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New powermac G3 for free? Should I grab it?

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fs454

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 7, 2007
1,979
1,825
Los Angeles / Boston
Its possibly not free but there's a high chance of it being free. My school has a buttload of them in new condition, perfectly clean on the outside and inside.

It's a 300mhz G3 with 64mb RAM and a 6GB drive, and an ATI Rage 128.... Could I get Tiger onto this and make it fairly usable(add RAM/HDD/etc) just for the hell of it, or is it not worth it?

It currently is running OS 8, heh
 
H

Help!

macrumors regular
Nov 16, 2006
109
0
I use a 400mhz g4 as a fileserver using tiger, you could probably use it for that purpose.
 
T

Techguy172

macrumors 68000
Feb 2, 2007
1,782
0
Ontario Canada
Yeah it's probably not worth it if you have a newer mac it will just collect dust due to it being so slow, I mean what is it like 5/6 years old.
 
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mechelaar

macrumors newbie
Jun 30, 2007
6
0
Tiger will run on it ok. Fine as a file server. I have one that runs 10.4.11 with 60Gb and 80Gb old drives JBOD'd and a 40 Gig HD as a primary OS drive.

Serves two computers at my office.

What I am wondering is if it was possible to squeeze 3 500Gig HD's in it, JBOD them and use it as a Time Machine Network backup/FTP server. I guess my question is if the IDE bus will take 500G drives and see all 465G effective each? I'd like to figure it out before I go and invest into 500G PATA drives.

Thanks all.
 
iPhil

iPhil

macrumors 68040
Oct 4, 2005
3,061
39
A$$hat free location,and helping Mac bring back te
mechelaar said:
Tiger will run on it ok. Fine as a file server. I have one that runs 10.4.11 with 60Gb and 80Gb old drives JBOD'd and a 40 Gig HD as a primary OS drive.

Serves two computers at my office.

What I am wondering is if it was possible to squeeze 3 500Gig HD's in it, JBOD them and use it as a Time Machine Network backup/FTP server. I guess my question is if the IDE bus will take 500G drives and see all 465G effective each? I'd like to figure it out before I go and invest into 500G PATA drives.

Thanks all.
Click to expand...

To see the (3) 500GB drives,you need a SATA pci card and you'll see all of it .. I use a G4 DP GE as a file server going thru 10/100 Mb switch .. as for buckup for TM i'm going for this since it's endless on upgrade options. :D
 
CanadaRAM

CanadaRAM

macrumors G5
Oct 11, 2004
12,417
6
On the Left Coast - Victoria BC Canada
mechelaar said:
What I am wondering is if it was possible to squeeze 3 500Gig HD's in it,
Click to expand...

Like iPhil said, the machine is limited to 120 Gb IDE drives. The IDE controller can't count higher than 120 Gb.

Depending on the version of the machine, some only supported one IDE device per IDE bus, so effectively one hard drive and one optical drive

I would be worried about power supply capacity with three big drives in it, too.
 
M

mechelaar

macrumors newbie
Jun 30, 2007
6
0
That's what I was afraid of. I thought that if I can get away with 140Gb JBOD that it might see a drive over 120Gb, but I'm glad I got the answer to this before I spent the money on outdated tech.

It is a 400mHz B&W G3 with 640megs of RAM

Thanks Guys!
 
dukebound85

dukebound85

macrumors Core
Jul 17, 2005
19,131
4,110
5045 feet above sea level
mechelaar said:
That's what I was afraid of. I thought that if I can get away with 140Gb JBOD that it might see a drive over 120Gb, but I'm glad I got the answer to this before I spent the money on outdated tech.

It is a 400mHz B&W G3 with 640megs of RAM

Thanks Guys!
Click to expand...

it can run tiger for sure

i have a 400mhz imac with 256mb ram and it runs tiger. slow but usable
 
E

ethernet76

macrumors 6502a
Jul 15, 2003
501
0
mechelaar said:
That's what I was afraid of. I thought that if I can get away with 140Gb JBOD that it might see a drive over 120Gb, but I'm glad I got the answer to this before I spent the money on outdated tech.

It is a 400mHz B&W G3 with 640megs of RAM

Thanks Guys!
Click to expand...

I'd opt for linux over OS X for a file server.

But it is possible to get drives over 128 gb in older macs without buying a PCI ATA or SATA card.
 
