition, a new chinese SIL3112 (with AM28F010 replaced with SST29SF010) works fine in the PM7600 also.

What EEPROM part was fitted before you did any modifications?

SATA cards use a mixture of 3.3v and 5v EEPROMs depending on the board design, the MX29LV040 is a (nominally) 3.3v part. If your card is feeding it 5v, that might explain why it died.

 

[speakers]

What EEPROM part was fitted before you did any modifications?

SATA cards use a mixture of 3.3v and 5v EEPROMs depending on the board design, the MX29LV040 is a (nominally) 3.3v part. If your card is feeding it 5v, that might explain why it died.

The original part was a 5v 512k prom - I think it was an SST39SF010. I switched the strapping to 3.3v when I installed a socket and the MX29LV040. It had been working fine (on another machine) for a couple of years.

In fact, I checked that the 3.3v supply was good because there's a suggestion that cheap cards may have poor quality regulators.

Notably, I was recently able to re-use that original SST39SF010 in another SIL3112 card thanks to the wondrous compressed-patched ROM.

 

[phipli]

The original part was a 5v 512k prom - I think it was an SST39SF010. I switched the strapping to 3.3v when I installed a socket and the MX29LV040. It had been working fine (on another machine) for a couple of years.

In fact, I checked that the 3.3v supply was good because there's a suggestion that cheap cards may have poor quality regulators.

Notably, I was recently able to re-use that original SST39SF010 in another SIL3112 card thanks to the wondrous compressed-patched ROM.

Was worth checking

 

[XodiumLabs]

Hey. Been a while. Made a small update because it seems as of recently these SATA cards can no longer be purchased at AliExpress, at least if you're in the US. YMMV if you're elsewhere, I've no way to check.

At the same time, a small call for info: If anyone has bodged better voltage regulation onto these cards, care to share how you did it? It'd be lovely to get these cards working better in machines they tend to be iffy on, like the quicksilver G4/MDD.

 

[V.Yakob]

Hey. Been a while. Made a small update because it seems as of recently these SATA cards can no longer be purchased at AliExpress, at least if you're in the US. YMMV if you're elsewhere, I've no way to check.

At the same time, a small call for info: If anyone has bodged better voltage regulation onto these cards, care to share how you did it? It'd be lovely to get these cards working better in machines they tend to be iffy on, like the quicksilver G4/MDD.

And what's wrong? I left messages about my experience here, and these boards have been working perfectly all these years: G3 BW, G4 QS, MDD.
I bought these 2 boards for PM9500 and PM9600, and they also work perfectly. I liked such boards for these computers much more, because you don't need to think about the SATA cable and SSD mounts.

 

[XodiumLabs]

And what's wrong? I left messages about my experience here, and these boards have been working perfectly all these years: G3 BW, G4 QS, MDD.
I bought these 2 boards for PM9500 and PM9600, and they also work perfectly. I liked such boards for these computers much more, because you don't need to think about the SATA cable and SSD mounts.

I’ve noticed at least with the Quicksilvers and MDDs that while they’ll work *for the most part*, they’ll be a bit quirky here and there. Sometimes the system won’t boot from a drive sitting behind the card, sometimes a drive will just drop off for no reason whatsoever, and as Bakkus has said on Discord, sometimes optical drives just won’t be bootable on the SATA bus.

None of this has been an issue on my 9600 (and older Macs), they’ve been consistent through and through. Random info scattered throughout the ‘net seems to suggest something with voltage regulation which is why I’d love to have more info from anyone who’s gone down that road. I’d love to try it myself.

>Rabbit Hole RetroSATA

On this, I’m sure it’s a fine product and gets the job done, but holy hell $90 for a SATA card just doesn’t sit right with me. Especially since you can’t buy it bare, as with no SSD included.

Further I’m not going to crap up the thread too much but the business practices of Rabbit Hole have led me to personally never want to hand them any kind of money whatsoever. I’d definitely rather deal with the weirdness of these cheap cards over supporting them. But that’s just my personal beliefs, if you want to pay $90 for piece of mind that’s entirely valid.

