PTIII PCI cards G3/G4 compatability (PCI Matchmaker chips).

[MacOS Plus]

Some of you may be familiar with the following information:

http://archive.digidesign.com/compato/pt3/cards.html

  Many years ago I used this as inspiration to test replacing the PCI Matchmaker chips myself on other non-Digi cards.  This didn't always meet with success, but the Sonic Solutions USP cards that I really hoped would work were a big success.  Since this was hit-and-miss with various cards, it made me wonder what exactly Digi did when upgrading their cards.  Did they simply replace the chip, as worked with my SS USP cards, or did they have to re-program the firmware or other programmable chips too?  Rev QC is a minimum for G3 B&W and up, but do I have to be concerned between using a Rev QC or Rev QE chip?  (I have one original Digi card with a Rev QC and one with a Rev QE.)

  Seeing as I have the tools, the ability, and two Digi PCI cards that need this upgrade, I wondered if anyone here still had knowledge from the time about what Digidesign performed on their cards when they were returned for official refurbishment.  While I don't mind just going ahead and doing a swap test, unnecessarily desoldering and installing 160 pins would be an annoying waste of time if I also need a firmware update that won't be available.  (320 pins if you count re-installing the original chip afterwards.)  I have a spare Rev QC and Rev QE chip available right now.  I was holding off buying more chips from a surplus dealer until I have a better answer on the Digi cards.

My existing cards are as follows:

1. Disk I/O - S/N FD05825 Rev C, Matchmaker Rev Q-
2. DSP Farm - S/N 00065 Rev A, Matchmaker Rev QC (Red PCB)
3. SampleCell II - S/N P00121 Rev (illegible), Matchmaker Rev Q- (Red PCB)
4. SampleCell II - S/N HH00561 Rev D, Matchmaker Rev QE
5. AudioMedia III - S/N BK03187 Rev n/a, Matchmaker Rev Q-

  The two red-colored cards seem to be very early ones because the serial number conventions are odd.  The DSP Farm seems to have been upgraded without the card revision being re-written on it.  The second SCII appears to have been upgraded, but in this case the new revision of the card has been noted correctly.  Neither of these cards have the text "Refurbished" added to them, as I've seen stickered on four of my Nubus cards.

  I'd like at the very least to be able to upgrade my Disk I/O card, otherwise I'm stuck on a Beige G3 or earlier which I'd very much prefer to avoid.

[mrhappy]

Don't know what update procedure was but I the 'red' cards might be prototypes of some sort.

[MacOS Plus]

Don't know what update procedure was but I the 'red' cards might be prototypes of some sort.

  That might at least explain the odd and very low serial numbers, as well as the "P" in the SampleCell serial number.  (Even the TDM daughter-board is red and has a matching serial number.  It says Rev 2.1 or 21, not clear which, and that seems to correspond with the barely-visible writing on the host card.)

[smilesdavis]

any chance to retrofit pt 3 nubus expansion chassis interface card with a pci matchmaker chips to get em running under pro tools 5.0 on g4 under mac os 9

surely someone would love to take this max upgrade challenge.