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Power Mac G3 B/W

Z

z970

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 2, 2017
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Hey all,

I recently acquired a Rev B Power Mac G3 Blue & White, and it's been having a lot of kernel panics on OS X Puma, the OS X Jaguar Installer (also forever hangs at certain points in installation, requiring a restart to try again), can't boot into a Mac OS X Server 1.2v3 CD, and freezes at certain points in Mac OS 9.2.2.

The stock optical drive has been replaced with a Combo drive from a 2005 eMac, and the HD has been replaced with an 80gb IDE from said eMac. It also has 512mb of PC133 RAM, which appeared to downclock fine.

Thanks in advance.
 
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What happens with the stock ODD?

How does it handle Tiger?

What is the configuration of memory sticks to arrive at 512mb?
 
It might be the RAM. Has the RAM worked fine in another system? B&Ws are very picky about RAM.
I also have a B&W, pretty heavily upgraded. It's got a 550MHz G4, Tiger and Leopard installed, and a flashed PCI Geforce FX 5200. I boot off of an ATA133 card to remove limitations on the built in IDE bus.
The ODD is not stock either, I don't where it came from I have so many DVD drives lying around, but most likely from a G4 or a G5.

I get no KP's or anything weird (unless I check the Graphic Card section in system profiler under leopard lol).

I'd check the RAM first. The HDD could also be failing. Another thing I'd like to add is that Puma is not very stable. It's like the Windows 98 First Edition of Mac OS X.
 
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Project Alice said:
It might be the RAM. Has the RAM worked fine in another system? B&Ws are very picky about RAM.
I also have a B&W, pretty heavily upgraded. It's got a 550MHz G4, Tiger and Leopard installed, and a flashed PCI Geforce FX 5200. I boot off of an ATA133 card to remove limitations on the built in IDE bus.
The ODD is not stock either, I don't where it came from I have so many DVD drives lying around, but most likely from a G4 or a G5.

I get no KP's or anything weird (unless I check the Graphic Card section in system profiler under leopard lol).

I'd check the RAM first. The HDD could also be failing. Another thing I'd like to add is that Puma is not very stable. It's like the Windows 98 First Edition of Mac OS X.
Click to expand...

That was it. Not paying attention (and being new to this machine, so forgive my obliviousness), I installed a double-sided RAM stick among all the others. Took that one out, put another in (single-sided, of course), got through the Jaguar installer, and it's been running pretty well ever since. Haven't tried installing OS X Server (Rhapsody) yet.

My theory is that is was able to run for the most part, but whenever the system had to que-up the double-sided stick for usage, it hung or crashed because it's not compatible with said type.

This might not be the end of this thread, but that's probably all for this issue. Thanks, man. :)

PS: You'll have to tell me about your upgrades. I might end up following the same path. ;)
 
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128mb.

Now this is funny. I decided to get all the 256mb sticks (PC100) out of another machine (PC), all happened to be double-sided, and tried them all in at once. Now the G3 is maxxed out, and so far, appears to be running fine as well.

Maybe it's a bad idea to mix various sided DIMMs? Perhaps it was just a weird stick...

Sent from Firefox 2 on said machine running Jaguar. :p
 
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I'd point to it being a weird stick that for whatever reason the B&W doesn't like. I've not found them as cantankerous as some folks on here claim, but at the same time I've run across sticks that for whatever reason just didn't play nicely in the B&W.

Funny enough, a few months ago someone on here was claiming that you "had to" use dual sided(16 chip) sticks in the B&W regardless of the size of the stick. My experience-again-is that you really only have issues with 8-chip 256mb sticks reading at half capacity. That doesn't rule out the occasional random issue with certain sticks not playing nicely, as you found.

Also, I'm actually not sure that the timing is super important. @LightBulbFun can probably explain it better, but IIRC pre-DDR sticks don't really have a "native" timing, but rather they just kind of go along with whatever the computer tells them to run at.
 
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OK folks, here's another problem...

I got OS 9, Jaguar, Panther, and Tiger all running fine on the G3. No problems, can boot into every one.

I get into OS 9, use Startup Disk to boot into Tiger, it reboots, and there's no picture. Reboot, still no picture. It takes a PRAM reset for the system to finally brighten back up and boot back into OS 9, and the same thing happens with Panther.

