Overclocking B&W G3 Love

[iGav]

I can I join in too... I just picked up a 300MHz B&W last week, 512MB, 15GB though it still has the ropey old Rage 128 doing the eye candy.

So then... what's the chances of getting this thing up to a reliable 400MHz without melting a hole in the desk/floor/neighbours ceiling/ etc etc?

Also... isn't Brasso REALLY good at getting even the worst scratches out of the Apple logo's.

 

[joecool85]

I don't think you'll see 400mhz. You should be able to hit 350mhz ok though.

 

[ReanimationLP]

What you want is an FX5200

*drools* OMG.
O.O

 

[iGav]

I don't think you'll see 400mhz. You should be able to hit 350mhz ok though.

Solid as a rock at 400MHz, (wouldn't boot in 450MHz setting, maybe I'll try thermal grease and a fan).

1/3 increase for 74p though can't fault it.

And noticably smoother too.

Right... need another 512MB, and one of these fancy graphics cards, oh and a bigger, faster HD, 15GB ain't cutting it. heh.

 

[macg4]

jumper question

I have a jumper question about the b/w g3. can u use normal hardrive jumpers on the motherboard, or how the heck do u get the jumpers out of the jumper block that covers the pins on the motherboard? i have a b/w with a 350mhz processer, it use to work fine at 400mhz, but is acting weird and doing weird things. so last night i got a another jumper block off another g3 b/w and clocked it down to 300mhz.

 

[blakespot]

No overclocking...but love...

I never overclocked my B&W G3, but I did quite enjoy it. I ordered it on keynote day during MWSF 1999 when it was first announced. Got a B&W G3 400. I ended up adding an Initio Miles UltraWide SCSI controller and a 10,000 RPM UW SCSI drive. It was about as fast as a (non-overclocked) B&W G3 could be, I suppose. Had a Voodoo2 in there, as well. Unreal Tournament was like glass.

I even, in '98, setup a website about it, to give me something to do while I waited for it:

http://www.blakespot.com/mac

(Be sure to check out the Gallery there.)

This might be of interest as well, to B&W G3 lovers (make sure not to miss image link at bottom of story):

http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000018.php

Anyway, it was a great machine.



blakespot

 

[iGav]

I have a jumper question about the b/w g3. can u use normal hardrive jumpers on the motherboard, or how the heck do u get the jumpers out of the jumper block that covers the pins on the motherboard? i have a b/w with a 350mhz processer, it use to work fine at 400mhz, but is acting weird and doing weird things. so last night i got a another jumper block off another g3 b/w and clocked it down to 300mhz.

Yeah, you use HD jumpers

I used these ones, though at first I thought they were going to be too big, but infact fit perfectly.

You can find the settings here.

 

[iGav]

Anyway, it was a great machine.

Reminds me... Zip drive.

 

[Eidorian]

Reminds me... Zip drive.

Yeah, I'd kill for dual internal optical drives on my old G3. I just got ahold of a MDD G4 at work. It's my favorite Power Mac EVER just for the dual optical drives and nice G4 power.

http://www.radioshack.com/sm-dip-programming-shunts--pi-2103807.html

I used a few of these but they're big jumpers and don't fit to well if they're next to each other. The jumper cap had already been taken off of my Power Mac. I just reused the small jumpers already there.

 

[frankblundt]

I have a jumper question about the b/w g3. can u use normal hardrive jumpers on the motherboard, or how the heck do u get the jumpers out of the jumper block that covers the pins on the motherboard? i have a b/w with a 350mhz processer, it use to work fine at 400mhz, but is acting weird and doing weird things. so last night i got a another jumper block off another g3 b/w and clocked it down to 300mhz.

you don't still have the original block i take it..? for 350 > 400 you can re-use the original block - just move it down a space or two (and turn it round maybe, i forget, but it works somehow)
you can use HD jumpers but normal IDE ones are too big, you need the smaller ones that switch the SCSI ID on SCSI HDs

 

[840quadra]

I like this thread

I bought a G3 350 this time last year on ebay for $200 US. It was my first personal computer with OS X (Came with 10.3) which I fell in love with quickly, and stopped using my home PC (Pentium 450 with XP) almost straight away. I had been a mac user long before having most of my classic collection at that point, but did only 40% of my home computing on the old classic OS systems.

Since I didn't use my home Pentium PC for much anyway (have had a work laptop since 2000), it was turned off late January 2005, and parted out to build up the G3 (Memory, disks and some cables went into the G3).

My G3 now has a used 450Mhz G4 ZIF processor, and I have overclocked that to 500 MHZ.

