final upgrades to b&w?

[blue&whiteman]

Hi all.

I was going to buy a new G5 as soon as the new ones come out but something has come up and a new powermac will have to wait another few months.

anyway, I have a heavily upgraded b&w G3. it has a G4/500, 512MB RAM, 120GB WestDig. w/8MB cache (running on towers original ATA/33 bus), Radeon 7000 w/Quartz Extreme, CDRW.

I was thinking of adding an ATA/133 pci card and boosting the ram to 1GB to help me gain more speed till my new powermac. its not like these extra upgrades will go to waste as I will still use this mac after I get the G5, it will just not be used as much then.

you all think the extra 512MB ram and ATA/133 bus will give it a worthy boost?

 

[switchedanhappy]

Ram can never, ever hurt, and ata 133? a pci ata 133 would probably give it some boost, but make sure your pci slot is fast enough to not give it a bottleneck. or you could just save on everything by not upgrading and spending the extra green on a G5. mine is absolutely brilliant. wait for them to upgrade the G5's though. I have a feeling that good ol' Steve has something big in store for us...

 

[tristan]

Wow! That's one tricked out B&W!

OS X is a RAM hog, so more RAM never hurts. 512 megs is already alot, but another 256 or 512 would help smooth out multitasking hiccups. RAM is always a cost effective upgrade.

But most of your activities are probably CPU bound, so your overall speed is determined by your CPU speed, your CPU cache size, your bus speed, your RAM speed, and your video card speed. I think the only thing left after upgrading your RAM would be a faster CPU upgrade.

ATA133 upgrade - i'm not feeling it dawg. (Randy Jackson impression.) Well, maybe, you do have a really fast hard drive that can pump out 40-50 megs a second sustained, but this would only speed you up during long disk operations, and even then maybe just 20%.

 

[blue&whiteman]

Ram can never, ever hurt, and ata 133? a pci ata 133 would probably give it some boost, but make sure your pci slot is fast enough to not give it a bottleneck. or you could just save on everything by not upgrading and spending the extra green on a G5. mine is absolutely brilliant. wait for them to upgrade the G5's though. I have a feeling that good ol' Steve has something big in store for us...

pci ata cards run off 33mhz pci best. in a 66mhz slot they would not perform any better but I have my radeon 7000 in the 66mhz slot where it can gain faster speeds. these type of cards use the pci slot simply for power. the ATA bus itself is completely independent and works as any ata 133 system would.

 

[blue&whiteman]

Wow! That's one tricked out B&W!

OS X is a RAM hog, so more RAM never hurts. 512 megs is already alot, but another 256 or 512 would help smooth out multitasking hiccups. RAM is always a cost effective upgrade.

But most of your activities are probably CPU bound, so your overall speed is determined by your CPU speed, your CPU cache size, your bus speed, your RAM speed, and your video card speed. I think the only thing left after upgrading your RAM would be a faster CPU upgrade.

ATA133 upgrade - i'm not feeling it dawg. (Randy Jackson impression.) Well, maybe, you do have a really fast hard drive that can pump out 40-50 megs a second sustained, but this would only speed you up during long disk operations, and even then maybe just 20%.

thanks. over the last few months I have been having fun seeing it get faster and faster with each upgrade to where now its pretty much twice the speed. fastest xbench score with its original G3/350/256MB/6GB was 32.74. its highest since all the upgrades is 59.94 (so close to 60 ) this system as is comes close to a new ibook G4 800 in speed. the extra ram and ata/133 will push me closer to 70 in xbench I bet. I say this because one of the ram sticks I have is a 128mb generic pc stick I got to work but its very slow and slows down all my ram. to get to 1GB I would have to scrap 3 of my 4 sticks as I have all 4 filled now with a 256, 2x64 and a 128. I have tested the 256 stick in there solo and it smokes. it being in there alone took my xbench ram score from 34 to 42 with half the ram. the 2 64 MB chips are somewhat fast but still slow the 256 stick down. the 256 stick is pc133 double sided apple spec. i'm thinking a full GB of these fast sticks will help a lot.

maybe I will just upgrade the ram... thoughts?