After research online, I'm inclined to believe it's the 16mb GPU driving my 19" display, even though it worked fine before (even on a 22" at one point).

On top of that, I can't even run 'multi-boot' in Open Firmware, because then it just hangs forever at "Please wait...".

Someone here has previously described this machine having a 'sulky' personality, and I can definitely confirm this, at least when it's with the Rage 128.
 
z970mp said:
OK folks, here's another problem...

I got OS 9, Jaguar, Panther, and Tiger all running fine on the G3. No problems, can boot into every one.

I get into OS 9, use Startup Disk to boot into Tiger, it reboots, and there's no picture. Reboot, still no picture. It takes a PRAM reset for the system to finally brighten back up and boot back into OS 9, and the same thing happens with Panther.

After research online, I'm inclined to believe it's the 16mb GPU driving my 19" display, even though it worked fine before (even on a 22" at one point).

On top of that, I can't even run 'multi-boot' in Open Firmware, because then it just hangs forever at "Please wait...".

Someone here has previously described this machine having a 'sulky' personality, and I can definitely confirm this, at least when it's with the Rage 128.
Click to expand...
Rather than use OS9 to select the startup disk and reboot, why not just reboot while holding down OPTN, then select the OS you want to boot into?

Does that work or do you still get the same problem?
 
eyoungren said:
Rather than use OS9 to select the startup disk and reboot, why not just reboot while holding down OPTN, then select the OS you want to boot into?

Does that work or do you still get the same problem?
Click to expand...

It's a G3 B&W. There is no Boot Picker (Opt Menu).

One foot in Old World, another in New World...

In case this proves useful, I have already cleaned the GPU contacts, reseated the GPU, cleaned the VGA contacts, reseated the cable, etc...
 
bunnspecial said:
Also, I'm actually not sure that the timing is super important. @LightBulbFun can probably explain it better, but IIRC pre-DDR sticks don't really have a "native" timing, but rather they just kind of go along with whatever the computer tells them to run at.
Click to expand...

while timing here is not important in terms of compatibility with PowerMac G3/G4s, with Sawtooths (Sawteeth?) at least and newer, if you get tight timing RAM the computer will honor it and run it as such

if you can find 2-2-2 timing SDRAM its a way to eek out a little bit of performance out of a Sawtooth-Quicksilver :)

(hanging forever at please wait means Open Firmware is not happy with one of your drive configurations or such so i would investigate that @z970mp )
 
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LightBulbFun said:
hanging forever at please wait means Open Firmware is not happy with one of your drive configurations or such so i would investigate that
Click to expand...

It's done that with two IDE drives attached to its built-in interface. The first was 80gb with two partitions, this one is 160gb (recognized as 128) with four partitions. Jumper positions for either were set to Cable Select, and at both times only one HD was installed.

It all looks fine to me...
 
Strange. If I select to boot from Jaguar while in OS 9, it loads fine, then if any future versions are selected, they boot without trouble, but only when coming from Jaguar.

Some kind of graphic driver loading issue needing 10.2 and up?
 
Would you be willing to check some properties for you Rage128. I'm working on support for emulated Rage128 in Qemu and need some help from people with the R128 cards to narrow down some issues.

Command+OPT+O+F
dev /pci
ls
dev ATY,xxxx .properties
Click to expand...

Replace xxxx with the name listed by ls from you ATY card.

Those with AGP:

Code: 
dev agp
ls
dev ATY,xxxx .properties

I'm interested in the " name" and " device-id" properties, unless you want to boot in two machine mode and give me all the properties via telnet:

please.
 
Last edited:
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I dont own an AGP Rage 128 sadly, but heres a PCI one if it helps :) (this is from a Rev A BW, so older ROM revision and no heatsink, I have a later one with a newer ROM revision and a heatsink but its currently a bit buried)

