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Problem: PowerMac G3 Slowdown

E

enthusiasticGeek

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 25, 2019
7
2
Hi! I'm not great at asking questions on forums, so if there is any information you need to help me resolve this problem you can just ask for it.

I have a blue PowerMac G3 that's running MacOS 9.2.2. However, after about 12 hours, it seems to slow down for seemingly no reason. Typing is slow and it's near impossible to do anything when it's in this state. I found a page that describes the same (or simmilar) problem, however there is no solution on it.

Restarting the PowerMac fixes the problem, but it's still very annoying as I usually leave my computers on instead of shutting them down. I'd prefer a solution that would be more permanent. Any way I can stop or prevent this issue? Thanks!
 
First thing that comes to mind is RAM. These machines are extremely picky about their RAM, and if they don't like them for whatever reason, the results can be unpredictable.

Try removing all modules but one, and see how it responds. If there's no change, try another different module, and so on.

What hard drive is it using? And when is it from?
 
z970mp said:
First thing that comes to mind is RAM. These machines are extremely picky about their RAM, and if they don't like them for whatever reason, the results can be unpredictable.

Try removing all modules but one, and see how it responds. If there's no change, try another different module, and so on.

What hard drive is it using? And when is it from?
Click to expand...
I believe the RAM in the machine is the RAM that came with the machine. I'll try only having one stick in throughout the night, however its hard to tell because it happens in about 12 hours.

The hard drive is a Seagate. It is connected by IDE and is 100GBs. I just upgraded it to this recently, however the problem existed before upgrading so I doubt this is the problem. I'm not quite sure how old it is.
 
Is the power-cord connected directly to a wall-socket or is it connected to a powerstrip?
Long time ago (roughly same time, when the PM-G3 was in the market) I had a PC that happend to slow down, whenever it was connected to a powerstrip, because of any mysterious electrical misbehavior of the pc's power-unit. The pc then had be be unplugged and the power-unit needed to be reset by pressing the power-on button for 10 seconds in order to make everything work fast again.
Connecting the PC directly to a wall-socket sorted out the problem.
 
bobesch said:
Is the power-cord connected directly to a wall-socket or is it connected to a powerstrip?
Long time ago (roughly same time, when the PM-G3 was in the market) I had a PC that happend to slow down, whenever it was connected to a powerstrip, because of any mysterious electrical misbehavior of the pc's power-unit. The pc then had be be unplugged and the power-unit needed to be reset by pressing the power-on button for 10 seconds in order to make everything work fast again.
Connecting the PC directly to a wall-socket sorted out the problem.
Click to expand...
It's connected directly to the wall socket
 
PRAM battery?? If it’s old, take it out. That’s probably the culprit. No PRAM battery is usually fine, however a dead or near dead one will cause weird things. If you’ve already done this and it didn’t work keep reading.

I tend to agree about the ram issue. But we don’t have a lot of information, how much ram exactly is in it? If you’ve got more than 128mb, disable virtual memory as suggested. If you don’t... that’s probably the issue, upgrade the ram (might as well go to 1GB).

I’ve noticed on some of my computers that Mac OS 9 will sometimes act as slow as you described. I’m not a huge fan of OS 9, and this is one of the reasons why.

Another thing I’d like to bring up.. I’ve had some weird things happen with IDE based machines. Is the optical drive original? Does it still have a ZIP drive installed? How about the cable?
Do they all work?
The reason I ask is because this seems to be overlooked a lot. A failed IDE device or even just one that “doesn’t get along” I’ve seen cause weird untraceable problems. Usually on PCs, but these older macs are no exception.
 
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Project Alice said:
PRAM battery?? If it’s old, take it out. That’s probably the culprit. No PRAM battery is usually fine, however a dead or near dead one will cause weird things. If you’ve already done this and it didn’t work keep reading.

I tend to agree about the ram issue. But we don’t have a lot of information, how much ram exactly is in it? If you’ve got more than 128mb, disable virtual memory as suggested. If you don’t... that’s probably the issue, upgrade the ram (might as well go to 1GB).

I’ve noticed on some of my computers that Mac OS 9 will sometimes act as slow as you described. I’m not a huge fan of OS 9, and this is one of the reasons why.

Another thing I’d like to bring up.. I’ve had some weird things happen with IDE based machines. Is the optical drive original? Does it still have a ZIP drive installed? How about the cable?
Do they all work?
The reason I ask is because this seems to be overlooked a lot. A failed IDE device or even just one that “doesn’t get along” I’ve seen cause weird untraceable problems. Usually on PCs, but these older macs are no exception.
Click to expand...
The PRAM battery is dead, and I should've probably taken it out before, so ill do that when I get home. After testing it with 128MBs of RAM, the same issue appeared so I will put in the other RAM modules when I get home too. It came with 512MBs, so lack of RAM is probably not the issue. I'll also disable virtual memory. I don't do very resource intensive things so it probably won't matter to me anyway. Everything in the machine is original except for the hard disk (DVD drive, RAM, etc.). It does have a ZIP 100MB drive installed (also original). The problem existed before swapping out the original hard disk as it was making weird sounds, so I doubt this is the problem. Thank you for the two suggestions, I'll try them out on Monday!
 
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bobesch said:
Did you try a fresh install of os9 and/or can you get hands on the original PM-G3 recovery-disks?
Click to expand...
It's a fresh install os os9. I didn't use the PM-G3 disc but I doubt using it would fix this problem. I used the universal disc found on Macintosh Repository.
 
TzunamiOSX said:
Is the 100 GB HD connected to the on board controller? If yes, how big ist the first partition?
Click to expand...
The hard drive is connected to the onboard controller. The first partition is about 34GBs and I havn't initialized the rest because it only detected the hard disk as a 34GB disk. However, it is unlikely this is a hard disk problem as the error existed before swapping the hard drove
 
enthusiasticGeek said:
The hard drive is connected to the onboard controller. The first partition is about 34GBs and I havn't initialized the rest because it only detected the hard disk as a 34GB disk. However, it is unlikely this is a hard disk problem as the error existed before swapping the hard drove
Click to expand...

From lowendmac
If you have an IDE hard drive larger than 8 GB, you should partition is so that the first partition is under 8 GB in size (for simplicity, we suggest 7 GB). Failure to do this could eventually result in an unbootable computer, as all system files must be within the first 8 GB of drive space. These Macs may work successfully with larger drives for a while, but once any system files goes outside of the first 8 GB of space, you’ll have nothing but problems. This applies to both Mac OS X and the Classic Mac OS.
Click to expand...

A wrong identification of the size is also not a good sign. I have an 30€ SSD in my G3 beige MT an it is working without Problems. But the SSD is connected to a ATA133 card to get around 50MB/s and to pass over the 8 GB problem.
 
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