M

mechelaar

macrumors newbie
Jun 30, 2007
6
0
ethernet76 said:
I'd opt for linux over OS X for a file server.

But it is possible to get drives over 128 gb in older macs without buying a PCI ATA or SATA card.
Click to expand...


Care to expand on that? You think that even a B&W G3 can see drives larger than 128gigs?
 
Lord Zedd

Lord Zedd

macrumors 6502a
Oct 24, 2007
512
0
Denver, Colorado
I really doubt the school will "give" one to you. Most schools throw them in storage for many years, trash them, recycle them or dispose of them in other ways for tax/budget purposes.
 
ojwk

ojwk

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2007
126
3
London
Lord Zedd said:
I really doubt the school will "give" one to you. Most schools throw then in storage for many years, trash them, recycle them or dispose of them in other ways for tax/budget purposes.
Click to expand...

I dunno. My old office couldn't throw away old computer equipment due to environmental concerns. That's how I got my PowerMac G5 1.8 Dual :D

As for the question at hand, I don't think it's really worth your time taking on that G3 if you already have a newer Mac. Those towers are fairly big and will probably just clutter the area where you will put it. Also there is the inevitable huge CRT monitor and tons of otherwise unnecessary cables. On the other hand if you don't have a newer Mac then this is a perfect opportunity to get one.
 
J

JJ07

macrumors newbie
Jan 4, 2008
4
0
That G3 will run OpenBSD, there is a PPC port. Use it as a web/file server, or as a testing box.
 
JSchwage

JSchwage

macrumors 6502a
May 5, 2006
580
33
Rochester, NY
Go grab it. You can turn it into a file server. I also remember reading about someone who turned his G3 into a media box for his home theater setup. The Power Mac G3 is quite good for playing DVDs since it has a dedicated "daughtercard" for DVD decoding.
 
F

fs454

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 7, 2007
1,979
1,825
Los Angeles / Boston
Can I stick a G4 chip in it?

Also, a SATA card for large drives? It'd be cool to run this thing hooked up to my HDTV setup(Though I know a 300mhz G3 will sit there and ask me if i'm serious if i were to throw HD content at it), but I may also be interested in throwing a Mac Mini there with a giant external for HD content.

I know the G3 in question, I have a choice from about 7 of them, has a CD drive only. I can upgrade this, though.

I'm just curious what I can do to it if I wanted.

I got $4000 in the bank solely for Apple stuff come the 15th and whenever :]
 
F

fs454

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 7, 2007
1,979
1,825
Los Angeles / Boston
Also, I talked to the guy in charge of said Powermac G3s and he said "I can't do anything with them, so you can have them/one"



They're currently running OS 8.6. Quite a trip back in time to use, even if I don't do anything with it, it'll be a cool looking piece of equipment and a semi retro OS to boot.
 
MacNerd12

MacNerd12

macrumors member
Dec 28, 2007
45
1
fs454 said:
Can I stick a G4 chip in it?

Also, a SATA card for large drives? It'd be cool to run this thing hooked up to my HDTV setup(Though I know a 300mhz G3 will sit there and ask me if i'm serious if i were to throw HD content at it), but I may also be interested in throwing a Mac Mini there with a giant external for HD content.

I know the G3 in question, I have a choice from about 7 of them, has a CD drive only. I can upgrade this, though.

I'm just curious what I can do to it if I wanted.

I got $4000 in the bank solely for Apple stuff come the 15th and whenever :]
Click to expand...

$4,000? Lucky ****! lol. When it comes to Apple stuff, I'd spend that in a few minutes though.
 
ojwk

ojwk

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2007
126
3
London
fs454 said:
I got $4000 in the bank solely for Apple stuff come the 15th and whenever :]
Click to expand...

Antiquated hardware can build up on you fast - no point getting the G3, waste of space. Pointless to spend money upgrading it when you are going to buy the latest and greatest Apple innovation released at MWSF. :D
 
Consultant

Consultant

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,314
34
I would not get the beige ones. If it's Blue & White, and it's free, it can be used as a file server.

Some company made G3 processor upgrades, there are probably G4 processor upgrades, but probably not worth the price to performance ratio, since the G3 motherboard is fairly slow.

It's cool to demo to the PC people how easily the (as of 2008, 9 year old) Blue & White opens up.
 
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