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turn a g3 back into a screamer

D

datalok

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 6, 2002
70
0
after installing Jag a month back I have to say I was less than pleased with the speed on my Imac 500 with 512 Mb RAM. I have changed this lumbering sloth into a zippy lil number by switching off window shadows usinf a free utility called Shadowkiller and using Themer (also free) to add my own desktop theme which doesn't use quartz extreme. A mate was so impressed by the performance increase he has put off replacing his old G3 for a while longer.

It is so good to have the 'snap' back in the OS and the difference in the desktop is hardly noticeable.

Just a pointer for all those who dont have a boss/trustfund/oil well in the garden and can only drool at the thought of a 'professional' system. :)
 
I actually tried the theme thing using duality on my iBook.

Didn't speed it up very much that I saw and none of the themes I found matched the Blueberry.

Haven't tried Shadowkiller though, but I sorta like the shadows, it gives it a more '3d' look, even if it hogs CPU.

A hard drive upgrade did the trick though.
 
no i have done many OS upgrades in the past.

Duality caused a few probs for me when i tried it but I found Themer easier to use / configure / find themes for - plus the bonus of it being gratis
 
This is the first time I've read of someone with a G3 and sufficient memory not getting a faster system. My G3/400 is much better off.

datalok:

Do you have a particularly slow hard drive?
 
duality stability...

I want to install duality, but it sounds like everyone is having major problems with it's stability and the computer OS. What is the recommendations on that?

(sorry this is off topic, I just saw duality causing problems and wanted to ask)
 
it was a clean install - there is no other type in my book

i'm not saying that the comp was slower in 10.2 just that the speed increases were not all that i had hoped for
 
Originally posted by datalok
it was a clean install - there is no other type in my book

i'm not saying that the comp was slower in 10.2 just that the speed increases were not all that i had hoped for
Click to expand...

Oh...that's much different...your expectations! :)

Well, stop that! :D Reality strikes back, you know.
 
There is a better solution then ShadowKiller.
Its called WindowShade .
You can have edges on screen like in OS9 so you can get rid of the shadows..
 
...

I wish I could turn my G3 mini tower much faster... but I only have 1 PCI Slot left, either I get a USB card, or a Graphics card or maybe an upgrade card, I can't choose but I want one of them. :D I want teh fastest G3 Mini Tower - In the WORLD!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHA .... What? I'm bored :p
 
Re: ...

Originally posted by LimeiBook86
I wish I could turn my G3 mini tower much faster... but I only have 1 PCI Slot left, either I get a USB card, or a Graphics card or maybe an upgrade card, I can't choose but I want one of them. :D I want teh fastest G3 Mini Tower - In the WORLD!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHA .... What? I'm bored :p
Click to expand...

What cards do you have in your other slots?
 
Originally posted by edvniow
A hard drive upgrade did the trick though.
Click to expand...
is the difference between a 5400 and a 7200 very noticable? i experienced no speed increase from 10.1.5 to 10.2 even after an erase and install on my 500mhz g3 imac, and i'm tempted to upgrade to a 7200rpm drive (i know, i'm not supposed to, but i've heard reports that it does not do any harm). also, does a machine like the imac with a 100mhz bus reap any benefit from pc133 ram? i saw that the origional chip in my imac was pc133 but the 256 chip i added was pc100. with both chips in there, everything has been working fine, but i would assume that apple would not bother to ship a computer with pc133 unless there was a reason.
 
Originally posted by FattyMembrane

is the difference between a 5400 and a 7200 very noticable? i experienced no speed increase from 10.1.5 to 10.2 even after an erase and install on my 500mhz g3 imac, and i'm tempted to upgrade to a 7200rpm drive (i know, i'm not supposed to, but i've heard reports that it does not do any harm). also, does a machine like the imac with a 100mhz bus reap any benefit from pc133 ram? i saw that the origional chip in my imac was pc133 but the 256 chip i added was pc100. with both chips in there, everything has been working fine, but i would assume that apple would not bother to ship a computer with pc133 unless there was a reason.
Click to expand...