Code: 
0 > .properties
vendor-id               00001002
device-id               00005245
revision-id             00000000
class-code              00030000
interrupts              00000001
min-grant               00000008
max-latency             00000000
subsystem-vendor-id     0000b530
subsystem-id            00000408
devsel-speed            00000001
fast-back-to-back      
fcode-rom-offset        00000000
ATY,Status              00000000
ATY,Flags               0717009b
EDID                    00ffffff ffffff00 1e6ddb56 f7470200 0c130103 6a301b78 ea3d85a6 564a9a24
                        125054a7 6b80b300 81808140 714f0101 01010101 0101023a 80187138 2d40582c
                        4500dd0c 1100001a 21399030 621a2740 68b03600 dd0c1100 001c0000 00fd0038
                        4b1e530f 000a2020 20202020 000000fc 00573232 35330a20 20202020 2020008a
depth                   00000008
device_type             display
character-set           ISO8859-1
iso6429-1983-colors    
reg                     00011800 00000000 00000000  00000000 00000000
                        02011830 00000000 00000000  00000000 00020000
                        42011810 00000000 00000000  00000000 08000000
                        02011818 00000000 00000000  00000000 00004000
name                    ATY,Rage128y
model                   ATY,Rage128
ATY,Rom#                3131332d 35373430 312d3131 3600
ATY,Card#               3130392d 35373430 322d3030 00
ATY,Fcode               312e3633 00
driver,AAPL,MacOS,PowerPC
                        4a6f7921 70656666 70777063 00000001 b2943306 00000000 00000000 00000000
                        00030002 00000000 ffffffff 00000000 0000c4a8 0000c4a8 0000c4a8 00000630
                        00040400 ffffffff 00000000 00002b61 000026c3 00001c34 0000cae0 02010400
                        ffffffff 00000000 00000000 00000000 000005b0 00000080 04040400 00000000
                        ffffffff 00000000 ffffffff 00000000 ffffffff 00000000 00000005 0000002a
                        00000001 00000164 000001d0 0000058c 00000001 00000002 00000000 00000000
                        00000000 00000011 00000000 00000000 00000012 00000000 00000000 00000001
                        00000011 00000000 0000001f 00000000 00000000 0000000e 00000012 00000000
                        ... 0000e714 bytes total
assigned-addresses      c2011810 00000000 88000000  00000000 08000000
                        82011830 00000000 800a0000  00000000 00020000
                        82011818 00000000 80088000  00000000 00004000
address                 88000000
width                   00000280
height                  000001e0
linebytes               00000280

 ok


(taken with the card installed in my Sawtooth if it matters)
 
LightBulbFun said:
I dont own an AGP Rage 128 sadly, but heres a PCI one if it helps :) (this is from a Rev A BW, so older ROM revision and no heatsink, I have a later one with a newer ROM revision and a heatsink but its currently a bit buried)

Code: 
0 > .properties
vendor-id               00001002
device-id               00005245
revision-id             00000000
class-code              00030000
interrupts              00000001
min-grant               00000008
max-latency             00000000
subsystem-vendor-id     0000b530
subsystem-id            00000408
devsel-speed            00000001
fast-back-to-back     
fcode-rom-offset        00000000
ATY,Status              00000000
ATY,Flags               0717009b
EDID                    00ffffff ffffff00 1e6ddb56 f7470200 0c130103 6a301b78 ea3d85a6 564a9a24
                        125054a7 6b80b300 81808140 714f0101 01010101 0101023a 80187138 2d40582c
                        4500dd0c 1100001a 21399030 621a2740 68b03600 dd0c1100 001c0000 00fd0038
                        4b1e530f 000a2020 20202020 000000fc 00573232 35330a20 20202020 2020008a
depth                   00000008
device_type             display
character-set           ISO8859-1
iso6429-1983-colors   
reg                     00011800 00000000 00000000  00000000 00000000
                        02011830 00000000 00000000  00000000 00020000
                        42011810 00000000 00000000  00000000 08000000
                        02011818 00000000 00000000  00000000 00004000
name                    ATY,Rage128y
model                   ATY,Rage128
ATY,Rom#                3131332d 35373430 312d3131 3600
ATY,Card#               3130392d 35373430 322d3030 00
ATY,Fcode               312e3633 00
driver,AAPL,MacOS,PowerPC
                        4a6f7921 70656666 70777063 00000001 b2943306 00000000 00000000 00000000
                        00030002 00000000 ffffffff 00000000 0000c4a8 0000c4a8 0000c4a8 00000630
                        00040400 ffffffff 00000000 00002b61 000026c3 00001c34 0000cae0 02010400
                        ffffffff 00000000 00000000 00000000 000005b0 00000080 04040400 00000000
                        ffffffff 00000000 ffffffff 00000000 ffffffff 00000000 00000005 0000002a
                        00000001 00000164 000001d0 0000058c 00000001 00000002 00000000 00000000
                        00000000 00000011 00000000 00000000 00000012 00000000 00000000 00000001
                        00000011 00000000 0000001f 00000000 00000000 0000000e 00000012 00000000
                        ... 0000e714 bytes total
assigned-addresses      c2011810 00000000 88000000  00000000 08000000
                        82011830 00000000 800a0000  00000000 00020000
                        82011818 00000000 80088000  00000000 00004000
address                 88000000
width                   00000280
height                  000001e0
linebytes               00000280

