Return of the Beige G3

[comda]

Greetings Fellow PowerPc fans!

For the longest time i've wanted to revive my Old Desktop Beige Power Macintosh G3. Its been sitting in my closet for about 2 years now and firing it up it quickly came back to life. Seeing another fellow post here about the same system got me thinking what i can do with it. I've seen many guys get leopard to run on these old timers with a G4 CPU in it but i dont really want to spend any cash on it.

I've dug around in my room to find 2 Startech usb 2.0/1.0 PCI cards as well as (yes) 2 Firewire 400 cards. But not sure if i really need the firewire. I realize firmware doesnt know USB but the software will once its installed. How can i be sure that any of my cards have support by OSX?

In the terms of OSX i know this machine can run Jaguar 10.2.8 (legally, according to apple) but i know using Xpostfacto i can get up to tiger on this machine. I was thinking maybe getting Panther going on it as the machine has its standard on board graphics. And is currently booting Os 9.

I tried getting the floppy disk drive to work but according to the previous owner that i bought it from years ago it was shot. So a few months ago while at work someone brought in a dead Power Macintosh 7500 that was dead. And even if not by the time i found it at the back it was mainly stripped of its Ram, CPu and other cards. So i snagged the Floppy disk drive haha.

A few months ago i also ran into this: https://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/index.cfm?page=zif/beigejumpers.html

Its a jumper guide for the jumper settings beside the clock battery and covered by the "warranty void if removed" sticker. But i dont want to void my warranty! But anyways was wondering if anyone has overclocked this Macintosh and how high is a safe bet? i dont want to kill it.. Its currently clocked at the stock 233Mhz. But like maybe to 350-400 would be nice. This thing flies in os 9 it would be nice to give it a kick if i can right?

This is just a question i have from looking at the motherboard. Beside the RAM slots there is a expansion card of some sort. What is that? i know its not VRAM because thats the laptop RAM looking slot which is empty. So what is it?

I will be taking as well 2 AA batteries soldering them together to make 3 volts for the clock battery because these G3s have some weird thing where some info to boot OSX is stored on clock battery chip.

Anyways I'm really looking forward to getting this thing to live again. Dont know what ill do with it really. But the project sounds great. let me know. Cause it looks like the previous owner already did some upgrades on it. THe current specs are
20Gb hard drive (apple branded still) from the original 4gb that it came with(according to the sticker on the back)
224mb SD ram from 32mb
a CD-rw replaced with the Cd-rom.

Anyways. Any thoughts/ideas/advice is always appreciated! Thanks

 

[bunnspecial]

The extra expansion slot is for the "personality" card, which provides the audio and-depending on the card installed-some additional A/V functions(most of which you lose in OS X).

BTW, if you're referring to the brown slot on the personality card, I think this accepts an internal modem.

The full service manual for these is available with a little bit of google work. I'd post a link if I weren't typing from my phone.

 

[catzilla]

The best way to over clock is trial and error, keep bumping it up until it's unstable and drop back down. The jumpers are pretty standard and were even available at Radio Shack a few years ago. With a 233 you may be able to run at 266, but not much more. There is a reason they were sold as 233 chips.

 

[bse5150]

I have a beige G3 as well. I just run Mac OS 9 on it.

 

[poiihy]

Wow... I did not know that these beige G3s had jumper settings at all! I will look into this...

 

[poiihy]

I was also wondering about that personality card.

From Wikipedia:

Personality Cards
Personality cards are a type of specialized PCI interface card that only the Power Macintosh G3 models can accept.

Modem Card
56k Modem card with Stereo Mini-Jack Audio In and Out jacks

Audio I/O or AV I/O Card
Composite Video In and Out, Stereo RCA Audio In and Out, S-Video In and Out, Stereo Mini-Jack Audio In and Out

Theres also a card with AV ports; called a `Wings` card.
http://www.welovemacs.com/8200971a.html

 

[Hrududu]

More than likely you'll be able to hit 266 or 280MHz but I don't see getting any more than that without some kind of extra cooling. I was able to hit 350MHz on my 333, but it wouldn't do anymore than that. That also upped the BUS to 70MHz. The best source for G3 overclocking I've ever found was http://www.drivejumper.com/ClockupG3/homepage.html
Good luck!

