Problems SCSI Scanner & Mac G5

You should know that SCSI and OS X have never played very nice with each other, especially in the realm of scanners. For starters, I'd say ditch the Adaptec card and return it, as they no longer supports Macs with their SCSI cards.

Pick up a card from ATTO and give that a shot. I've had good luck with their cards when used with OS X, but then again I've only attached tape drives to them.

Of course the price of the card could very well exceed the cost of purchasing a new firewire or USB scanner.

I'm in a similar situation ... just visited the Atto site, maybe I'm missing something but they donn't appear to have any PCI Express cards that are the right type of SCSI.

I don't see anything lower than U320 in a PCI Express format. Only need something like the old Adaptec 2930 ... really basic.

Hi Guys,

As Templeton says, X and scsi have never played nice-nice. Everything has to be absolutely correct in the scsi chain or it will bring your computer to it's knees (if you can find a g5's knees).

Then there are the problems with scanners and scsi. Scanners for some reason, are even more tempermental than scsi hard drives.

Then there is the problem of drivers. I suppose you could use Vue Scan, and many do with good results. But when my scsi scanner was used on a scsi mac with X, occasionally VueScan would lock up the computer or it was the scanner locking things up. Who knows?

If you insist on using your old scsi scanner on your g5, make sure that the termination is acitve and see if you can hook up to the internal 50 pin connector of the 29160 instead of using a converter on the external connnector (which is a flaky setup to start with).

I'm sure it is a good scanner, and if I insisted on using it with a g5, I would hook it up to an older scsi mac that has 9.2 on it. The scis macs and 9.2 will tolerate scsi problems that a g5 and X will not. You can get one of these macs for $20 if you shop (I did). Disable most of the network, usb, video, etc. control panels and extensions. The thing will NEVER crash. Network it to your g5 using ethernet and use it as a "scanner server". If you don't have the room or don't like the clutter near your new g5, put it somewhere out of sight. All you need is power, a small monitor, and the ethernet cable.

Adaptec is no longer developing drivers and hardware for the Mac.

Atto UL3S, UL3D, UL4S, UL4D are G5 compatible, great cards but costly.

You have to slow down the card to Single Ended SCSI1 or 2 for the scanner with the Atto configuration Tool.

There was the Miles2 from initio but you have to flash the cards firmware in a G3 or G4 before you can use it in a G5.

Also Acard has SCSI cards for the G5.

Next use premium cables only (I am using cables from Granite Digital, HP and SUN only).

Also use a good terminator.

Regards

Nicolas

Sadly the Miles2 has been discontinued, you may still find places that have stock though.

Scanners are a finicky beast. If I had any choice at all I would NOT try to use a scsi scanner on a G5. I built my own 4 drive 15000rpm scsi raid and have it working nicely at 200MB a second on my G5 via an ATTO UL4D card. Still the thought of scsi scanning makes me cringe

Here are the hurdles you must jump to make the attempt

Most scanners (especially older) were never made scsi manager 4.3 compliant so you are trying to adapt from the very earliest form of scsi. SCSI 1. Hard drives for decades have been all scsi 2 (although most people think they are scsi 1) I have been a scsi fan for over 10 years and I have never even SEEN a scsi 1 hard drive. It is extremely rare to see a scsi 1 device.... unless it's a scanner... sigh.

So here we are today trying to make a 5mb a second, 25 pin, scsi 1 device work on an LVD, 320MB a second, 68 pin cutting edge bus. NOT only that but the G5 has only a very few scsi cards that even work AND OS X is notoriously picky about proper scsi setup AND scanners are famous for having the drivers fail when moved from a motherboard based scsi bus to a scsi card.

Buy a supported (in OS X and the G5) scsi card. ATTO would be my choice. In the cards setup utility you will need to make it run in single ended mode NOT lvd mode. Also you will need to terminate the upper 18 pins that you won't be using for your scanner. Atto lets you do this in the setup utility You will want "High" termination if you have an ATTO card. It may be called something else in another brand card. Do not use Auto termination.

Buy a quality cable, pin adapter and terminator. I suggest Granite Digital. You need a pin adapter to get from 68 pins on the card to the 50 pins on the cable. The cable should go from the 50 pins on your card to whatever plug your scanner uses (50 or 25) then use an active terminator on the other port of your scanner. Do not use any internal terminator on the scanner. Yes you need to terminate the chain. The termination settings on the card ONLY terminate the upper 18 pins that you are not using, You have to terminate the 50 (or 25) pins you are using, the card cannot do this for you.

