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Need G3 Recommendations

z970mp said:
Yes, this is standard behavior for all owners of B&Ws. In fact, if you do not experience these emotions at least 12 times in one month of handling a Power Mac G3 B&W, you're probably doing something wrong. :D

I have made the conclusion that this computer simply does not like OS X, period, end of story, case closed. It doesn't go to sleep on any release, memory can be prone to issues in OS X (all versions), it usually (to my experiences) does not play well with a DVD drive, in the process limiting you to Panther (which it also does not like, by the way), it will require you to hit the reset button every time after a FRESH boot before it will start dragging its feet to boot an OS X startup disk, OF multi-boot will often give you a hard time whenever it detects a partition with OS X, etc., etc., etc. ...

Of all things, even Linux is a better fit for this machine than any version of OS 10 available to it. Even OpenBSD will eclipse OS X in terms of compatibility, whereas it at least doesn't falsely panic about bad memory when installed, or have Open Firmware hang and lock over the drive partition tables whenever multi-boot is called up.

Realistically, this machine is happiest on OS 9, it being the only OS I've seen that has gotten sleep mode to properly function, along with every other hardware capability available.

-

But might I suggest changing the machine's hostname to "Sadistic-Smurf" ? You know, to honestly advertise its ... shall we say, user side effects ... ;)
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I've had my B&W 450 for about 2.5 years now and have experienced none of these problems. Oh sure, I've had issues, but only because I pushed the Mac. From OS (10.4.11 Server) to hardware everything has pretty much worked.
 
I too have never had issues running Tiger on any of my several B&Ws. I'd have to stop and think, but I think I have 4 or 5 of them.

I'm GUESSING the OP's computer has an early BootROM given that it was running 8.6 when received and was upped to 9.2.2/10.3 without actually installing. I'd suggest running the full 9.0/9.1/9.2.1/9.2.2 installer sequence to get the boot ROM up to date.

Although in theory it shouldn't happen, I've had all kinds of headaches at least on other systems when not running the most current Boot ROM. One of the most memorable ones was a Cube that I absolutely, positively could not get to boot Leopard no matter what I did. Finally, I found out that it was on the shipped ROM, updated it, and all was well.
 
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Adamscomputerrepair said:
I’m about to drop kick this G3.

I’ve tried 5 different versions of tiger and I still get the circle cross symbol when trying to boot. I’m losing it. I’m about to say f it and just keep using panther even though I really don’t want to.
[automerge]1582087334[/automerge]


UPDATE: This G3 doesn’t read any system discs now! I think it might be the disc drive I’m using. I have one more before I break down and take the one out of the iMac G3 that I KNOW works. I’ve done more than I wanted to get a working G3 out of this.
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Worst case, I could image my b&w hdd and stick it up on drop box or other cloud solution. There’s nothing special or personal about it so I don’t mind sharing it.

I know it’s kind of cheating but I’m about working smarter not harder. Sounds like this is getting somewhat frustrating. Let me know.
 
bunnspecial said:
I'd suggest running the full 9.0/9.1/9.2.1/9.2.2 installer sequence to get the boot ROM up to date.
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Would you know if the 9.2.2 Universal disc from Mac OS 9 Lives counts in this regard? I've run the full installer for that (or at least its image copier solution), but not any others.

At least, not on my end. The machine did come to me with (I think) 9.1 already installed, however I cannot be sure if that was installed via copying over the System and Applications folders as opposed to from disc...
 
For a firmware update, I'd use the Apple install media. The most up to date firmware might still be found by digging around on Apple's website, but they also seem to change things every 6 months or so, breaking old links and making old stuff even more difficult to find.
 
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RhianB said:
Worst case, I could image my b&w hdd and stick it up on drop box or other cloud solution. There’s nothing special or personal about it so I don’t mind sharing it.

I know it’s kind of cheating but I’m about working smarter not harder. Sounds like this is getting somewhat frustrating. Let me know.
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This is what I think I’m going to do.