 ok


(taken with the card installed in my Sawtooth if it matters)
Click to expand...
Thanks, that is helpful, if you have a display connected to the card, please check and see if there is a child display node and give me the properties of that too.

I think you card is the Rage128GL, but I'm not sure, does it have the DVD decoder board that attaches to the card?
 
Project Alice said:
You probably already checked this. But just to cover all the bases.. Have you made sure the firmware is the latest version? There is a firmware update for the B&W.
Click to expand...

Already updated.

@DearthnVader, I think @LightBulbFun just did my job... :)

On another note, I've noticed the Rage's heatsink getting to literal burning temperatures simply being in OS X. ...There are two empty holes, adjacent to the sides of the heatsink. Has anyone before removed a stock heatsink and replaced it with a bigger one? ;)
 
DearthnVader said:
Thanks, that is helpful, if you have a display connected to the card, please check and see if there is a child display node and give me the properties of that too.

I think you card is the Rage128GL, but I'm not sure, does it have the DVD decoder board that attaches to the card?
Click to expand...

happy to help I look forward to seeing what you can do! :)

it reports as a Rage 128 Pro OpenGL engine in OS X IIRC but indeed LSPCI etc in linux call it a Rage 128 GL

I had a display plugged in, but there was no child node or anything

(and no DVD decoder board)
 
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LightBulbFun said:
happy to help I look forward to seeing what you can do! :)

it reports as a Rage 128 Pro OpenGL engine in OS X IIRC but indeed LSPCI etc in linux call it a Rage 128 GL

I had a display plugged in, but there was no child node or anything
Click to expand...
OK, thanks that helps a lot.

Was the Rage card the one displaying video in Open Firmware?

Trying to narrow down trouble with the Mac OS/X when we load the 'NDRV' for the Rage128Pd. Screen resolution and with depth changes work under the MorphOS, but we fail with an 'NDRV' in the Mac OS/X.
 
yeah booted with just the Rage 128 with a VGA LCD screen plugged in

(the display goes off when I remote in via telnet, but the device tree is generated before that)

I have a Pismo with a Rage Mobility 128 card I can grab info on if you want as well?

(IIRC this does have display child nodes because its capable of dual screens)
 
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LightBulbFun said:
yeah booted with just the Rage 128 with a VGA LCD screen plugged in

(the display goes off when I remote in via telnet, but the device tree is generated before that)

I have a Pismo with a Rage Mobility 128 card I can grab info on if you want as well?

(IIRC this does have display child nodes because its capable of dual screens)
Click to expand...

Yes, if you would.
 
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here you go :)

Code: 
0 > dev screen  ok
0 > .properties
name                    ATY,RageM3pA
compatible              ATY,RageM3p
depth                   00000008
display-type            4c434400
device_type             display
character-set           ISO8859-1
iso6429-1983-colors     
driverID                RageMobility_M3 1.0f13
driver,AAPL,MacOS,PowerPC
                        4a6f7921 70656666 70777063 00000001 b4d0e355 00000000 00000000 00000000
                        00030002 00000000 ffffffff 00000000 0001d3e0 0001d3e0 0001d3e0 00000750
                        00040400 ffffffff 00000000 00006268 000055ab 00004059 0001db30 02010400
                        ffffffff 00000000 00000000 00000000 000006c4 00000080 04040400 00000000
                        ffffffff 00000000 ffffffff 00000000 ffffffff 00000000 00000005 0000002e
                        00000001 00000174 00000228 00000660 00000002 00000006 00000000 00000000
                        00000000 0000000e 00000000 00000000 00000010 00000000 00000000 00000014
                        0000000e 00000000 00000022 00000000 00000000 00000002 00000022 00000000
                        ... 00021b89 bytes total
address                 b6008000
width                   00000400
height                  00000300
linebytes               00000400