Expect whatever scanner software you were using before to fail, then buy VueScan software

This will be expensive to do so keep in mind what a new scanner that fits your need costs. On very expensive scanners it is worth it to make one work on a G5. If your scanner needs can be filled with a new firewire scanner for a reasonable price then that would be a much better way to go.

Damien,

You are my new scsi god.

Anyone who has the tenacity to make your setup work deserves my worship.

And you reinforce my opinion that it is better to leave the scanner work in 9 (which will handle it fine) than to mess with X on a G5.

Do you need any speed? The Ratoc scsi firewire converter is always well spoken of, and it is much cheaper than the scsi card setup. You would still need new software most likely... Honestly though your plan would be best. Since you have the older hardware to support it in OS 9 already then you have a working setup that requires no investment. No $$ needed is always a good thing 🙂

I love scsi but having done it for over a decade I understand it. It's certainly not as easy as SATA but it is faster, a lot faster in some cases and MUCH more scaleable. Better suited to a high end web server, intense video/audio or large network environment these days though.... or for uber geeks like me who must be weird...

(oops sorry Carl, I thought you were Bob there for a minute)

I had forgotten about the Ratoc adapter.

They work slick for hard drives but I don't know if they will work with the scanner as well. Also he will still need VueScan (if it works with the Imacon).

Bob,

I use an Adaptec 2930 card to hook up my Flextight Precision 3 scanner to my Dual-500 G4. I did not install any driver, it all worked just like that.
I was contemplating buying a G5 but already anticipated the mentioned problems in this thread. I am still considering the (now almost phased-out) dual-2G with PCI slots (not PCI-X). After all it seems a waste to dump my >$10,000 Flextight, which I really like.

ADPT,1686806-04:

Name: ADPT,2930**
Type: scsi
Bus: PCI
Slot: SLOT-C
Vendor ID: 0x9004
Device ID: 0x5078
Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x9004
Subsystem ID: 0x7850
Revision ID: 0x0003

Hello Marten,

it depends on the revision of the card also on the firmware (wich is soldered to the card).

Regards

Nicolas

I have exactly the same question except that I am considering updgrading from a G4 Mac to a G5 Mac and the only issue is whether I can connect my Imacon SCSI scanner.

Despite the caution expressed about OSX and SCSI, I have been running an U160 SCSI disk system from an Adaptec 29160N card. The scanner attaches to the card via a 50 to 68 pin connector and works fine. So Imacon scanner via SCSI-1 to OSX on a G4 is fine.

Othrwise there are no problems with th scanner so ideally I don't want to have to change it.

Miles,

there are no cards lower than U2W SCSI for the G5.

But faster cards are downward compatible.

1. Initio Miles U2W a good card and the most faforable too.
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/scsi/mgscsiinitioboards.php

2. ATTO UL3S or UL4S costly but great cards.
http://www.attotech.com/scsi.html

3. ACARD has a new 2 channel U160 PCI-X card.
http://www.acard.com.tw/english/fb01-product.jsp?idnono=116&prod_no=AEC-67162M&type1_title=Adapters&type1idno=3

Regards

Nicolas

Hello,

I have a similar problem with a different external device--a CD burner.

Within my PowerMac G4 (Digital Audio, system 10.3.9), I have an Adapted Power Domain 29160N with an external 68pin port. To that I have connected a 68pin to 50pin (SCSI 1) cable. The 50 pin is plugged into a external SCSI 1 CD box which contains a Yamaha CRW2100S. The burner is terminated internally with a jumper per the diagram on the unit. It was formally an internal drive and already had the jumper in place when I moved it into the box to use with my old Mac. This is the only device on the chain.

The SCSI card shows up in the System Profiler when the burner is attached, but does not show up when the drive is not attached or turned off.

The drive does not show up in the Profiler at any time. However, the drive has shown up in Toast on two occasions. Both of which were immediately after updating Toast. But a CD in the burner would not boot and hung Toast. After having to force quit Toast the burner no longer showed up.

Any ideas how I can get this burner recognized by the system?

Thanks
Ed

I've just recently come head to head with this issue. I've been using Vuescan with my Epson 836XL for a few years on my old G4 running the latest OS X with no problems. I now have a new Apple G5, but am not sure how or if I can hook up my scanner to it. The Epson 836XL is not supported by scsi to firewire devices I've found. The ports look different, although it's hard to really say without a ** picture (I'm not sure of the different terms to describe them). The scanner has one parallel port, two scsi ports and something called an OPTION port (3 rows, 26 holes) on the back of my scanner. Besides keeping my old G4 dedicated to scanning and networking via ethernet, any suggestions?

Powerbook17" G4 Tower, G5 Tower Mac OS X (10.4.3)

You need to Terminate your chain.