Just ordered the Sonnet Duet...

[zed]

Hi folks,

I just came across this post and I thought I should share my experience with this product and this company.

About a year and a half ago I purchased a Sonnet Duet for my Quicksilver G4, and had some problems with it. I called to try to get to the bottom of it, and received the worst customer service I have ever experienced. The service tech who took my call was very condescending, and a real ass.

I was so offended that I wrote a long letter to the president of the company. I never got a response or an apology. So I vowed never to give this company my business again.

The accelerator is not flawless. It does work, and is still in my G4, but it often will not startup properly, and the monitors will just stay grey with no happy Mac icon. Sometimes I have to force shutdown 3 or 4 times before I can get it to start up properly. Kind of a nuisance.

I ended up buying a G5 because I was also having some major DP performance issues which I strongly supposed might be a result of the accelerator.

Just my two cents.

Zed

[blazingrythm]

I installed the 1.8 Sonnet G4 Duet to replace my 533 Duel Processor a few months ago but I did it because I was having problems with running DP 4.61 and I thought everything would fly after installing it.

It's still buggy and I don't notice any improvement with DP but at least I didn't lose my OS9 partition.

My G5 in the house operates so much more smoothly.

I feel like I need to hire a mac genius to come over and screw the G4 up completely.

You know, guys that come in and say move over.

After he leaves you call him and ask him why iTunes won't open up and he blames it on you.

Then you can't connect to a server and he tells you to buy a separate computer for the internet.

Yikes!

[taggart]

Taggert, it sounds as if you have installed the new encore before running the software CD firmware upgrade.
You must install the firmware BEFORE installing the encore.
Try puting your old processor back in, boot os9 & intstall the software cd.
BTW what rev AGP Mac do you have? Rev 3 does not support the duo.

Lennie! Buddy! Pal!
That's the point of this now extremely long thread. I CAN'T boot into OS9! I could before...now I can't. And yes, I DID try to install the Duet WITHOUT installing firmware about a week back as a last ditch effort (and just to see what would happen) Please read the whole thread. It's just a little bit shorter than War And Peace and the first two Harry Potters combined.

[stiefelmusik]

Sorry to read about your troubles, taggart. Despite many reservations, I finally decided last week to throw caution to the wind and upgrade the processor in my G4 Quicksilver 2002 to a Sonnet Duet 1.8 from a single Gigadesigns 1.47.

Fortunately for me, the installation was successful, albeit not without a few snags. The first snag came during the firmware update process. Apparently I was holding down the programmer button too long during the reboot process, and kept getting the "Open Firmware" prompt instead of the anticipated "progress bar" of the firmware upgrade patch. In any case, I eventually got the firmware to install and then proceeded with the processor upgrade.

After the upgrade, I was able to boot into both OS 9.2.2 and 10.3.8 without problems. I was quite pleased!

My pleasure, however, was rather short-lived I'm sad to report. Upon further testing I was very disappointed with the performance of my new dual processor. I suppose my expectations were too high, so I'm partly to blame. I can only guess that the 2MB L3 cache on my previous single CPU played a much larger role than I knew. As in the real world, I suppose "Cache is King."

The major performance boost I was hoping to gain going from a single CPU to a dual CPU just did not materialize in the way I had hoped. Maybe I'm just missing something, have bad buffer settings, etc., etc., god only knows... but I swear when playing soft synths like Arturia's CS-80v I got better performance from that little single 1.47 with the 2MB L3 cache!

In other areas, the performance boost is remarkable (plugin count, MP3 encoding, MPEG-2 encoding in iDVD, etc.) ... but in the land of virtual instruments like Kontakt 2 and the CS-80v I have this uneasy feeling of an actual performance HIT rather than a boost. I've also experienced a few strange "lockups" under OS X that I never had before (where even Force Quit would not function). Still, the jury is out on this one. Further testing is needed. In the meantime,

my mantra is "Two processors are better than one... Two processors are better than one" ... but in the back of my head I'm still wondering, could it really be true that


CACHE IS KING ?!?

[emulatorloo]

taggart -- I was re-reading the thread today, and I wondered if you ever tried the thing we discussed -- which was

disconnect all drives but the CD drive, boot from an OS 9 CD (holding down C key as you start up).

I suggested it a page or two back . . . I don't recall seeing you say you had done this.

My dusty brain recalls having a G4 AGP machine that would not allow me to reboot in OS 9 from my hard drive. So I remember doing this and once the machine had been able to boot in OS 9 off the CD, I was then able to shut down, reattach the hard drives, reboot with the CD, select the OS 9 disk w startup disk and then all was well.

[taggart]

Hey, e-loo!
Yeah, sorry about that. I should have posted that I did try what you recommended. I feel like I've tried EVERYTHING at this point.
I've been working on my basement trying to remodel it into a decent studio so my time is well spent while I wait for Sonnet to giddy-up! Hey, maybe by the time they have an OSX firmware upgrade, I'll have a brand-spaking new G6!
P.S. I used to live in Luverne, MN. Are you anywhere near the Iowa/Minnesota border?

[emulatorloo]

P.S. I used to live in Luverne, MN. Are you anywhere near the Iowa/Minnesota border?

Far away, I am afraid, which makes it a pain whenever we want to drive to the twin cities.

Again -- good luck. I have a Sonnet upgrade that I think is still under warranty -- I'm gonna start writing them to regarding an OS X firmware updater too.

[npatton]

Hey, Taggart!
Any luck with the new installation software? I noticed Sonnet is shipping their new MDD upgrades, which means the software must be out for you, too.

In fact, has anyone tried this new upgrade, yet? (I'll post this question in the appropriate board next.)

Hope this is working for you!
n

[taggart]

Hi, npatton!
No, they don't seem to have posted any new SOFTWARE upgrades, yet. (As in firmware)
I emailed Neal at Sonnet, who's been very kind and speedy about answering my annoying emails, and asked him about it. That was Tuesday. Hopefully he's just pigging out on turkey and the like and will get back to me soon.
I think I'm getting close to resolving everything. I'm assuming that whatever firmware the Xserve and MDD units need to run the Duet, it will be available online shortly.
I'm tired of saying "The saga continues" so I'll just say "Thanks and wish me luck!"
P.S. I've got a sister in Scappoose, OR. I've driven through Eugene, OR. BEAUTIFUL country out there!

[npatton]

Thanks! We love it here. Close to everything, and no tornadoes (sp?), little flooding and only a few anarchists to watch out for. If you like the color green, then you can't get much more surrounded by it than we are here...

Can't say I've been to the "Isle", or Scappoose for that matter.

Keep us posted. No one seems to have heard much about the new upgrades yet in the General Macintosh forum. Keeping my eyes peeled, though before I drop my money on it.

Thanks!
n

[taggart]

Actually the "Isle Of Lucy" is a joke from "Spinal Tap". They played a rock festival at the Isle Of Lucy. It's funnier if you sound it out!
I've got Sonnet's 1.4GHz upgrade in my machine right now and it's been the best. That's why I ordered the Duet. The quality is great (as is customer service) but I question them on supplying a processor upgrade without an OSX firmware upgrade.
Anyway, thanks for the reply. Catch you later!

[npatton]

I'll have to get out my Spinal Tap and watch for that again (any excuse to watch that again)!

Cheers!
n