 

[bousozoku]

The RAM will definitely help. I've noticed that my B&W G3/800 is a bit slower since I swapped RAM with my dad's machine and I downgraded from 1 GB to 704 MB. 512 MB is a good starting point.

The ATA/133 card will probably help since ATA/33 is so pathetic(ly Ultra) that it makes USB 2.0 seem speedy. You will have to re-format your hard drive through the SIIG card at least but I'm not sure about the Sonnet card since I don't have one of those.

 

[blue&whiteman]

The RAM will definitely help. I've noticed that my B&W G3/800 is a bit slower since I swapped RAM with my dad's machine and I downgraded from 1 GB to 704 MB. 512 MB is a good starting point.

The ATA/133 card will probably help since ATA/33 is so pathetic(ly Ultra) that it makes USB 2.0 seem speedy. You will have to re-format your hard drive through the SIIG card at least but I'm not sure about the Sonnet card since I don't have one of those.

why would you downgrade your ram?

 

[pgwalsh]

I've done some upgrades on my G3 400 as well. It has a scsi drive, but I added a ata drive a while back. I've also added the Radeon 7000, 1GB of ram and upgraded the CPU to the PowerLogix 800 Mhz g3. I took out a stick of ram for another computer and haven't seen a noticable difference. I've been using a program that monitors Ram usage and I rarely go over 500 MB. I have noticed the CPU spikes frequently. So, if I were to do any other upgrade it would be the CPU, but that's not giong to happen (G5 a waiting).

I've used System Optimizer X 4.1 and it made a noticble difference. However, I'm still running Jaguar... Just to note, when I load Jaguar is uses about 102MB of ram.

 

[chv400]

The RAM will definitely help. I've noticed that my B&W G3/800 is a bit slower since I swapped RAM with my dad's machine and I downgraded from 1 GB to 704 MB. 512 MB is a good starting point.

The ATA/133 card will probably help since ATA/33 is so pathetic(ly Ultra) that it makes USB 2.0 seem speedy. You will have to re-format your hard drive through the SIIG card at least but I'm not sure about the Sonnet card since I don't have one of those.

When i got my Tempo HD card from sonnet it said i would have to format the drives but as it turned out i never had too they simply worked in X and 9. I think the formating thing only applies to new drives my dad also got a tepmo HD from sonnet and he didn't have to reformat either.

 

[chv400]

One more thing to add. The ATA contoller upgrade really sped things up alot.

 

[applemacdude]

Blue LED lights in the case cant hurt...

 

[blue&whiteman]

When i got my Tempo HD card from sonnet it said i would have to format the drives but as it turned out i never had too they simply worked in X and 9. I think the formating thing only applies to new drives my dad also got a tepmo HD from sonnet and he didn't have to reformat either.

keep in mind that the 700, 800 and 1GHz G4 upgrades for the blue and white knock the bus speed down to 66MHz from its original 100MHz. something about it working far more stable that way. fastest G4 running at 100MHz is 550MHz. the powerlogix and xlr8 G4/550 upgrades are often overclocked to 600 or 650MHz. I would say overclocking a 550 to 650 and keeping 100MHz bus would be the way to go. tests of the sonnet 800 and 1Ghz upgrades in blue&white towers don't show a worthy amount of improvment when you think about how fast it is.

 

[Sparky's]

I beg to differ on the speed change. I upgraded my G3 B&W (originally a 400mhz machine) at home with a G4-500 CPU, I have 2-256mb DIMMs and 2-128mb DIMMs for a total 0f 640 mb RAM, a Radeon 7000 graphics card and an additional Maxtor 60gb internal HD to go with the original 6gb. I have seen a radical increase in speed, both with opening large Photoshop files (100mb and larger) and in overall performance.
At work we just upgraded the G3 with a G4-800 CPU, an additional 80gb Maxtor HD (the original 12gb has Classic the 80gb has Panther) and 256mb DIMMs in all 4 RAM slots and it hauls compared to the original set up (G3-400mhz).
One thing I learned though is to check the RAM identification numbers for the speed rating. Look for a 3 digit number in the serial like 2,2,2 or 1,3,2 or 2,3,2 something to that affect. These numbers indicate the speed of the RAM chip. An article in Mac Addict (April 2003) covers this in detail. The bottom line was that the computer will run at the slowest speed of the RAM chips, so if you had one at 1,1,1 and bought some fast chips 3,3,3 the machine would only run at the slowest speed. Something to consider when buying RAM.

