Upgrade Noritsu 3001 Motherboard

[Baboo]

Dear All,

Because nowadays digital images are larger and larger, almost 3000x4000 pixel, my QSS-3001 is becoming slower and slower to process these images. Could anyone tell me if it is possible to change the whole motherboard to an Intel P4 dual Xenon server model ?

Thanks.

[teccadiz]

Hi Baboo,
I think is possible. But first, check the size and connectors and find a mother board with the same dimension and features.
I dont know if you can put the Intel P4 inside the gabinet, so you need check.
But, i would like to know that i never did this modification ...
Good luck and tell me if you get it.

[Alan]

I've asked about this officially, and unfortunately, have got nowhere. The only official answer I got was "buy a newer and faster machine"
Not wanted I wanted to hear.
If anyone finds a way to speed this machine up, they would make a fortune as there are so many of them, and everyone is having the same problems.
Let us know if you manage to do anything that works and is reliable.

[Baboo]

Dear All,

Thanks for your advise. Anyway I'll clone the HD to a testing platform and upgrade the windows 2k from standard PC to ACPI kernel.

I need to prepare the hardware and schedule the maintenance, please give me some time.

Hope this will be a good news to 3001 owner and everyone can DIY.

Baboo

[teccadiz]

Hi Baboo,
Take care with this. There some comunication boards that has a specific driver to work and this driver is denveloped to work only in W2K. the Arctnet and LVDS boards...
good luck guys...

[Baboo]

Hi All,

Good news to 3001 user!! Since I'm not full time on my D & P shop and I have been to other country for a period of time, so just back to my research a few days.

I've just upgraded my 3001 last night. Same as most of us said, the Image Board won't speed up any more, but the CPU processing power have a dramatic improvement [around 300%-400%] and the disk 1/0 (tmp directory to store processed data) also improve a lot [around 30%].

I have performed a test on 36 images taken by D70, each one is ~3-4MB, the total CPU processing time is around 20sec (view by performance monitor). Compare the old cpu and mother board required 45 sec more. The waiting time is 30-40% less on each page if I start to print at once. If you wait for 20 sec, the interval between each page is instantaneous.

What is my hardware configuration ? Intel motherboard, Intel 630 CPU, Hitachi SATA HD, 1GB DDR400 Memory.

All my trouble is I didn't have Noritsu software, so I need to direct upgrade my current windows 2k. Fortunately, I didn't face any problem.

If anyone have interest, I can share with him.

[Julio Barrios]

Hey Baboo! These are great news!!
Thanks for the info.

Julio Barrios

[Frank]

Hi Baboo,
Congratulations...
What mother board are you using now ?
How did you do to connect the COM2 ( colometer )? are you using any multiserial board ?
About the CPU, what kind CPU are you using ?
Can you tell us the specifications ?? CPU, Motherboard ...
Now i´m using a new CPU in my QSS3001, i´m using a Intel Pentium 3 1.0Ghz ...

[Baboo]

I use Intel 915GAV, onboard Intel VGA, I afraid to choose other brand name or AGP card, I think better match the current ricoh MB color output because also Intel VGA.

I change the com1 to com2, tailor made a dip to db9 cable.

I use p4 630 cpu. I choose 915GAV because (i) cheap for testing , (ii) 4 pci, we use 3 of them and spare one for my future plan RAID. Now have more choice.

there is a problem on the timer wake up from system board to new motherboard, since old Ricoh FB5U is tailor made the front panel, u must get the pin assignment from Ricoh Japan. But I can tell u the pin 18 and pin 23 need to connect new MB pwr sw jumper, they can wake up ur new MB by timer.

more and more question u will face,but u need to start upgrade

[Frank]

Baboo,
thanks a lot for your information.
i´m trying find this mother board here in my country.
like i said you, i put a new CPU ( P3 1.0ghz ) in the ricoh mother board and now i´m working good.
i put a new memories ( 2 banks dimm 256 ) in the image process and i improve 25 % in the scanning negatives...
well, congratulations and thanks a lot....

[Frank]

Baboo,
Whats the mother board dimension you use ?? i think we dont have space inside the 3001...the max space is 31 x 21 cm aprox...

[Baboo]

Hi Frank,

Lucky to meet you here, I suppose you also bought a 3001, right? Unfortunately, the dimension of 3001 case is not ATX standard, it's about 31 x 23cm (I measure more than 10 times). If I put my Intel otherboard inside, I need to modify/cut away little part of the case (upper of keyboard and below of zip drive). I choose Intel MB because of its stable and less $$ of DDR memory last month. If you don't want to modify the machine, you can purchase Giga-byte 8I945G / 8I945G-Pro motherboard, it fits into the case.

This motherboard is more powerful then my one, support Pentium D, DDR2, SATA Raid (but not true cache controller), gigabit ethernet.

Hope you can also upgrade so s...l...o...w... machine, I hate Noritsu because they don't give us enough support for our owner, as you know, we already paid a lot of $$ to buy their machine. They all ask for $$. Agree ?

If you want some more info, please give me your e-mail so that I can discuss with you more.

Baboo

[Frank]

Baboo,
I add you in my MSN ...
May be there we can change some ideas.

[Piotr]

Hi Baboo,

I have one of the first QSS-3001, and had problems with it all the time. The only thing that hasn't been replaced are racks and casing, and monitor.
I've been thinking about replacing mother board and started to look in the internet and found on forum that you've done upgrade of QSS matherboad. I'd like to do the same, could you brief me haw you did this? but more detailed. I know, that it isn't an easy thing to do,
thanks a lot,
Peter

[Baboo]

Frank and Piotr,

I have long time not using my yahoo mailbox, which has been disabled by yahoo. Please send mail to me or add me to your MSN for more details - maxibaboo@hotmail.com.

Upgrading mother board is not so hard, but should remember which parts / cables you detached, restore to the new mother board and reinstall the windows 2k. If you have general knowledge on PC installation, that's good.

I have compared the performance before and after upgrade. My old system already upgrade to 512MB SD memory, PIII 733MHz CPU. New system with 1GB DDR memory Pentium 4 3.0GHz 2M cache CPU.

Here is another review.

Print 36 exp >4MB photo , press "Start" once 6 pic displayed. The total job time shown below (I also know the print out time won't improve a lot, but won't engage your job queue)

old system at network drive : 4 min 20 sec
new system at network drive : 1 min 30 sec
new system at local harddisk : 1 min 20 sec

For normal customer with 1-2M photo, "no wait" is need at PJP mode. This is just for your reference, you may try at your machine.

The main purpose of my upgrade is to save my time on waiting the system to display 6 exp, sometimes all 6 exp are printed out but the computer still processing next 6 pic, the imaging board is idel at this situation. If I fully queue all image to print, at least I can start next order. Agree ?

Baboo