Works great and is used for the following without issue
- Folding@Home 24/7
- Stores copies of all ITMS purchases, and other MP3s
- used to watch digital videos I have (non H.264 )
- DVD Player
- File server for classic macintosh computers I have
- Test web server for my website (www.neuwerks.com)
- Storage for files, pictures, and important data that I need to keep, but don't often use
- And converting Digital Video into iPod 5G compatible format (takes a long time, but it is stable enough for me to set it, and forget it ).

I have a PM G5 Dual 2.0 (Which I purchased in April 2005) but I have yet to find any reason to power down, or stop using my B&W.

It got me hooked on OS X, and pushed me to move fully Macintosh at home

 

[Eidorian]

There's an unofficial version of Handbrake for the G3. If they ever release it my B&W is getting a 1 GHz 750GX.

 

[macg4]

yeah my blue/white is still running very stable at 400mhz , 50mhz over. i added a fan over the heatsink and another internel pci slot fan as well. that cools my radeon 7000 video card off . i also have a beige g3 desktop, that i put a blue/white g3 350mhz processer and then i overcloked it to only 366mhz. its running stable as well.

 

[Eidorian]

I say stalk eBay for faster CPU's. The 400-450 models are quite common and useful for the Beige. The Blue and Whites need some more horsepower. The fastest G3 I've seen is a 500. Otherwise it's a 1 Ghz G3 from OWC.

 

[macg4]

yeah a beige would looks nice with a 400 or 450 g3

 

[dsharits]

I had a 500 MHz G4 in my Beige G3 a while back, and it made a huge difference. However, you are correct that it's much better suited in a B&W, which has the 100 MHz bus to make the difference much greater.

 

[reberto]

I managed to OC my B & W to 600 mhz (stock 400) by installing a slighty modded Socket A PC fan to it. With its 9200, it can run Halo on LOWEST settings

 

[Eidorian]

I managed to OC my B & W to 600 mhz (stock 400) by installing a slighty modded Socket A PC fan to it. With its 9200, it can run Halo on LOWEST settings

How do you do fan installation into a B&W? Not that I can't try to figure it out off of Xlr8yourmac. *runs off* <_<

 

[reberto]

How do you do fan installation into a B&W? Not that I can't try to figure it out off of Xlr8yourmac. *runs off* <_<

you take the 12v and the ground cables and plug the wires in one of the molex connectors. I had to dremal the heatsink a little but it works.

 

[Eidorian]

you take the 12v and the ground cables and plug the wires in one of the molex connectors. I had to dremal the heatsink a little but it works.

So you were able to attach the heatsink using a clip then?

 

[reberto]

So you were able to attach the heatsink using a clip then?

Yep. I hat to do some choping on the clip (remove the 2 extra clips on each side and I shortend the clip a little.

 

[iGav]

Reminds me... Zip drive.

Well... got that. 99p. heh.

Yep. I hat to do some choping on the clip (remove the 2 extra clips on each side and I shortend the clip a little.

Interesting... I'm thinking about getting a fan to cool the heatsink on my 300MHz OC'd to 400MHz to help keep things cool as we approach milder weather.

So then... would something like this be up to the task, and relatively easy to mod to fit???

Or do you reckon something like this attached to the existing heatsink would suffice???

 

[Eidorian]

Well... got that. 99p. heh.



Interesting... I'm thinking about getting a fan to cool the heatsink on my 300MHz OC'd to 400MHz to help keep things cool as we approach milder weather.

So then... would something like this be up to the task, and relatively easy to mod to fit???

Or do you reckon something like this attached to the existing heatsink would suffice???

Honestly, take the clip and buy some heatsinks. Try them out before you install them and take back the ones that won't work.

I did 400 to 450 using only the Rev. B heat sink.

 

[iGav]

Honestly, take the clip and buy some heatsinks. Try them out before you install them and take back the ones that won't work.

Of course... the size of the clip will dictate the size of the heatsink I can use (I'm new to all this sh*t if you hadn't guessed )

After reading reberto's posting, and having another tommy gander at the first link I posted above, the clip looks wider where it connects, though reberto explains that he just removed those extra bits, and it pretty much fit.

I did 400 to 450 using only the Rev. B heat sink.

Mines a 300MHz, so it comes with a diddy heatsink... and once things start warming up come summer, I'm not convinced that it'll stay stable without a better heatsink and fan.

 

[Eidorian]

Of course... the size of the clip will dictate the size of the heatsink I can use (I'm new to all this sh*t if you hadn't guessed )

After reading reberto's posting, and having another tommy gander at the first link I posted above, the clip looks wider where it connects, though reberto explains that he just removed those extra bits, and it pretty much fit.



Mines a 300MHz, so it comes with a diddy heatsink... and once things start warming up come summer, I'm not convinced that it'll stay stable without a better heatsink and fan.

Ebay a Rev. B heatsink or buy one of those bigger ones that works.