 

[pgwalsh]

keep in mind that the 700, 800 and 1GHz G4 upgrades for the blue and white knock the bus speed down to 66MHz from its original 100MHz. something about it working far more stable that way. fastest G4 running at 100MHz is 550MHz. the powerlogix and xlr8 G4/550 upgrades are often overclocked to 600 or 650MHz. I would say overclocking a 550 to 650 and keeping 100MHz bus would be the way to go. tests of the sonnet 800 and 1Ghz upgrades in blue&white towers don't show a worthy amount of improvment when you think about how fast it is.

Are you referring to specific upgrades? My PowerLogix G3 800 upgrade is running the bus at 100Mhz...I have overclocked it to 900Mhz, but the heatsink gets really hot. I was thinking of modifying a third party hs, but I'm too lazy.


As for the Ram, it's my understanding that they need to be 2-2-2 and others will not run properly, but I've never tested this. I bought all mine at 2-2-2 from OWC>

 

[blue&whiteman]

Are you referring to specific upgrades? My PowerLogix G3 800 upgrade is running the bus at 100Mhz...I have overclocked it to 900Mhz, but the heatsink gets really hot. I was thinking of modifying a third party hs, but I'm too lazy.


As for the Ram, it's my understanding that they need to be 2-2-2 and others will not run properly, but I've never tested this. I bought all mine at 2-2-2 from OWC>

I guess I should have been more clear. I was talking about 700Mhz and up sonnet G4 upgrades for powermac G3 blues and white towers. powerlogix, owc and xlr8 all offer G4 upgrades that can be safely overclocked to 650mhz and leaves your bus at 100mhz

 

[pgwalsh]

Anyway... Maybe I can use this thread to solve a problem. As noted above, I have 3 sticks of Ram... I had four, but I had to take each one out and test for the instability problem I've been having. Applications keep crashing; I get hard crashes; and I get random logouts. Not sure why, but I'be pulled most of my hair out and it's looking a bit fugly.

I've gone through each stick and haven't had too many crashes since the last one was pulled, but if anyone can offer advice on other crash candidates, I'd appreciate it.

G3 400 (800 Mhz ug).
768MB Ram
Radeon 7000
Scsi drive w/rom udate
IDE 40GB drive.
Jaguar 2.8

ah and my Firewire ports don't work, but I hear that's a common problem.

 

[bousozoku]

why would you downgrade your ram?

My dad wanted to play Links Championship Edition golf and it wouldn't run correctly with only 192 MB.

chv400:

I'm glad you didn't have to re-format. The system simply refused to boot with the SIIG card and my ATA/100 drive. Then again, it has a different chipset than the Sonnet card and I bought the SIIG card because there were troubles with Mac OS X and the Sonnet card from time to time.

 

[chv400]

I beg to differ on the speed change. I upgraded my G3 B&W (originally a 400mhz machine) at home with a G4-500 CPU, I have 2-256mb DIMMs and 2-128mb DIMMs for a total 0f 640 mb RAM, a Radeon 7000 graphics card and an additional Maxtor 60gb internal HD to go with the original 6gb. I have seen a radical increase in speed, both with opening large Photoshop files (100mb and larger) and in overall performance.
At work we just upgraded the G3 with a G4-800 CPU, an additional 80gb Maxtor HD (the original 12gb has Classic the 80gb has Panther) and 256mb DIMMs in all 4 RAM slots and it hauls compared to the original set up (G3-400mhz).
One thing I learned though is to check the RAM identification numbers for the speed rating. Look for a 3 digit number in the serial like 2,2,2 or 1,3,2 or 2,3,2 something to that affect. These numbers indicate the speed of the RAM chip. An article in Mac Addict (April 2003) covers this in detail. The bottom line was that the computer will run at the slowest speed of the RAM chips, so if you had one at 1,1,1 and bought some fast chips 3,3,3 the machine would only run at the slowest speed. Something to consider when buying RAM.

