Help - G3, OS 8.6, 350mhz, 128MB takes 9 mins to start up.

Its been years since I've used pre-x so I'm a little rusty. It should only take 30sec.-1min to boot. Try starting with extensions off(Boot while holding down the shift key). If doesn't take long to boot, thats probably where the problem is. If its an extension, go into the extensions control panel and just check the "Apple only" box. You can then add the other extensions one at a time to figure out what the bad one is. Without knowing anything else, it sounds like there is some networking extension(netware or something similar) that is looking for the network or trying to login.

Or it could be something to do with a startup item. If you boot and get to the desktop quickly and then it slows down, it might be startup items. Check in the startup items control panel. If there's a bunch of stuff in there, it means the computer is opening programs at startup.

Also, it doesn't hurt to rebuild the desktop(boot while holding down the option and command keys).

This is unusual. Does it happen EACH time? Does it do nothing at all for a long while at first, then boot?

Often, older Macs need a new battery on the logic board. This helps with network settings, where the boot disk is, date/time, etc. One way to tell is when you finally get the desktop it will say Date and Time are set to 1904 or something similar.
The battery is 12 to 15$ at Radio Shack or online.
If you have a CD for system sopftware, boot from that and repair the dsik. This can delay startup.

Last, and hopefully NOT the issue, is extensions problems. This is one reason why 9 was such a chore to troubleshoot. These can cause problems. Extensions were external instructions that often could modify the entire OS in some way. Conflicts between them were common in OS 9/8.x/etc.. As the other poster suggested, try booting with the SHIFT key pressed. If its not significantly faster, then its most likely NOT the problem.

Post back with a few more details, and we can help out more.

RSengupta said:

I recently got a G3 [G3, OS 8.6, 350mhz, 128MB] - [it was hooked up to a work place network . . .] that is taking about 9 minutes to start up.
Since I don't know much about Macs, I would like to know if this is common.
If it is not, I would appreciate some suggestions to remedy this.
I'm thinking that it shouldn't take that long - but with my limited exposure to Macs - I just don't know.
I've tried looking around on the computer in case I spotted anything obvious -
but since I'm not really a tecchie - I'm not sure what I was trying to spot!!
I'd appreciate any help.
Thanks!
Robin

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It's more of a trial and error thing. Different Applications add different extensions as they're installed. You can make a 'set' of extensions of the bare minimum, and slowly start turning some on to satisfy those error messages, and when you're done figuring it out, you'll have a lean mean g3.

Lee Tom

RSengupta said:

It was much quicker with the shift key held down.
But I DID get some warnings about missing extensions . . .
Without the warning messages - about 30 - 40 seconds to start up.
I'll try rebuilding the desktop, too, but I'd like to know more about how to determine which extensions I do and do not need . . . I'm not going to be happy waiting 9 minutes each time I restart
😛
I appreciate your help. Thanks!

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Well, it sounds like an extension issue. There are a couple of ways to deal with it. One, trial and error with the extensions like the other poster said. And its tough to give help without being able to see whats being loaded. What error messages are you getting when you boot with extensions off?

Or, if you just inherited the machine and don't care whats on it, and if you have the original install cds, just reinstall the OS. Depending on the OS, there should be a restore option. That will bring it back to the original state. I've never had to do it before, but I'm thinking it will delete a lot of data...so if you need stuff on there it might not be the best idea. Or try a clean install...that should give you a fresh OS and should save the old stuff in an archive folder...

I could have sworn there was an option for a basic extension set in the control panel. Did you look in the little drop down menu in the extension manager control panel...try scrolling up from "My Settings" instead of down...

lol, I used to know this stuff like the back of my hand...but its been about 4years since I've done any real troubleshooting on the old MacOS... hmm I also just remembered that it might be a prefs issue...hopefully not...that can be a bear to deal with. 😱 Anyway, good luck! 😀

What kind of G3 Mac do you have? Is it a Blue and White PowerMac tower? Is it a G3 iMac? Regardless, in my opinion you'd be better off just upgrading to Mac OS 9.2 or Mac OS X if you can. Both the Blue and White Towers and the G3 iMacs are all OS X-compatible. But if you really want to stick with the "classic" Macintosh operating system as opposed to the new OS 10.x, I'd definitely go up to at least Mac OS 9.2. Upgrade CD's can be purchased from any number of places online and for a relatively cheap price. If you're not that familiar with Macs, there are tradeoffs to whether or not you choose to stay with Mac OS 8.x/9.x or Mac OS 10.x. Mac OS X has a much smoother and prettier interface and just might be easier to use than OS 8.x/9.x, plus the fact that because it's built upon the UNIX base, it's incredibly stable and will almost never crash and if a crash does occur, it will usually be individual applications that it happens to and they won't affect other open applications or the system. In Mac OS 8.x/9.x, if your system freezes up or crashes, odds are that there's a good chance that it will crash the whole system and force you to have to reboot and possibly lose unsaved documents or files you may ahve been working on. On the downside, Mac OS X tends to be much more demanding on your hardware and has high expectations of it to gain reasonable performance. Ideally, you'd want at least 256 MB RAM, preferably 512 MB. On my iMac G3 350 MHz that I'm using right now with 256 MB RAM and Mac OS 10.3 ("Panther"), things can be a little sluggish sometimes when I have many applications open at once or if I am doing anything really demanding on my graphics card such as video editing or graphics editing but generally my system is very responsive with most things. Your Mac will always be a little bit faster and responsive if you're running Mac OS 8.x/9.x but in my opinion, if you can make the upgrade to Mac OS X, do it, or at the very least upgrade to Mac OS 9.2. Trust me, either way you'll be glad that you did!

