Suggested Upgrades to a PowerMac G3

[Zagreus]

I am going to purchase a PowerMac G3 over the next couple of days and I want to take it up to it's maximum specifaction so what would you suggest? The RAM will be upgraded to 1GB and the hard drive to 120GB from the current 256mb RAM and the 40GB HDD currently onboard and I will take it up to Tiger but is there anything else I should add in order to make this into a usable home computer for kids or the office? I've had suggestions to add in extra floppy drives and the like but what does everyone think?

 

[300D]

what would you suggest?

Don't waste any money upgrading a $25 10 year old computer. Instead of really really slow, it will just be really slow.

 

[wahooh]

????

seriously, with the money you'll have to spend for the RAM, HDD & Flobby drive???? sell it on ebay and and get a refurbished WAY better machine!!! Your kids won't have any fun even with an upgraded G3!
come on man! what funny question... you already got a 17"MBP, would you go all the way back to a G3 back?

 

[Zagreus]

I know I've got a 17" MBP but the PowerMac's just a toy to play with, it's more got sentimental value than anything else, might just leave it in the state it's in so I can run OS 9.

 

[zmttoxics]

Um. You can get a G4 that runs OS 9, and not a complete waste of cash (though getting close).

 

[giffut]

Frankly, ...

... don´t try to use OSX 10.4 "Tiger" on this, just stick with OSX 10.3 "Panther". Some personal experience regarding older machines:

No OSX 10.1 or 10.2, reliability and performance starts with OSX 10.3

G3 = 10.3 with at least 512MB
G4 = 10.4 with maximized RAM
G4 with Core Image capable video card, maximized RAM, and SATA drives via additional PCI card = 10.5 (may be)

Your RAM is already maximised using 1GB total.

If any of your internal harddrives failes, grab a cheap SiliconImage 3132 PCI SATA card with two internal ports and make the jump to SATA drives (IDE is going nowhere anymore, is worse performance wise and actually increasingly expensive).

And if your kids at any point of time are loathing for Facebook, YouTube and the like, off it goes to your historical cabinet - because those web based services will eat it, beat it, hang it, bang it.