Do not put a 7200 rpm drive in a G3 iMac! It will overheat and become unreliable.

You can put PC133 memory into the machine but it will not improve things.
 
Originally posted by FattyMembrane

is the difference between a 5400 and a 7200 very noticable?
Click to expand...


It definately was for me.

On my PC I upgraded from a 5400 to a 7200 and I could capture 720x480 @ 4MB p/s with zero or little frames dropped with my 667Mhz PIII, with the 5400 drive, I couldn't get less than 10% dropped frames.

In my iBook, I upgraded from a 4200 to a 5400 and, well, wow.
I think 7200 is about the limit for home and prosumer stuff though. anything above that isn't worth the extra cost/performance I don't think.

Here's my xBench scores for disk test before and after my iBook upgrade:


Code: 
Old drive: Fujitsu 6GB 4200rpm

	Disk Test	28.12	
		Sequential	29.93	
			Uncached Write	22.95	8.55 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	25.63	8.98 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	46.77	6.91 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	24.37	9.14 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	26.31	
			Uncached Write	18.75	0.31 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	25.89	5.38 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	32.16	0.35 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	28.42	5.47 MB/sec [256K blocks]


code:New drive: 5400rpm IBM 40GB

	Disk Test	62.29	
		Sequential	64.09	
			Uncached Write	58.22	21.67 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	71.90	25.19 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	60.48	8.94 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	65.77	24.66 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	60.50	
			Uncached Write	46.90	0.78 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	71.87	14.94 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	55.31	0.60 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	67.90	13.07 MB/sec [256K blocks]


So faster rpm definately increases performance, but like bousozoku said, it may overheat.
 
Originally posted by bousozoku
Do not put a 7200 rpm drive in a G3 iMac! It will overheat and become unreliable.
Click to expand...
is it really that bad? i've heard several reports of people doing it and it's worked fine. i've even heard that the western digital drives run cooler than the crappy maxtor that's in there now. i'm getting really tired of this maxtor drive, it makes a very loud whining noise (it sounds like my computer has a very shrill fan in it) and i can't put my computer to sleep anymore because i'm never sure whether or not it will wake up, or beep at me until i do a hard reset (why did apple put such crappy drives in their computers?). it seems like kind of a waste to upgrade from one slow drive to another slow drive.

p.s. if i put a fan inside of the computer, would this alleviate the heating problems?
 
I had upgraded my iMac G3 hard drive to a 7200 rpm one (a Maxtor). After about a year, it was so loud that I could hear it throughout the house. I then replaced it with a liquid bearing 7200 rpm drive (also a Maxtor, I think). The liquid bearing one is whisper quiet, and has remained so for many months. I never actually experienced a failure with the first 7200rpm drive, but it would sometimes take a second try when spinning up.
 
Originally posted by FattyMembrane
is it really that bad? i've heard several reports of people doing it and it's worked fine. i've even heard that the western digital drives run cooler than the crappy maxtor that's in there now. i'm getting really tired of this maxtor drive, it makes a very loud whining noise (it sounds like my computer has a very shrill fan in it) and i can't put my computer to sleep anymore because i'm never sure whether or not it will wake up, or beep at me until i do a hard reset (why did apple put such crappy drives in their computers?). it seems like kind of a waste to upgrade from one slow drive to another slow drive.

p.s. if i put a fan inside of the computer, would this alleviate the heating problems?
Click to expand...

The iMac G3 design was meant for high heat dissapation without a fan. You could try to add one but you'll have to find out about adding to the power drain and I suspect that you don't want to do that either. Besides, adding a fan will bring up the noise level that you've just reduced with a new drive. :) Be careful!

You can, however, find a 5400 rpm drive with better specs.: faster transfer rate, faster read and write rates, and lower latencies for seek and access times.

I feel your pain about the crappy drives. I have a WD in my dual 800. This is part of a line of drives which had a 66 percent failure rate the first two years. It's also slow for a top-of-the-line machine.
 
Regarding speed and Jaguar and G3's, I've got a PB Pismo 400 and run 10.1.5 at times, OS 9 most often.

