blue and white powermac advice

[kristiaand]

Hi everyone,
as normal i am after some nuggets of advice from you guys, as i have more of an idea about the new mac's n there hardware than the old ones.

i have just been given a blue & white powermac (think thats the yosimite edition?)by a friend of mine.

spec:
G3 350Mhz PPC processor.
640(ish) MB of Ram
60Gb Hdd.

what advice i would like is in regards to upgrading the CPU in it to something a bit quicker and what the extra long white expansion slots are and will it run os x at all. if these are'nt possible can you guys give me some advice as to what i could use it for as a os9 system?

i have some plans to upgrade the graphics card, memory and hard drive, but these all hinge on being able to upgrade the CPU.

sorry about the randomness of this post but im writing it out as my brain thinks of it.

 

[craigsharp@spym]

You most certainly can upgrade your processor. But it'll cost you a pretty penny or two... Sonnet makes a G4 upgrade that runs $150 for a 500mhz G4 processor or $300 for a 1.0Ghz.

As is right now, you can run OSX up to and including 10.4 which is Tiger. I would definitely recommend getting a new video card and a SATA controller card so you can put in a large capacity HDD.

 

[AlexMaximus]

Good news for you !!!

Hi everyone,
as normal i am after some nuggets of advice from you guys, as i have more of an idea about the new mac's n there hardware than the old ones.

i have just been given a blue & white powermac (think thats the yosimite edition?)by a friend of mine.

spec:
G3 350Mhz PPC processor.
640(ish) MB of Ram
60Gb Hdd.

what advice i would like is in regards to upgrading the CPU in it to something a bit quicker and what the extra long white expansion slots are and will it run os x at all. if these are'nt possible can you guys give me some advice as to what i could use it for as a os9 system?

i have some plans to upgrade the graphics card, memory and hard drive, but these all hinge on being able to upgrade the CPU.

sorry about the randomness of this post but im writing it out as my brain thinks of it.

Much things you can do here.....

You can even squeeeze a G4 CPU in with 1 GHz !!!

Have a look at this link:

http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upg...ype=Processor&TI=3713&shoupgrds=Show+Upgrades

 

[Dave H]

One caveat with G4 upgrades in a B&W: The 700MHz and higher G4s are a different version of the G4 chip, which doesn't like the 100MHz bus speed. These will require lowering the bus speed to 66MHz, which will affect performance. G4 upgrades below 700MHz, and all G3 upgrades, can use the full bus speed.

 

[DZ/015]

kristiaand,

Are you doing this as a hobby/diversion/learning experience or are you looking to get a computer that is useable by today's standards? I ask because to upgrade the CPU, memory and video card (PCI only) you can easily spend $500. The lowest price mini is only $100 more and will easily outperform the B&W in every respect.

There were 2 revisions of logic boards for the B&W. The rev.1 board has known corruption issues running with larger hard drives and slave drives. Also, the IDE bus is ATA-33 and will not be able to fully utilize drives larger than 128GB on both revisions, so a hard drive controller PCI card is recommended for acceptable performance and reliability. The firewire modules on these units were flaky and have been known to fail. They are also very picky when it comes to RAM.

The expansion slots are PCI type. The slot containing the video card runs at 66MHz, the other 3 are 33MHz slots.

Sorry to sound so depressing, I just want you to be aware of what you are getting yourself into when upgrading an old smurf. They do run OS 8.6 and 9 very well. If you have older software you would like to run, these machines are pretty nice. For OS X, I'd look elsewhere.

 

[KítscheñÇinqµe]

To the OP: considering the prices given in replies, if you can't find use with OS 9, i'd pass the g3 along, while waiting until something better falls into your hands (like a g4).

Almost all manuals, etc pdfs on *.apple.com are for beige g3 (way different computer)
AFAIK, this is the only PDF they have for B&W:
http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Manuals/desktops/0340687APWRMACG3SU.PDF
More PCI freakiness from that pdf:
You can use the three 33 MHz expansion slots to install
* three 15 W cards
* one 15 W or 25 W card
* two 15 W or 25 W cards
* one 15 W card and one 25 W card
(is this just a max W of 50W?)