 

[V.Yakob]

I haven't tried connecting SATA DVD-ROM.

Periodic inability to boot (does not see the disk), inability to format the disk, and other oddities disappeared after replacing the capacitors on these old boards.

I prepared my first card in December 2022, and it works without any hassle for me, except for the compatibility problem with other cards. For example, SCSI Jack Hummer or Sonnet ATA-66. I also noticed the strangeness problem of the computer on the G3 MT, if you use SATA and ATi 7000.

Yes, I agree, $90 + international delivery they beat the wallet with a club, but I liked the form factor and I decided to spend the money, 2 such boards have been working for me for about a year. And I didn't notice any problems with them as well.

Maybe I use these computers less often, and that's why I don't have a problem. I don't know, but so far everything suits me.

 

[XodiumLabs]

Hey! So! It's been a while. I decided to change parts of the guide that looked out of place to me, made a few nips and tucks, and changed the beginning section because yeah, we're in 2025, and the landscape has changed significantly since I set out to do all this.

Also with tariffs for US folks I've definitely changed my tune a bit and really think for most cases here you should very likely grab a BlueSCSI if the objective is "just get my Mac working as cheaply and as easily as possible". If you still want to chase high numbers and fun stuff, the guide is still here, but I'd wager most people who want their Mac to Just Work will be better served by a BlueSCSI. (BlueSCSI v2 didn't exist back when I started this post, so your only options for speedy storage on later beige Power Macs was either to pay through the nose for a ZuluSCSI/SCSI2SD v6, or ultrawide SCSI, neither really desirable options if you're trying to do this on the cheap.)

Further, Millennium Macs pointed me at the 68kmla thread (that kinda was the start point when I sat down to write all this) discussing flashrom with these cards and as of this year someone over there by the name of obsolete did the voltage regulator swap on their cards + provided a part number for the voltage regulator they used. I've ordered several and plan on doing this myself and seeing how it goes. Though alas, I no longer own a Quicksilver G4 so that's a small issue. Oh well.

 

[XodiumLabs]

Alright, update on the voltage regulators: They (the AP7361C-33ER-13) came in today, and I slapped them on one of the Sil3112s I have here. It...did not go according to plan, in a weird way. Myself and a friend double checked over everything and the voltage regulators are of the proper voltage (3.3v) and proper pinout (ground, out, in if I recall correctly, typing this from memory but we confirmed the pinout is correct, and we confirmed the regulators have the correct markings so not a mistaken shipment). Yet...with the new regulators installed, the card is partially dead.

I say partially because my Macs (in this case testing with an MDD and 9600) still see the card. In fact because I did this swap on one of the cards with a low-voltage programmable EEPROM, and the SeriTek flasher can see the card *and* program it. The Mac can communicate with the card, but none of the drives connected to the card come up.

I'm kind of at a loss here. If I put the old regulators back on, the card functions normally in my 9600/MDD.

Not sure if anyone has anything to add here but yeah. I did notice after placing the order (thankfully I was already ordering something else from digikey so the regulators ended up being a rounding error) that the 68kmla thread was talking about patching Adaptec cards. I guess they're different enough to matter, here. Feh.

 

[V.Yakob]

The Mac can communicate with the card, but none of the drives connected to the card come up.

When I first started modifying these cards, I made a few for some time, 6-8 pieces.

I had a couple of cards that worked in about the same way -- the disks were not visible, or connected, the file system was not available, formatting never worked.

Replacing the capacitors solved these problems.

 

[XodiumLabs]

When I first started modifying these cards, I made a few for some time, 6-8 pieces.

I had a couple of cards that worked in about the same way -- the disks were not visible, or connected, the file system was not available, formatting never worked.

Replacing the capacitors solved these problems.

Good call on this and I'll be giving it a try tonight.

Was actually starting to look that direction because the card in my MDD seems to be a variant of these cards sold by a more reputable brand (Vantec, maybe? I need to google the part number affixed to the back) and the capacitors look to be of significantly better quality. That said all I have to hand are a mix of caps from various kits that probably aren't the highest quality themselves, but it's worth a try to see if any behavior changes.