Troubleshooting

L2 cache: What's the real speed benefit?

Yet another article in MacWEEK claims that the speed benefit of an L2 cache is real - but it may be sharply diminished or even eliminated if you have "ample RAM" (where ample may be defined as 200Mb or more!).

Local News: MacFixIt receives a "Site of the Week" award; Updated MacFixIt Reports a. MacFixIt has been selected as the "Virtual Communities Network" (VCN) MacOS Site Of The Week for the week of March 2.

b. The Troubleshooting Mac OS 7.6 and Troubleshooting Type 11 and Related System Errors pages were updated over … Read more

-127 errors: a word from SyQuest

An FAQ file on the SyQuest web site says that, if you get a -127 error while trying to read a cartrdige, it indicates that the "directory of this cartridge has been corrupted." They imply that you will have to reformat the cartridge to fix the problem (although I would certainly try Norton Disk Doctor first!).

Virus-infected enhanced CD

Roland E. Miller sends the following warning: "One of our computers was infected by the MBDF A/B virus. I tracked down the source of the infection to the following enhanced CD: 'Hits Unlimited' by the group 2 Unlimited. The virus is located in the MacStart file on this CD. The CD is published by Avex-Critique Records and is relatively new; the modification date on the file was Dec '96. This virus spread to several files including the System on a SAM 4.5 protected machine before SAM said that itself was infected at the start of a scheduled … Read more

(Post) Week-end Updates

a. Fast Font Menu 1.1.1 is now in the Download Library. The changes in this updated version: "Use SetMenuItemText to set font name in menu, instead of AppendMenu. This avoids problems with fonts containing slashes and other special characters. NCSA Telnet has also been added to the list of bad applications." (Thanks, Dave Polaschek.)

b. Font Box 2.1 is now in the Download Library. This updated version is an evaluation copy. It allows you to run the analysis, make changes manually and save a font report. Additional functions, including automatic repair, deletion and movement of … Read more

DayStar MP Floppy 2.5

DayStar Digital has posted a new update to its MP (multiple processor) software. MP Floppy 2.5 contains the latest version of MP Startup (1.1) which solves a problem with random startup crashes and provides other improvements. (Thanks, David Methven, DayStar Digital Product Manager.)

Mac-Wizards on the web

The Mac-Wizards mailing list (as mentioned on the Links page) is a useful place to seek answers to those difficult-to-answer questions. One common lament about this mailing list is that it does not have a digest mode, which means you must put up with receiving dozens of emails over the day from the list.

A partial solution to this problem is now available. Stan Greenspan has started a Wizards web site that lists a selection of questions and answers previously posted to Mac-Wizards mailing list. You don't even have to subscribe to the mailing list to check it out. … Read more

Mac OS 7.6's Drive Setup IDE drives = failed restarts?: a follow-up

Regarding the report last time that updating with Drive Setup 1.2.2 may cause startup problems with Macs that have IDE drives:

Many users ofvarious models of Performa Macs and PowerBooks that use IDE drives reported no problem with Drive Setup 1.2.2. One especially notable exception was Scott Lewallen, who had this problem on 4 different Performa 5260/120 models. Reader Steve Hyman claims that the problem may indeed be largely restricted to PowerBase clones from Power Computing.

Internet Explorer and aborting software downloads

Rob Henerey writes that if you are downloading a file with Explorer 3.0a and click to link or move to another page, you will get a message that says that doing so will abort your download. The main way to continue your browsing while a download is in progress is to open up a new browser window (using the "Clone Window" command, accessible by holding down the mouse button for a few seconds). Navigator does not have this restriction.

Actually, when I tried this, I did not even get an error message. It simply took me to … Read more

Mac OS 7.6.1: Type 11 errors; AppleVision extension; PowerBook low battery warnings

a. Type 11 errors Notable news for those users plagued by Type 11 errors. Mac OS 7.6.1 (expected to be released by the end of this month) will eliminate most of these errors! Actually, as I read it, you will not necessarily get any fewer errors. You will simply get more accurate error messages. As Apple states it: "Most crashes in native code previously were mapped to the 'miscellaneous fatal error' code which is 11. We now calculate the real error code and report the correct number."

But there is another bonus here. If you do … Read more