My new "Toy"-Beige G3 Desktop

[bunnspecial]

I picked this one up yesterday. The stock 4gb hard drive was dead, as was the CD-ROM drive. Fortunately, I had a spare Apple CD-ROM drive, and tossed in a 40gb that came from one of the G4 towers I upgraded.

I had some "teething pains" and was never able to get a successful install of OS9, but do have it working now with OS X 10.2(which also has its own quirks, as it must be installed in the first partition of the drive, and that partition can be no larger than 8gb). I'm going to try again with OS9, as I honestly prefer it to the earlier versions of OSX and I think it's a better match for the capabilities of this system.

Upgrading the ram was also fun. It only had the stock 32mb, which is nowhere near enough to run OSX. The design of this computer requires that all ram modules be "low profile", so I dug through my PC66/100/133 box and came up with a 128mb and 256mb low profile module to give me a total of 418mb.

This is my first time playing with an old-world ROM Mac, so it was fun to "get my hands dirty" and get it running again(even if it is a bit cosmetically challenged).

I also have a 7100/66, but haven't yet successfully been able to get it to boot. It gives me an error about halfway through booting into Mac OS(I'm not even sure which version) I suspect that it may need a new PMU battery, as I understand that a dead one can wreak havoc on these older computers, but haven't gotten too deeply into playing with it. I may also try a clean install of OS 8.5 or OS 9.0 to see if that gets it going.

 

[comda]

Cool find.. I also ran into this model a few years ago.. mine had an upgraded HDD from an old imac g3, 20gb, 224mb ram, and a cd rw.. currently running Os 9.. original 233mhz CPU.. Mine just doesnt have the zip drive.. Im planning on putting in a USB PCI card and gonna run 10.2.8 on it as well.. its still very fast when i compare it to a mordern day PC just the damn CMOS battery is dead....

 

[gavinstubbs09]

It's neat seeing a Beige G3 running OS X as it's something I never see

 

[jrsx]

It's neat seeing a Beige G3 running OS X as it's something I never see

I didn't realize any of them could run OS X! But then again I have no personal experience with them.

 

[Intell]

Those were strange machines. What speed is yours? Have you though about forcing Tiger or even Leopard with a G4 onto that?

 

[bunnspecial]

I didn't realize any of them could run OS X! But then again I have no personal experience with them.

10.2.8 is the highest "officially supported" version of OSX.

There are work-arounds to allow as high as 10.4.11, although as I understand it they require installing a PCI graphics card as 10.3 and later do not support the onboard graphics.

----------

Those were strange machines. What speed is yours? Have you though about forcing Tiger or even Leopard with a G4 onto that?

Mine is a 266mhz.

I stuck in the HDD that came out of my Quicksilver(which has 10.3 installed on it), and the computer wouldn't recognize it as a bootable disk.

As I understand it, I'd need to locate a PCI graphics card out of a B&W G3 or PCI Graphics G4 to even begin moving up to something more current.

 

[Intell]

The Quicksilver's drive likely wasn't bootable because its first partition was too big. You can use any Mac PCI video card except for the GeForce 5200. In order to get 10.3-10.5 to boot, you need to set up the drive with XPostFactor so that it can properly configure the machine's OpenFirmware and reinstall some missing kexts.

 

[bunnspecial]

While we're at it, I bought an Adaptec USB 2/Firewire 400 card(with an NEC chipset) for my G4(initially my DA, but have since moved it to my Quicksilver) to get USB 2.0. Any thoughts on if a similar card would allow me to at least get Firewire 400 and USB 1.1(if not 2.0) out of the G3?

 

[666sheep]

I can't say anything about this particular card you bought, but you can find some useful info here: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r5068516-Beige-PowerMac-G3-and-PCI-USB

P.S. Congrats on your Beige I also own one but in tower enclosure. Still waits for its upgrade time.

 

[lastmile]

I think you can cut off the fan guard above the RAM to allow full height memory to be used. I seem to recall doing that with at least one Beige G3 in the past.

 

[bunnspecial]

I think you can cut off the fan guard above the RAM to allow full height memory to be used. I seem to recall doing that with at least one Beige G3 in the past.

I'll have to take a closer look, but with the internal arrangement of the desktop version, I'm not sure if there's really anything that can be cut off to allow more clearance. Remember that on these, the drives(optical, ZIP, floppy) and power supply are all in one "tray" that hinges out of the way to allow access to the logic board. I don't know if there's any extra clearance to be had, as things are "tight" in there anyway. I'll take a look at it tomorrow evening(I'm out of town at the moment) and see. It would be nice to get a little more RAM in there than I now have.

 

[MicrosoftApple]

Those were strange machines. What speed is yours? Have you though about forcing Tiger or even Leopard with a G4 onto that?

These Macs cannot support Leopard but it is said that by using XpostFacto you might be able to install 10.4 Tiger

 

[Intell]

These Macs cannot support Leopard but it is said that by using XpostFacto you might be able to install 10.4 Tiger

I have Leopard version 10.5.8 running on my PowerMacintosh 8600 and PowerMac G3 Gossamer. A bit slow at times, but on par with a stock Sawtooth or Gigabit Ethernet.