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Tech Specs

Umax SuperMac S910

LEM Staff - 1997.07.14

The S910 was Umax’s most powerful, most expandable computer, differing from the S900 primarily in its use of a socketed 1 MB level 2 cache and in not having 16 MB of RAM on the motherboard.

Umax SuperMac S900The S910 reversed the order of PCI slots compared to the S900, which helped video pros get around some PCI bridge issues found with the S900. The S910 was available with a single 250 MHz 604e processor or in a dual processor configuration. Note that the second CPU slot only accepts a Umax SuperMac secondary processor card, which must match to primary card.

Because the S910 uses the same CPU daughter card slot as Apple Power Macs of the era, S910 owners have lots of upgrade options.

Details

  • introduced 1997.07.14, never officially released
  • requires System 7.5.3 through 9.1
  • CPU: PowerPC 604e, upgradable with standard daughter card
  • second CPU: ASPD slot for adding second CPU, allows for dual processing (see Second Processor for SuperMac S900/910 for more details)
  • bus: 45-50 MHz
  • RAM: 16-64 MB, expandable to 1024 MB using 8 DIMM slots and 70ns 5 volt EDO or fast-page DRAM, can use interleaved memory
  • Video: ixMicro Twin Turbo Graphics Accelerator standard with 8 MB VRAM, resolutions to 1920 x 1080, 24-bit color to 1920 x 1080
  • L2 cache: 1 MB
  • hard drive: 4 GB Ultra SCSI or RAID
  • CD-ROM: 12x
  • Zip drive: optional
  • Internal and external Fast SCSI buses (internal upgradable to Ultra SCSI-3)
  • ADB ports for keyboard and mouse
  • two miniDIN-8 GeoPorts on back of computer
  • DB-25 SCSI connector on back of computer with SCSI-1 support
  • PCI slots: 6
  • Ethernet: built in, upgradable to 100Base-T

Accelerators & Upgrades

Online Resources

Troubleshooting

  • The J700 and S900 have a PCI bridge chip controlling all PCI slots except the first two, which use the normal Apple chip. As a result, only cards that are PCI 2.1 compliant can be installed in slots 3-6 (3-4 for J700). Problematic cards are usually older SCSI cards, and, for some reason, ixMicro cards such as Ultimate Rez (but not the older ixMicro Twin Turbo cards). There are claims that even ixMicro-branded cards have slot preference, and in a multiple-card setup at least one has to be in slot 1 or 2, while the other can be in slot 4 or 5.
  • Newer Tech recommends against using EDO memory in the J700 and S900, because these models have “occasionally exhibited some problems when running with EDO memory. These problems tend to become more pronounced when updating your machine with a G3 card. . . . Therefore, we are recommending people to stick with FPM (Fast Page Memory) in these machines. If you are already running EDO memory without apparent problems, we certainly don’t mean to imply that you should be having problems, merely that you could have some.”
  • Umax suggests updating the J700 and S900 to version 2.0.2 of the Licensing Extension if you’re using Mac OS 8 or 8.1. <http://www.kennedybrandt.com/supermac_insidersupport/2013/mac-software-links/>
  • The version of FWB Hard Disk Toolkit that ships with most SuperMacs is not compatible with Mac OS 8 or later. You must use version 2.0.6 or later, available on the Umax software updates page. Be sure to install the new drivers on your hard drive before you run the OS 8 installer. Also, you must be sure that you do not update the driver on your hard drive during OS 8 installation. Using an older version of FWB HDT or the Apple driver on the SCSI drive that came with the SuperMac may so botch the hard drive structure that you will need to reformat it and reinstall everything. (As always, you should do a full backup before installing new drivers or updating your operating system.)
  • If your monitor is coming up green with extensions off or until the entire system is loaded, you can adjust the TwinTurbo card to change this behavior. Be sure the computer is off, disconnect the monitor, remove the cover, ground yourself by touching the power supply, the carefully remove the video card. Next to the video ports is a jumper marked JP4. Remove it from the two pins it’s on and move it to the other end (it must still be on the middle pin). Reinsert the card, connect your monitor, and do a quick boot with extensions off (hold down the shift key while starting). If it’s not green, shut down the computer, seal it up, and go back to work. If the green should persist, put the JP4 jumper back where it was. (According to Sync on Green Returns on Restart, the 8 MB card does not have a JP4 jumper.)

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