Old Magma Expansion Units are not compatible with MacPro and MacBook Pro

If you are using a 4 yr old ( and older) 1slot, 2slot, 4slot units they are not compatible with MacBook Pro even if you replace the Cardbus Card with ExpressCard. Because the main expansion board uses an old DEC chip, which is known not compatible with MacBook Pro.

Same thing with a PCI to PCI expansion unit. If you have a 4 yr old (and older) 7slot, 13slot and 4slot PCI units they are not compatible with MacPro even if you replace the PCIHIF68 host card with PCIExpress Host card.

To make your expansion to be compatible with either MacBook or MacPro you need to replace the main expansion board, backplane + the host card.
Other expansion units may require you to replace everything including the cable and enclosure.

To identify whether the mainboard is compatible or not you need to verify if the Bridge CHIP is Pericom.Only Pericon chip is compatible with MacBook Pro and Mac Pro.
If the bridge chip is Intel ( Dec21150,21154, 21152), then it is not compatible with MacBook Pro and MacPro.

This is what a Pericom Bridge chip looks like

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Magma on October 11, 2009 at 1:39pm

On the other hand, if you had upgraded your mainboard a year ago it may work with MacBook Pro or MacPro.
The compatible expansion board should have a Pericom chip that has a logo with letter P and a bolt.

So, if your expansion board has the Pericom chip, it should work with MacBook Pro or MacPro.

Now, this is only compatibility between the expansion unit and MacBook Pro / MacPro, 3rd party PCI cards are not included in this.
Although the expansion unit is compatible with MacBook Pro or MacPro it does not mean the 3rd party PCI card (inside the expansion unit) is or will be compatible with either MacBook or MacPro.

Permalink Reply by XpansionX on October 11, 2009 at 1:51pm

Why 3rd party PCI cards would not work?

PCI cards don't work with MacPro when using our Magma Expansion chassis even if you are connecting via a Magma PCie host card. PCI card mus have a Universal Binary Driver and updated Apple firmware in order to work with MacPro Intel-based machine.

How to ID or verify if your PCI card is supported?
When you see the Universal symbol on Mac applications, that means they’re made to run on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Mac computers. Simply install them as usual. They’ll automatically run at peak performance for your Mac’s architecture. And, it bears repeating, if your Mac is powered by an Intel processor, that performance will be nothing less than astounding — up to 4X what is possible on PowerPC-based machines. You need to contact the manufacturer of the PCI cards.

http://www.apple.com/universal/

Permalink Reply by Joss Joss on October 11, 2009 at 2:09pm

Thanks for the info, it is now clear for me and it kept me from doing the mistake of buying an old unit.

Thanks again

Permalink Reply by Dan Lewis on October 15, 2009 at 10:03am

Is this applicable to G5 PPC ( with PCIE slot)?

Permalink Reply by Magma on October 15, 2009 at 10:08am

Yes, this also applies to G5 PPC ( with PCIE slots). This means if you are using a G5 PPC (with PCIE slots) you must upgrade your expansion unit to be compatible. The only way to upgrade it is by replacing the host, cable, mainboard expansion interface card. And with a very old expansion enclosure you will be replacing that too because newer board-set won't fit properly inside of it.

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