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Bought a B&W today!@#

zen.state

zen.state

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Mar 13, 2005
2,181
8
I was at my local mac dealer around 11 this morning and saw they had a 350MHz B&W rev.1 for only 129 canadian. I just couldn't not buy it. my aunt needs a web, email and picture dump machine. it came with 256 (2X128) and I added one of the 256 from my tower to put the new (old) one up to 512mb. I just put tiger on it and it runs great at browsing and basic tasks.

going to mod it before I send it to her. maybe paint it navy blue and white. any ideas are welcome. something subtle.

here are a couple pics of it with my black powermac:
 

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I really like the design of the B&W you've got there. I personally wouldn't paint it, it already looks nice.

I'd like to ask you what kind of harddrive is in that machine? I've build machines for relatives before, and the harddrive is always the first to die. Spending $50 a newegg before you give it to your aunt might save you many many head-aches in the future.
 
gammamonk said:
I really like the design of the B&W you've got there. I personally wouldn't paint it, it already looks nice.

I'd like to ask you what kind of harddrive is in that machine? I've build machines for relatives before, and the harddrive is always the first to die. Spending $50 a newegg before you give it to your aunt might save you many many head-aches in the future.
Click to expand...

the hard drive is a 6gb quantum fireball. not the best.. I should think about another hd. 80gb here are 55-60 bucks and it would also speed things up a bit.
 
Very cool! I myself would love to own a classic system like the B&W. I just became a Mac user last September so I would really love to own some of the older systems just to play around with. I especially love the design of the iMac G3. :) Anyway, congrats on the great find. I hope your aunt likes it.
 
Abstract said:
How do you plan to fit the OS, some apps, and photos onto a 6 GB Harddisk?
Click to expand...

as I already said I will need to get a larger hard disk. 40gb min.
 
Nice buy, your paint job on the other B&W looks awesome.....I think you should give the new B&W a Black and white paint job as it matches more perhiperals than the standard colouring....

ANyway good buy glad to hear its running good,

Shadow
 
zen.state said:
the hard drive is a 6gb quantum fireball. not the best.. I should think about another hd. 80gb here are 55-60 bucks and it would also speed things up a bit.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah. I'd replace that for sure. A nice new drive will give you a speed boost you won't expect too. It's like night and day for something that old.

Good luck~ That machine was an awesome find.
 
Mod suggestion

I think it has a ZIP drive from what I can see in your photo. If the relative doesn't use ZIPs, take it out and add another HD in its place. It won't be able to be a start-up HD but great for extra storage. My G3 is set-up this way, I put all my music and photos on it. I recommend more RAM though, max it out or at least 3/4 of a GB. You have 4 slots in it, use them. Nice buy, would love to get another one myself.
 
Dane D. said:
I think it has a ZIP drive from what I can see in your photo. If the relative doesn't use ZIPs, take it out and add another HD in its place. It won't be able to be a start-up HD but great for extra storage. My G3 is set-up this way, I put all my music and photos on it. I recommend more RAM though, max it out or at least 3/4 of a GB. You have 4 slots in it, use them. Nice buy, would love to get another one myself.
Click to expand...

about your ram suggestion. my aunt will never need more than 512mb to surf the web, send and receive email and view/store photos. I will also keep her on tiger for a long time so the ram will keep being more than enough for those basic tasks.
 
zen.state said:
as I already said I will need to get a larger hard disk. 40gb min.
Click to expand...

Since it is a rev 1 b&w make sure to grab an aftermarket IDE controller for that larger drive.

The rev 1's had a nasty bug that could lead to creeping drive corruption if you used a larger drive in them.

Something like this would probably work for you. You might find a different card cheaper. I've got a rev1 b&w and it has an old sonnet ide controller card in it. It hasn't given me any problems and I've been running on it for the last 2 years since I bought it used.

Just wanted to give you a heads up on a possible problem! Long life the B&W's!!
 
Nice find. I myself was just looking around on eBay for B&W towers. I'd love an older, upgraded G3 or G4 for my room. But then again, I'd really like a Pismo PowerBook to use as my main portable system.

My parents currently use my G3 iMac (see sig for specs) everyday for e-mail, viewing photos, playing some games, and web surfing. The original HD was junk, so I upgraded that to a 60GB, which helped speed too. I don't have Tiger on it because it's running just so well with Panther, I don't want to risk messing it up!
 
MacTurtle said:
Since it is a rev 1 b&w make sure to grab an aftermarket IDE controller for that larger drive.

The rev 1's had a nasty bug that could lead to creeping drive corruption if you used a larger drive in them.

Something like this would probably work for you. You might find a different card cheaper. I've got a rev1 b&w and it has an old sonnet ide controller card in it. It hasn't given me any problems and I've been running on it for the last 2 years since I bought it used.

Just wanted to give you a heads up on a possible problem! Long life the B&W's!!
Click to expand...

Please tell me about the bug. Are all b&w 350 Rev 1? TIA
 
bandw350 said:
Please tell me about the bug. Are all b&w 350 Rev 1? TIA
Click to expand...

There is more information about it over on lowendmac.com Look at mac specs, then powemac, b&w you'll find information about the bug on the page, some linked articles on the bottom I think.

All rev1 boxes had the buggy ide controller as far as I know. It was fine with the size that came with the box. But if you upgraded to larger drives, you would often run into a creeping drive corruption issue.

Rev 2 motherboards fixed the ide bug. Most b&w folks with rev1 boards just buy an aftermarket ide controller. That gets you access to the larger drives, a faster channel, and no creeping corruption issue. No other problems than that that I am aware of.

I am the second owner of my b&w. I bought it from the guy who originally bought it in 1999. He put a sonnet ide controller in it. No problems with my 60 gig drives at all.

I hope they enjoy the b&w. Mine has been a nice unit for me to "try out" osX and apple. I'm returning after switching away after my mac plus.

Thanks,
Mitch
 
I am getting a B+W G4 off a mate for 50 quid, stuffed with 1GB RAM (4x256) woo!

(double the memory of my brand newish Powerbook :eek: )

My plan is to stuff it full of drives (300GB each) and use it as network attached storage.

How many drives can I put in it? Is a SATA card available for it? (probably not)

Sorry, lowendmacs.com isn't clear on this question.

Also which TV output card do you recomend for it? (yes it'll also be a DVD jukebox for my TV)

Thanks for your help

RedTomato.
 
sata pci cards have been out for a while. you can easily fit 4 drives in B&W rev.1 and 5 in a rev.2.
 
about your ram suggestion. my aunt will never need more than 512mb to surf the web, send and receive email and view/store photos. I will also keep her on tiger for a long time so the ram will keep being more than enough for those basic tasks.
Click to expand...

Just that I always try to get the most RAM I can, it is relatively inexpensive and worth it if running OS X. Believe my G3 likes having its slots filled (608MB).
 
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