 

[bunnspecial]

I think that one of 450mhz B&Ws is dead-I've been wondering about putting the processor from it in a beige. I know the ZIF socket is the same-has anyone experimented otherwise with doing this swap?

 

[catzilla]

I think that one of 450mhz B&Ws is dead-I've been wondering about putting the processor from it in a beige. I know the ZIF socket is the same-has anyone experimented otherwise with doing this swap?

I did that a long time ago, it will work.

----------

I was also wondering about that personality card.

From Wikipedia:


Theres also a card with AV ports; called a `Wings` card.
http://www.welovemacs.com/8200971a.html

I have a Molar with the wings card, back when I had it setup in my office I used the composite input to watch DVDs.

 

[bunnspecial]

I did that a long time ago, it will work.

Good to know-maybe I'll tackle that over Christmas break.

If I can get revive the B&W, I may hunt for a G4 for it. I have a piece of software that requires an ADB hardware key-meaning a B&W is the newest I can run it on-but I think the software would benefit from a G4.

 

[PowerMac G4 MDD]

I did that a long time ago, it will work.

Good to know-maybe I'll tackle that over Christmas break.

If I can get revive the B&W, I may hunt for a G4 for it. I have a piece of software that requires an ADB hardware key-meaning a B&W is the newest I can run it on-but I think the software would benefit from a G4.

Looks like you're qualified for an avatar.

 

[poiihy]

I did that a long time ago, it will work.

Good to know-maybe I'll tackle that over Christmas break.

If I can get revive the B&W, I may hunt for a G4 for it. I have a piece of software that requires an ADB hardware key-meaning a B&W is the newest I can run it on-but I think the software would benefit from a G4.

Why cant you install it on one machine and then transfer it to a new one? Does the software check what machine it is on?

 

[bunnspecial]

Why cant you install it on one machine and then transfer it to a new one? Does the software check what machine it is on?

The software checks for the key every time it is started.

The idea is that you can(legally) install the software on more than one computer, but are only able to use it when the hardware key is inserted. In other words, if you only have one hardware key, you can only use it on one computer at a time.

Newer versions of the program use a USB key, but the version I'm stuck with(it's not a cheap piece of software) use the ADB key.

I'll also add that it does NOT work with a Griffin iMate.

 

[poiihy]

The software checks for the key every time it is started.

The idea is that you can(legally) install the software on more than one computer, but are only able to use it when the hardware key is inserted. In other words, if you only have one hardware key, you can only use it on one computer at a time.

Newer versions of the program use a USB key, but the version I'm stuck with(it's not a cheap piece of software) use the ADB key.

I'll also add that it does NOT work with a Griffin iMate.

Yeah I read a thread about that... probably yours.

 

[comda]

Alright. all great tips. Any ideas if any of those USB cards will function? i tried one of them with the Os 9 install it has. Not sure if i need to download drivers or do they come with OS 9 but where not installed because it had no usb then?

 

[LightBulbFun]

I have a USB card Identical to the one with the green PCB and ALI chip set in my G4 sawtooth and it works in OS X and OS-9.2.2 with out any drivers

 

[poiihy]

Alright. all great tips. Any ideas if any of those USB cards will function? i tried one of them with the Os 9 install it has. Not sure if i need to download drivers or do they come with OS 9 but where not installed because it had no usb then?

You can use any PCI card that uses an NEC controller.
Like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Port-USB-...645?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item27b1927f65

 

[comda]

Thanks for the reply guys. Now as i still do have a dead Pram Battery is the rumor true that these machines will play games on you once you un plug in from power and the battery is dead in OSX?

 

[poiihy]

Thanks for the reply guys. Now as i still do have a dead Pram Battery is the rumor true that these machines will play games on you once you un plug in from power and the battery is dead in OSX?

Oh hell yes, I have one. What a nightmare. Once the PRAM is reset it forgets how to boot into OS X and gets stuck at the happy face. You'd need to boot into the OS X install disk. The Jaguar installer does not have any startup disk selector utility, so the only way to get back in is to reinstall the OS, or "Upgrade" it as they call it. This just overwrites the OS and makes no difference. You really should get Mac OS 9 on it because it can natively boot into OS 9, and then you can select the startup disk from that.

 

[comda]

Thanks for the reply. In That case I will Postpone this project until i get those double A's linked up and the clock working.