Troubleshooting Mac OS X 10.3.x.: Graphics cards fix; HP printer problems; more

Graphics card fix working for brands other than 3Dfx Yesterday's reported Terminal-based workaround for removing limitations from 3Dfx cards under Mac OS X 10.3.x has been confirmed by several readers, and is also working for cards from other manufacturers.

For reference, the Terminal command is as follows: sudo nvram boot-args="romndrv=1" followed by a restart.

MacFixIt reader Gary Mickels writes: "I have an old out of date IX Micro PCI video card. I installed 10.3 and sure enough I lost my second display. While looking around for a new video card I noticed your possible fix for getting 3rd party 3D cards to work again. I followed the directions posted and copied the terminal command into my terminal and restarted the computer. It worked! Thanks to David Besade."

Initio issues statement on Panther, G5 compatibility After several reader reports on the issue, Initio has posted an official statement regarding Mac OS X 10.3.x and G5 compatibility with its Advansys 3940UW SCSI card:

"The 3940UW does NOT work in the G5 machines and it does NOT work under OS X.3. There will not be any further development for this adapter."

Initio also has a statement about G5 compatibility for all of its SCSI cards:

"Apple has three G5 models, the 1.6 GHz, 1.8 GHz and 2GHz.  In our testing we have found that none of our SCSI adapters work in these machines, as they are not compatible with the PCI-X slots used in the new G5."

The answer to HP printer problems? We previously reported on several workarounds for restoring "low ink" printing functionality to HP printers, as well as resolving other problems such as the inability to print in draft mode. Arne Berglund suggests the Open Source Linux Drivers:

"GIMP-print is a good option for the DeskJet 900 series unless you have the duplexer installed. GIMP-print does not support the duplexer well. And I have found that using an earlier HP driver doesn't duplex properly on my G4 dual 533 with Panther either.

"My answer - Open Source Linux drivers and Ghostscript (open source PostScript interpreter). Using this combination treats my DJ952C w/duplexer as a PostScript printer, and has restored more printing options than I have had since OS 9 - Draft, Draft grayscale, Normal, Normal grayscale, etc. I found them here: http://www.linuxprinting.org/macosx/hpijs/

"In addition, the standalone version of HP's commercial driver installers (not the one on the Panther CDs) allows you to install the Utility without installing the driver. (Select Custom Install, not Easy Install.) So I now have the HP Utility (to check ink levels, clean heads, etc.) and the open source drivers with all their options - the best of all worlds, in my opinion."

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