 ok
0 > dev ..  ok
0 > .properties
vendor-id               00001002
device-id               00004c46
revision-id             00000002
class-code              00030000
interrupts              00000001
min-grant               00000008
max-latency             00000000
subsystem-vendor-id     00001002
subsystem-id            00004c46
devsel-speed            00000001
fast-back-to-back       
ATY,Status              00000000
ATY,Flags               073f0280
ATY,RefCLK              0000733c
ATY,MCLK                00019a28
ATY,SCLK                00019a28
reg                     00008000 00000000 00000000  00000000 00000000
                        02008030 00000000 00000000  00000000 00020000
                        42008010 00000000 00000000  00000000 04000000
                        02008018 00000000 00000000  00000000 00004000
device_type             RageM3p-parent
name                    ATY,RageM3pParent
AGP_Address_Range       00000000 ffffffff
AGP_Address_Block       02000000
AGP_Alignment           02000000
AGP_AllowOverlap        00000001
model                   ATY,RageM3
ATY,Rom#                3131332d 58585858 582d3131 3900
backlight-control       61746900
ATY,Fcode               312e3737 00
assigned-addresses      c2008010 00000000 b4000000  00000000 04000000
                        82008030 00000000 b0020000  00000000 00020000
                        82008018 00000000 b0000000  00000000 00004000
AGP_Master             
MBLM                    00010101 00000056 00000078 8282073f 00111f00 db183b20

 ok
0 > ls
ff955260: /ATY,RageM3pA
ff956728: /ATY,RageM3pB
 ok
0 > dev ATY,RageM3pB  ok
0 > .properties
name                    ATY,RageM3pB
compatible              ATY,RageM3p
width                   00000280
height                  000001e0
linebytes               00000300
depth                   00000008
display-type            4e4f4e45 00
device_type             display
character-set           ISO8859-1
iso6429-1983-colors     
driverID                RageMobility_M3 1.0f13
driver,AAPL,MacOS,PowerPC
                        4a6f7921 70656666 70777063 00000001 b4d0e355 00000000 00000000 00000000
                        00030002 00000000 ffffffff 00000000 0001d3e0 0001d3e0 0001d3e0 00000750
                        00040400 ffffffff 00000000 00006268 000055ab 00004059 0001db30 02010400
                        ffffffff 00000000 00000000 00000000 000006c4 00000080 04040400 00000000
                        ffffffff 00000000 ffffffff 00000000 ffffffff 00000000 00000005 0000002e
                        00000001 00000174 00000228 00000660 00000002 00000006 00000000 00000000
                        00000000 0000000e 00000000 00000000 00000010 00000000 00000000 00000014
                        0000000e 00000000 00000022 00000000 00000000 00000002 00000022 00000000
                        ... 00021b89 bytes total

 ok
0 >
 
Well, here's a turn of events.

I finally ended up getting it to run Linux. The problem was the ODD. It was too new and the machine didn't like it. Once I replaced it with a CD/RW from a similar era system, it started booting off discs again.

It was occasionally kernel panicking after I maxxed the RAM, so I went back to 512mb with the single sided sticks, and haven't seen a problem since.

So for a time, it's working well dual-booting 10.4.11 and Debian 8.11. Then I want to get OS 9 on it, so I grab the Universal install from the Garden, copy over the files onto the Tiger partition, and now for some reason, it won't boot from either OS 9 or Tiger. Not from Yaboot, not from OF, and not from Startup Disk via an install CD.

Then, I decided to try overclocking (because what the hell). Set its jumpers to the 450mhz rating (from 400), and every OS X install disc either kernel panics or freezes. But interestingly enough, Linux has no problem, runs just fine, and acknowledges the 450mhz clockspeed. Ditto for Open Firmware.

Considering I can no longer boot into Mac OS, that I've already reinstalled Tiger on this thing like five times in the past month, and that it now has a CD ODD instead of a DVD ODD (Tiger disc is DVD), it may just stay on Linux now with the 450mhz speed. Eventually, maybe even 500mhz...
 
Last edited:
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Usually these respond well to a ~10% overclock, but then every CPU is different. Personally, I'd be tempted to drop a Yikes! 400mhz G4 in there and see how it did at 450mhz, but you'd also need to get into some form of Mac OS to unlock the firmware to work with a G4.
 
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