BlueSCSI on Macintosh Portable

[Sideburn]

My test was done with the power supply connected (no way the battery I have can last 7 hours!)

I have a 6V 5Ah Lead Acid: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MYL8OQU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Got some copper sheet and made a 3d printed repro

I get 7 hours just running the After Dark screensaver all day as a test. And thats skipping through all of the battery low warnings til it finally shuts down.

 

[Sideburn]

Heres some speed test results before sleep and after using Speedometer 3.23 (not sure what units those numbers are in but quite a difference):

1.252 before sleep.
0.551 after sleep.

So after sleep the CPU is running at about 50%

 

[Paolo B]

I have a 6V 5Ah Lead Acid

I rebuilt a couple of Portable batteries over the years. By rebuilding I mean pry open the battery case, replace the cells, seal back the case.
At first, I used the same cells as the original ones. Perfect result, but same issue as the original ones. Once they discharge below a certain level, they are dead. I then used a Panasonic LC-R064R5P unit. Only 4.5 Ah, though, so it won’t last much without the external power supply.
The unit with the Panasonic cell is at least 10 years old now and it‘s still working fine.
If it discharges completely, it takes a few hours before I can start the Mac, but other than that it‘s OK.

 

[Sideburn]

I rebuilt a couple of Portable batteries over the years. By rebuilding I mean pry open the battery case, replace the cells, seal back the case.
At first, I used the same cells as the original ones. Perfect result, but same issue as the original ones. Once they discharge below a certain level, they are dead. I then used a Panasonic LC-R064R5P unit. Only 4.5 Ah, though, so it won’t last much without the external power supply.
The unit with the Panasonic cell is at least 10 years old now and it‘s still working fine.
If it discharges completely, it takes a few hours before I can start the Mac, but other than that it‘s OK.

Oh wow I didn’t realize you can’t fully discharge the lead acids. Yikes I probably came close a couple times when I was testing it.

 

[pocketscience]

Lead acid batteries *hate* being fully discharged...

 

[Sideburn]

Lead acid batteries *hate* being fully discharged...

Right. Like a lipo. I assume when the portable does its final shutdown the battery will not be lower than 50%. I’ll check it next time.

 

[Paolo B]

I did some tests and I confirm I cannot reproduce the pattern you see (before/after sleep).
Before / after has no impact and for some reasons I also get better scores than you get.

 

[Sideburn]

I did some tests and I confirm I cannot reproduce the pattern you see (before/after sleep).
Before / after has no impact and for some reasons I also get better scores than you get.

View attachment 12789View attachment 12790

Wierd. A lot better. Your cpu shows 2.1. I ran the cpu test only. You are also running system 7 which slows things down and I was on system 6.

 

[Paolo B]

I suspect your machine is trying to balance performance and battery life. I have "max performance" as default setting.

 

[Sideburn]

I suspect your machine is trying to balance performance and battery life. I have "max performance" as default setting.

So do I. Max performace. I just tried system 7. Same results. I get faster graphics and HD speed than yours but your cpu and math are faster…

 

[Sideburn]

I suspect your machine is trying to balance performance and battery life. I have "max performance" as default setting.

I found the culprit! It's the 7MB RAM expansion.

I pulled the card out and bam! my machine was running at full speed (even faster than yours at 2.154) before and after sleep.

Both issues fixed with RAM card removed.

 

[Sideburn]

So to sum up this thread:

• BlueSCSI needs external power from floppy cable in order to wake it up after sleep.
• RAM expansion cuts CPU speed in half and then chops that speed in half again after sleep.

* could still be isolated case to a defect in my board. Won’t know for sure until someone else can confirm.

 

[Androda]

Well, I'll be taking a look at this to hopefully duplicate and try to fix.

 

[Sideburn]

Well, I'll be taking a look at this to hopefully duplicate and try to fix.

Awesome. I’m curious how / what is going on…

 

[Paolo B]

Just for the record, I have a 4 Mb RAM expansion, for a total of 5 Mb. ROM version $037A.

 

[Sideburn]

Just for the record, I have a 4 Mb RAM expansion, for a total of 5 Mb. ROM version $037A.

And yours is official apple, right?

 

[Paolo B]

And yours is official apple, right?

No, it‘s third party.

 

[alxlab]

Well, I'll be taking a look at this to hopefully duplicate and try to fix.

I'll test out Speedometer results on my Macintosh Portable with the 7MB card installed tonight as well.

If it is an issue hopefully it can be fixed with a firmware update of the FPGA.

 

[alxlab]

Mac OS 6.0.8 with 7MB card

After sleep

 

[alxlab]

Mac OS 6.0.8 with my old 3MB card

After sleep:

Hmmm maybe the psram on 7MB is being set into a low power/low performance state during sleep and doesn't recover.