Might be slightly interesting:
http://macfaq.org/cgi-bin/decoder.pl

Rev1 mobo IDE corruption seems to occur for added or replaced hds:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G3-ZONE/yosemite/index.html
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G3-ZONE/yosemite/problems.html
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G3-ZONE/yosemite/IDE/
But my b&w is rev2, so i didn't read thoroughly.
Your (OP's) 60Gb must be a replacement. (that 640ish RAM is nice...)


My recent inheritance is similar:
(mobo sticker Yosemite
(rear case sticker
350MHz 1m cache 64mb sdram 6gb hd/dvd-rom
(inside
Maxtor 9064803 6gb3/19/99
Api 8594 psu 200w
5v 20a
3.3v 20 [sum 5+3.3, 100w]
12v 8a
12v .5a
+5 .72a
ati 128 rage pro (This ATI has the DVD option.)
Apacer pny 64mb unb pc100
128m-133

Apple -> About This Mac
10.2.8 6r73 [Jaguar]
192mb 350mhz
bus 100mhz
l2 cache 1mb
g3 version 2.2 (I believe that "2.2" is the pcb rev#)
boot rom 1.1f4 (firmware, yes?)
d54a matshita dvd-rom sr-8583
a3114vqc rev gas54a12 (maxtor HD)

It takes a while to power up.
I've done nothing but a little poking around. i want to setup at least the ipfw, but i've begun looking for an app fw that'll run on 10.2 jag.
I also want to swap out the dvd for a DVD-RW LG GSA-H10N, so i can burn.
I would like to install a floppy since I don't have a flashdrive, but floppies had just been banned by apple. I think the mobo lacks controller (and FD plug).

 

[Chaos123x]

I put a g4 processor in mine.

It's also has Tiger on it.

Runs great, but I don't have it hooked up, just have it as a decoration.

Would try to get Leopard on it, but target mode won't work and I am not buying it a dvd player just to test it and mess around.

 

[kristiaand]

kristiaand,

Are you doing this as a hobby/diversion/learning experience or are you looking to get a computer that is useable by today's standards? I ask because to upgrade the CPU, memory and video card (PCI only) you can easily spend $500. The lowest price mini is only $100 more and will easily outperform the B&W in every respect.

There were 2 revisions of logic boards for the B&W. The rev.1 board has known corruption issues running with larger hard drives and slave drives. Also, the IDE bus is ATA-33 and will not be able to fully utilize drives larger than 128GB on both revisions, so a hard drive controller PCI card is recommended for acceptable performance and reliability. The firewire modules on these units were flaky and have been known to fail. They are also very picky when it comes to RAM.

The expansion slots are PCI type. The slot containing the video card runs at 66MHz, the other 3 are 33MHz slots.

Sorry to sound so depressing, I just want you to be aware of what you are getting yourself into when upgrading an old smurf. They do run OS 8.6 and 9 very well. If you have older software you would like to run, these machines are pretty nice. For OS X, I'd look elsewhere.

hi mate thanks for the reply, i was doing it as a little bit of them all really. my PC desktop is broken and its not the first time. so far my pc has gone through 2 primary drives and 4 raid drives. i have no idea what is up with it but i have given up trying.

as mentioned i was given it and hoped that i could use it to replace my desktop but if its going to cost me about the same as a mini i may get a mini instead(i love those little macs)

i did look for the processor upgrade but there no longer available in the UK which means i have to pay to get one shipped over from the states. after the shipping and import taxes its not a viable upgrade.... was the better part of £300.00 which is a lot just for a G4 upgrade.

i will proberbly ebay it or pass it onto someone who wants to tinker with an older mac, ive also got a Green Imac as well which is sitting up in my attic at the moment as thats 2 slow to run anything decently although it does have a load of memory in it again