Q: no ethernet performa 630 OS 7.6.1

hello Jan,

I tried your proposal, but unfortunately without success. A closer look at the problem shows the following:

I always get the error on system startup already and not only when I try to change the AppleTalk connection. And the error occurs in spite of the fact that AppleTalk is already set to the printer port at system startup.

Does this point to a hardware problem? On the other hand: under OS 8 there are no problems with exactly the same hardware.

I set all my TCP/IP network addresses manually. In the AppleTalk Control Panel I do not see the hardware address of the Performa under OS 7.6.1. It is only there when I boot into System 8.

Any ideas?

hello jan,

that's quite a few questions, but I will answer them as precisely as possible. And thank you a lot for looking into this.

1. With my Performa the purpose of my network is mainly file sharing with other computers in it. Internet is too frustrating on such an old machine.

2. The network consists of four Macs with different OS's like 8.6, 7.6.1 (this one has no problem with ethernet) and 9.2.1 and a couple of laser printers. There is also a router involved (internet access).

3. If AppleTalk is needed or not I cannot say, but I always use it to switch from Ethernet to Printer Port (at least then you can also use a printer cable for data transfer and file sharing – it is just a lot slower). This is a fallback, so to speak. Normally there is no LocalTalk-to-Ethernet adapter connected – my network is Ethernet only. I have an Apple ethernet card in the Performa which has been built in by the former owner. It is a "NET-CS-10T-R Ethernet Card" for Comm-Slot 1.
The Apple Part No. is 820-0607-A.

what would you think of another idea:

I back up my system with the ethernet problem on an external drive. As a second step I would copy the working OS 7.6.1 from my other Performa onto the partition with the problematic one and see what happens.

Does that also make sense to you? It will take some time for copying back and forth, but I do not have to wipe my hard drive with all the other partitions.

Thanks for your feedback

Hajo

I will try both options to see what they do. I actually just bought this very well refurbished machine with a very silent fan and a 80GB hard drive from somebody. He had set the partitions up as they are now, and he had put OS 7.1 and 8.1 on it. Since the Performa said it would not boot from 7.1, I installed 7.6 on it upgrading it afterwards to 7.6.1. The ethernet problem I am trying to get rid of was there from the start after I first booted into OS 7.6.

Because I will have to go on a trip for a week, I will not be able to continue my research, but I will afterwards. So I will tell you what happened in a week.

So long

Hajo

hello Jan,

here I am again with very good news: the issue is solved. However, I do not know exactly why. I copied my working Performa's System Folder to the "unwilling" one, but the problem persisted. I then did a clean install of OS 7.6 after deleting the partition contents. The only difference to my former attempt was that this time I did not choose the option "Software for this Macintosh only", but "Software for all Macintoshes" unchecking a couple of obviously unnecessary things.

After restart there was no error about ethernet anymore, and this nice state of things also survived the upgrade to 7.6.1. I still have the old System Folder, so I can try to spot the differences between the two, before I actually will fine-tune my new system. Hopefully I can detect the reason why it works now. At startup there seems to be loading a system extension which has not been there before if I remember correctly. Maybe I should install Symbionts to better see what it is...

I am very happy I solved the issue and I really give you my warmest thanks for your support. If it did not lead to the solution directly, it very probably helped to point my thoughts in a good direction, and furthermore I now have a wonderful collection of useful links.

best wishes

Hajo