Since the HDD came out of my iMac G3, I’m going to put it back into the G3. I’m going to reinstall the G3 RAM (or at least enough to make it boot.)

THEN, I’ll install tiger, rinse, repeat.

I think that should be an easy enough work around. I hate that I’m sharing parts, but unless I clone my drive (which now that I think of it is totally doable) I don’t have much of a choice right now.
 
Useful hint: Macintosh Garden also naughtily has the Apple Internal OS7-9 update disks, which come with a host of pre-registered software and also include various Apple firmware updates and patches. One of those will have all you need.
 
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weckart said:
Powerlines only work well if your power points are on the same ring otherwise... Never worked well for me, even when the router was in the next room and I disliked the heat they generated.
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Work issued a good couple of hundred sets of Devolo wireless extenders to people who occasionally work from home. I think we had one person with issues. Maybe it's a UK thing with how our houses are wired.

Adamscomputerrepair said:
I never heard of IBM using a Cyrix processor that’s why I assume it’s a cobbled machine.
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Cyrix designed them, but didn't have any fabs so went to IBM to get them manufactured in the late 90s. Even sold a few 6x86 chips as IBM processors, I had one back in the day. They also made it into the value lines sold retail.

They were way quicker than the Intel Pentium at the same clock speed on integer maths. The FPU wasn't so good though. Which was fine until 3Dfx graphics accelerators turned up. A 6x86 150Mhz was quicker than Pentium 200 in general use. A Pentium 120 was quicker than the 150Mhz Cyrix when gaming with a 3Dfx card...
 
MagicBoy said:
Work issued a good couple of hundred sets of Devolo wireless extenders to people who occasionally work from home. I think we had one person with issues. Maybe it's a UK thing with how our houses are wired.



Cyrix designed them, but didn't have any fabs so went to IBM to get them manufactured in the late 90s. Even sold a few 6x86 chips as IBM processors, I had one back in the day. They also made it into the value lines sold retail.

They were way quicker than the Intel Pentium at the same clock speed on integer maths. The FPU wasn't so good though. Which was fine until 3Dfx graphics accelerators turned up. A 6x86 150Mhz was quicker than Pentium 200 in general use. A Pentium 120 was quicker than the 150Mhz Cyrix when gaming with a 3Dfx card...
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So should I keep the 686 as a 95/98 machine? I didn’t do anything except remove the OG hard drive (at my future father in laws request) and take out one of the 2 installed cd drives.
 
They ran 95/98 and period apps fine. Mine got me through Uni. As long as you don't throw a 3Dfx card in and expect stellar FPS it'll be fine.
 
Another tick in the ‘my G3 runs Tiger fine and always has’ box.

But... mine is a rev A and that answer is predicated on the fact that I DO NOT use the onboard IDE controller for anything, even having a (any!) drive plugged in on that bus is enough to make my G3 wobblier than a wobbly thing standing on jelly sat on top of a plate spinning on top of a big pole.

PCI card though, no issues ever. I’ve had a few B&W G3s over the years and all the Rev As were like this, and even theRev Bs had better performance using PCI cards anyway soI’ve always shunned the onboard IDE.
 
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MagicBoy said:
Install Tiger off the original media, and the firmware on supported machines should be updated as part of the install.
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Nah that wasn't a thing with OS X installers until much later

Tiger will just tell you to FRO until you (manually) update the firmware (certain iMacs come to mind)

firmware update for the G3 BW is here https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1251
 
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Attempt #43:

The firmware updater did not work and it is my fault. Why? Because I pulled this hard drive out of an iMac G3 that system profiler still thinks is my machine.


So then, I popped in my copy of OS 9 to do a reinstall....only to discover I’ve been using a DVD this whole time.

SEND HELP.
 
EF22417D-E310-4EBB-ABEF-246B47144571.jpeg

Last update for a while. I finally got Tiger booted and it’s installing as I type. But you’ve gotta wait till the YouTube video is done before I’ll tell you how I actually did it
 
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