OK, here’s the distillation of all the basic knowledge I’ve gained from this BBS, making the I-opener basically useful. Mine’s run flawlessly for nearly two years, despite the fact that my non-technical roommate installed that horrible AOL garbage on it, which will slow nearly any system down.
I have a V2, nearly identical to yours except that I had to flash the BIOS (using the qnxflash trick). So you're already one step ahead of that. Hell, you’ve got it comparatively easy, my friend. Once you've worked out what OS you’re using (Win98 in my case), how to mount your HD (I got the IMOD2) and your cooling method (I used the Lasagna), you're pretty much set. I'm no system analyst or programmer, I'm just a good mechanic, and I've found that the three simplest essential things that make the unit useful are:
1) UPGRADE TO THE WINCHIP2. There's a dealer that advertises on eBay, go to their link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2009536227 ; dealer was very helpful. I didn’t ask for the 233 hack they offer, so no data on that.
2) UPGRADE THE MEMORY TO 128MB. Check this link for exact compatible brands/models: http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowPost&Board=verytech&Post=85&Idle=0&Sort=0&Order=Descend&Page=0&Session= . First and second generation iMac PC66 SODIMMs seem to work consistently, and name brand chips are usually a safer bet than unknown/generic.
3) USE THE PCI BUS/HD TWEAK. Thread is at http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowPost&Board=verytech&Post=145&Idle=0&Sort=0&Order=Descend&Page=0&Session= . Follow his instructions carefully so you don’t cook your drive. This trick is DEFINITELY worth it, increased my operating speed by about 25%.
As for OS tweaks, there are too many to list; you're on your own, but you'll be able to find everything imaginable on this BBS. If you're using Windows, definitely get the VIA chipset and Cyberblade drivers, links are:
http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=3292&category=main and
http://www.linux-hacker.net/downloads/cyberblade-i7.zip
This is the sum total of what I’ve done with the thing, save that for convenience I have a USB SuperDisk which I got lucky and found cheap on mail order, and a standard USB external CDROM case I found at a show. Happy hacking.