I was wondering if you know where i can get more specific info on this upgrade a scrren shot of a system profiler form sopmeone who has this upgrade. Does any one know why it reduces the bus speed

 

[blue&whiteman]

I was wondering if you know where i can get more specific info on this upgrade a scrren shot of a system profiler form sopmeone who has this upgrade. Does any one know why it reduces the bus speed

the G4/500 does not reduce bus speed. the sonnet g4 700, 800 and 1GHz do. not sure exactly why because all sonnet says is that it runs far more stable that way but they do not say why. as I have said in this thread you can get owc, powerlogix and xlr8 G4 upgrades that reach 600-650MHz and leave your bus at 100MHz. from what I can see on xbench site a blue&white with a G4 600 (100mhz bus) is about the same speed as a 1GHz G4 (66MHz bus) upgraded b&w. so I think an owc upgrade would be the best choice because its cheaper and will give you about the same speed. the owc 600 is 229 vs 499 for a G4 1Ghz. check it out: http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm?ID=6688&Item=OWCZG4500B600

 

[blue&whiteman]

here is an xbench compare of 2 blue & white's. 1 has a G4 1ghz and the other has a G4 600. the results are so close that you may as well save $270 and get that owc which is a G4 500 guaranteed to do 600. guaranteed overclocking success is a very very good thing

http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge.xhtml?doc1=55581&doc2=58227

I may get the 600 myself down the road and try it at 650 then sell my sonnet G4 500 to help pay for it.

I forgot to mention that the G4 1ghz system is the highest rated 1Ghz blue and white on the whole site. I don't want you guys coming on and saying that is one of the lower scores and lacks this or that.

system bus is the most important thing speed wise in your system. lower it and the whole system suffers. why else would a cpu almost twice the speed only be a little faster? argue with that...

 

[chv400]

here is an xbench compare of 2 blue & white's. 1 has a G4 1ghz and the other has a G4 600. the results are so close that you may as well save $270 and get that owc which is a G4 500 guaranteed to do 600. guaranteed overclocking success is a very very good thing

http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge.xhtml?doc1=55581&doc2=58227

I may get the 600 myself down the road and try it at 650 then sell my sonnet G4 500 to help pay for it.

I forgot to mention that the G4 1ghz system is the highest rated 1Ghz blue and white on the whole site. I don't want you guys coming on and saying that is one of the lower scores and lacks this or that.

system bus is the most important thing speed wise in your system. lower it and the whole system suffers. why else would a cpu almost twice the speed only be a little faster? argue with that...

Would you happen to know of any other places that would sell this upgrade because OWC seems to be out of stock for the next 2 weeks.

 

[blue&whiteman]

Would you happen to know of any other places that would sell this upgrade because OWC seems to be out of stock for the next 2 weeks.

I think the reason it takes 2 weeks is because once you place an order they take one of their G4 500 zifs and overclock it, let it run a while and then once they know its fine at 600 they ship it out. i'm sure the 12 days they say it takes is just to cover their ass for time. i'm sure it would be less than 12 days.

 

[chv400]

Do you know if i would need a bigger heatsink

 

[blue&whiteman]

Do you know if i would need a bigger heatsink

not needed for that speed. some thermal paste would do fine. my sonnet cpu shipped with paste already on it. maybe a cheap cpu fan also as they are only like 5$

 

[pgwalsh]

Do you know if i would need a bigger heatsink

I'd be careful about using another heatsink. I've heard the B/W ZIF can crush or get damaged with a hs that's too heavy.

not needed for that speed. some thermal paste would do fine. my sonnet cpu shipped with paste already on it. maybe a cheap cpu fan also as they are only like 5$

This is a good idea, but can you recommend a fan that would sit on the HS?