Anywhere to check how much faster (or slower) Jaguar is than 10.1.5 on a Pismo or similar machine?

I hear it may be best just to stay with OS 9 until I get a new machine.
 
Originally posted by FattyMembrane

is the difference between a 5400 and a 7200 very noticable? i experienced no speed increase from 10.1.5 to 10.2 even after an erase and install on my 500mhz g3 imac, and i'm tempted to upgrade to a 7200rpm drive (i know, i'm not supposed to, but i've heard reports that it does not do any harm). also, does a machine like the imac with a 100mhz bus reap any benefit from pc133 ram? i saw that the origional chip in my imac was pc133 but the 256 chip i added was pc100. with both chips in there, everything has been working fine, but i would assume that apple would not bother to ship a computer with pc133 unless there was a reason.
Click to expand...

My G3 400 (overclocked 350) (OS X 10.2.2) with 384 MB RAM, and 30 GB (maxtor 7200) & original 6GB Maxtor results comparing HD speeds from xbench are below.

G3 400 with 6gb Maxtor (5400 RPM) Disk Test 44.58
G3 400 with 30gb Maxtor (7200 RPM) Disk Test 70.19

Over all xbench score (using the 7200 Maxtor) 48.08 It is slowed down because of the Ati Rage graphics card.
 
Re: turn a g3 back into a screamer

Originally posted by datalok
after installing Jag a month back I have to say I was less than pleased with the speed on my Imac 500 with 512 Mb RAM. I have changed this lumbering sloth into a zippy lil number by switching off window shadows usinf a free utility called Shadowkiller and using Themer (also free) to add my own desktop theme which doesn't use quartz extreme. A mate was so impressed by the performance increase he has put off replacing his old G3 for a while longer.
Click to expand...

Could you post some links?

I really want to get rid of those god-awful shadows...
 
Originally posted by bousozoku


Do not put a 7200 rpm drive in a G3 iMac! It will overheat and become unreliable.

You can put PC133 memory into the machine but it will not improve things.
Click to expand...

the only issue i have with this is that you make a blanket statement about 7200 rpm hard drives. they don't necessarily run hotter just by virtue of the fact that they are 7200 rpm. there's a lot more than that going into heat production, such as the bearings' friction coefficient and the reliability of the drive at high temperatures. IBM hard drives, in my experience, get disconcertingly hot. i have 2 in my old P3 933 MHz. particularly the 75GXP gets uncomfortable to touch, but it has been perfect for me. after 2 1/2 years at least of pretty heavy usage (i NEVER turned that computer off except the once a week restart), it's absolutely perfect, which i s why it would take a lot for someone to convince me that IBM drives are bad. the 60 GXP is just as reliable for me, and both get much hotter than the maxtors in my dad's computer. all that to say, it's good for cautioners like apple or a magazine (anyone with a vested interest in not giving out unreliable info) to say don't put a 7200 in your iMac, but that's just because they don't want to start an esoteric discussion of hard drive design that will alienate readers/customers and confuse them to say the least.

i would say DEFINITELY get the 7200, they make noticeable interface differentces on systems lacking in RAM and noticeable differences on any computere where you do large transfers--like moving an album of MP3s or something, or installing games and stuff. just be careful that you talk to people and stuff and get a very reliable drive that produces minimal heat.

and about PC133 on a PC100 bus: PC 133 is simply RAM rated to run at 133 MHz. if you put it on a 100 MHz bus, it will run at 100 MHz. it won't change a thing, but clocking PC133 at 100 should make it that much more reliable. as in, hardly more reliable. it's pretty easy to make stuff that lasts a long time at that rate.
 
it sounds like as far as 7200 rpm drives in an imac go, the maxtor fluid bearing ones are quieter and have less friction. razorme: which model of the fluidbearingdrive did you put in your imac? i saw that maxtor was selling some 120gig (or thereabouts) fluidbearing ones, but i don't need one that big. if anyone else knows of other manufacturers who make fluid bearng drives, i'd appreciate the info.
 
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