The "5500/6500 L2 Cache Disable" extension is obsolete and is no longer needed.
When the Power Macintosh 5500/225, 6500/225 and 6500/250 computers first began to ship in March, 1997, Apple received several reports of users having difficulty installing various software packages on their hard drive.
The symptom was typically an error message from an installer application stating that there was some kind of installation error. After a complete investigation, Apple found that a limited number of Power Macintosh 5500 and 6500 computers would experience this symptom depending on 256K L2 cache and logic board configuration.
During this investigation period, Apple distributed the "5500/6500 L2 Cache Disable" extension to temporarily disable the 256K L2 cache DIMM on the logic board until users could have their computer serviced by an authorized Apple service provider. This allowed users to install software on their computer without difficulty.
All Power Macintosh 5500/225, 6500/225 and 6500/250 computers in production after April, 1997 should not experience this issue. This issue can occur in only a small percentage of Power Macintosh 5500 and 6500 computers that fall within these serial number ranges:
- PM 5500 from TY705xxxxx to TY716xxxxx
- PM 6500 from XB708xxxxx to XB718xxxxx
Note: The L2 Cache Disbale Extension was removed from Apple Software Updates in May, 1998 and is no longer available.