How is the harddrive? Is it pretty full, used a lot, been years since it been formatted? When it is in a network and you copy stuff from it or to it, is the data reliable? Does it quits the copy (especially with large files)? If this is the case: If you can, save all the important stuff, and format the harddrive three times (writing everything to zero's, the long format, not the short one). Then you know everything is empty! I think the harddrive could be too fragmented, happened to my G3 B&W.

I too, recomment a format and reinstallation... assuming you still have the disks...

It will make that mac run like new again.

IF you can find it, get a hold of CONFLICT CATHCER. It was the best way to trouble shoot extension. Cassidy and Greene published it. I think they have gone uner, but you can reach them (maybe still) at conflictcatcher@yahoo.com

RSengupta said:

I'm not sure what happened along the way - I'll tell you that up front.
Bottom line - when I start her up - I get just one warning/info message - it is about AppleTalk.

Here's the text of the warning message:
"An Apple system error occured. (Please run the chooser to activate AppleTalk). If you have volumes set to mount at startup you may need to throw away your AppleShare Prep file. Consult your documentation."

One of the things I did somewhere along the way was to make AppleTalk Inactive. I don't know exactly when I did that but I just made it active again - and it is doing its 9-minute thing [the first Mac OS 8.6 screen in the background and the pointer alternates between pointer & clock . . . every minute or so . . .]. It just did that & came up after around 9 minutes.
I'm inclined to think that AppleTalk is the problem but I don't know the implications of making it inactive. To begin with [meaning . . . right now] I am not interested in networking - but I might want to network with my son's PC later for two-player games [Warcraft . . .].
I like the idea of a clean install - or a totally new install. Since I plan to use this Mac to also get into audio recording on Macs - I'm not really interested in using it for a lot else . . ..
Since activating AppleTalk sent me back to the 9-minute startup - I'm going to make it inactive again. How do I get rid of that message? What is the 'AppleShare Prep file'? How do I 'throw it away'?
Thanks again for all your help.
I have to say I really like what I have experienced of this Mac already. I can't say why - but I am finding this a really cool experience - almost like I'm 'coming home' though I've never used a Mac before . . . 🙄 . . . hmm . . . I'd better stop before I get totally incoherent . . . or start saying things like 'I'm in love with my Mac . . .' [to the tune of 'I'm in love with my car' by Queen/Freddie Mercury] - I know that dates me a little!
Will a new install get rid of the AppleTalk & the option to network later? How do I do a re-install? Or is AppleTalk something that will be there waiting to be activated if I choose to do so later - after a re-install?
Thanks!
Robin

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RSengupta said:

"An Apple system error occured. (Please run the chooser to activate AppleTalk). If you have volumes set to mount at startup you may need to throw away your AppleShare Prep file. Consult your documentation."

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Aha! I think your mac is looking to mount some network drive or something. Was it on a network before? Try deleting the AppleShare Preferences file, probably in System Folder -> Preferences, by dragging it to the trash. Then keep appletalk off, restart, and that should solve your problem.

Lee Tom

Converted2Truth said:

I too, recomment a format and reinstallation... assuming you still have the disks...

It will make that mac run like new again.

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Also upgrade to os 9.2.2, it will make a huge improvement with stability. Os 8 wasn't very stable, not on my G3 B&W.

Your B&W G3 can handle up to a gig of RAM, which I recommend looking for on eBay for good deals sometimes (the user Saltomer sells Mac RAM and I've bought from him before and was impressed with the quality) or you can look at places such as www.memorysolutions.com. Just be sure that with buying memory for your B&W G3 that it's definitely APPLE CERTIFIED because if it isn't, there's no telling what kind of quirks could happen with buying generic PC RAM that uses different firmware (I've heard all sorts of horror stories about it so I wouldn't chance it).

As far as a hard drive goes, your B&W G3 can't have a hard drive biger than 120GB in size without installing an extra PCI card that will allow it to recognize drives larger than that.

If you're considering installing OS X, upgrade the graphics card to something with at least 32MB VRAM. Again, make sure the graphics card you buy is Mac-compatible (ATI is, in my opinion, a better choice than NVIDIA as it seems to be better supported)

Depending on the optical drive, you might want to replace the stock CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive with a newer, faster combo drive. You can get an internal CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive fairly cheap these days.

Processor-wise, the B&W G3 can be upgraded to at least a G4 running at 1.0GHz, maybe faster, although the fastest upgrade card I could find for it was this one available from Sonnet technologies: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/encore.html And, by the way, Sonnet makes VERY good processor cards as I've used one of their Crescendo cards to upgrade an old Mac I have and it went without a hitch.

Hope this helps!

First things first. If i was you, i would try to upgrade your RAM first. The second thing that i would do is to search around for optical drives that are compatable for OS X, and supported by it burning software. If you are going to buy an optical drive, most Pioneer DVD-RW drives and the Sony Combo Drives are compatable.

When looking for optical drives (or anything else) i would recamend three websites:
PriceWatch
NewEgg
and of course Ebay.com

After you have the bear neccesities to run OS X, then i would look into installing it. It should run fast on your B&W, since it runs quite nicely on my Beige G3.

The next thing that i would do is to look at diffrent processors. Sometimes on ebay you can find factory processors, from people who upgraded their computers. If you can't find what you want there look here:
Other World Computing (OWC)

at OWC you will be able to many upgradeable processors for your specific G3, and some other parts too. I bought my upgrade processor from them for my G3. Their service is excellant, and the customer service is even better.

Hope this info. helps you out some.

Ryan

RSengupta said:

I just want to thank all of you for the really helpful input.
After I messed around in the extensions control panel and de-selected AppleShare - I stopped getting the error messages & the machine starts up in under a minute.
I'll try and see what's on the hard drive next.
Yes - it was connected to a network before I got it & I suspected that I might have to do something so it wouldn't take so long to boot. In retrospect, it was pretty straightforward, really - once I got advice on what to do & where to look. The Mac help files are pretty good, too.
This is a B&W G3 tower [Power Mac G3?]. I have all the disks etc - but since I was going to upgrade the OS & all that - I'm going to wait till I get all that.
I am going to upgrade the OS, get a faster processor and put 4 256MB memory sticks in there.
Any suggestions on the best place to get this stuff?
PCI100 256MB RAM,
Faster processor [how fast is possible on this machine? Is dual processor a possibility?
After the info above about the demands of OSX . . . I'm not sure whether to jsut stick with 9.2 or thereabouts. Is that a better bet? [My primary aim is to use this Mac for audio multi-track recording].
What are the best brands?
Reliable online dealers / support . . . ???
Thanks again!!
Robin

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You are pretty safe in leaving appleshare turned off. Its actually better to leave it off for security reasons. Appletalk is different, and the only reason you'd probably use it is for network printing. Not much else use for it at home. If your not network printing, you can probably turn off appletalk too, but its no big deal to leave it on.

I had a B&W g3. You definitely want to upgrade the ram first. Best thing you can do. RAM you can get pretty much anywhere, but make sure the place is reputable. PC/Mac ram is basically the same, as long as the specs are right for your machine. I like crucial.com but there are plenty of other places around.

You can also upgrade to osX. It'll run pretty sluggishly, but nothing horrible. And the benefits in stability make it worthwhile in my opinion. I think I upgraded my old machine through 10.2...so I don't know if it'll have any problems running 10.3. You can probably find that out on Apple's website. Unless you hate the performance hit, its probably a good idea to upgrade. The old OS is largely unsupported now(X has been out for over 4 years now).

You can upgrade the video, but I don't know if its worth it. I went from a Rage128 to a Radeon... it was a marginal performance boost. I think there is a new ati 9200 that might work. The 9200 is probably your best bet if you can get one. I'm not a big fan of CPU upgrades, but don't let that stop you. They are pretty cheap now and can give you a boost. I think the problem with these is that there are sometimes incompatibilities...Apple doesn't really try to make sure everything works on them. Also, the problem with a CPU upgrade and a video upgrade is that your still stuck with the slow bus speeds of the motherboard. Thats where the big bottleneck will be. So its not like going to a 1ghz G4 cpu will be equivalent to a 1ghz g4 tower from Apple. I just don't know if they are worth the trouble...

Here's a link for upgrades:

http://eshop.macsales.com/Accelerators/index.cfm

I'd say upgrade the RAM for sure. Then use your machine for bit before diving into video and cpu upgrades. You might find that it might be cheaper just to buy a used DA or Quicksilver.

you can check here for used mac pricing and sales:

http://www.powermax.com/

If your going to get another drive...I say get an external fw400 or triple interface. That way you can keep it if you upgrade to a newer Mac.