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What can I do with a Power Mac G3?

I'm waiting to hear back from 9charms to see how the raid card install went.

Also, I'm curious to know if I set this up as a network file server with a SATA card to enable larger drives, could the system benefit from a gigabit ethernet card. The machine I currently use is dedicated using NASLite from www.serverelements.com. I have it with a gigabit card, but its running on an old Pentium II, and the bus doesn't have the bandwidth to feed the gigabit to its potential.

What do you folks think?
 
CanadaRAM said:
The PCI bus on the G3 will have the same bottleneck.
Click to expand...

If I remember correctly, the Pentium II machine had a 33 MHz PCI bus.

I thought I read somewhere that the B&W G3 has a 100 MHz bus. Is that true? If so, that's why I was thinking I might get better throughput with the G3...
 
clindner said:
If I remember correctly, the Pentium II machine had a 33 MHz PCI bus.

I thought I read somewhere that the B&W G3 has a 100 MHz bus. Is that true? If so, that's why I was thinking I might get better throughput with the G3...
Click to expand...

The B&W G3 had 3 PCI slots at 33 MHz and 1 PCI slot at 66 MHz.

But, it did have a 100 MHz System Bus, and used PC-100 Memory. So, that may be what you are thinking of.

Keep in-mind that various components of the system run at different speeds. So, not everything will run at Bus speed.
 
flyinmac said:
The B&W G3 had 3 PCI slots at 33 MHz and 1 PCI slot at 66 MHz.

But, it did have a 100 MHz System Bus, and used PC-100 Memory. So, that may be what you are thinking of.

Keep in-mind that various components of the system run at different speeds. So, not everything will run at Bus speed.
Click to expand...


I just did a quick test transferring a 1 GB file from my Mini to both the G3 and the PII machine. The PII was about 2x the speed of the G3. This is with an old 60GB, probably 5400 rpm drive in the G3 versus a 500 GB 7200 rpm drive in the PII.

Maybe it won't be the file server I want it to be after all?
 
clindner said:
I just did a quick test transferring a 1 GB file from my Mini to both the G3 and the PII machine. The PII was about 2x the speed of the G3. This is with an old 60GB, probably 5400 rpm drive in the G3 versus a 500 GB 7200 rpm drive in the PII.

Maybe it won't be the file server I want it to be after all?
Click to expand...


With a faster drive, it would probably be fine for the low priority file access. But, I wouldn't use it if you need access to files as fast as if they were on your local hard drive.
 
I set it up as a recording computer for one of my bands to demo songs.

The G3 b/w can be messed with and upgraded nicely. It's still a current machine, with a few new parts added (or heck, even stock, if a bit slow).
 
So, just to confirm, as I'm thinking of doing this myself, (but preferably with a G4), the B&W G3 & next 2 G4 powermacs after it (AGP & PCI Graphics) through to 1999 do not (as stock) support widescreen resolutions so would not be useable with a widescreen?

Thanks ;)
 
The Sawtooth (the later first generation G4, AGP graphics slot and non-ZIF processor) can support widescreen, though you may need to upgrade your graphics card (not sure if the stock one will, but it probably does). I don't think any of the PCI graphics macs support widescreen, but again I haven't tested that at all, there may be ways to do it.
 
Well, I just bought a 400mhz G4 Power Mac, waiting to pick it up to find out what gfx card this one has so that I know what kind of LCD to get for it (if I have to get a 1280x1024 max or a 1440x900), fingers crossed it will support wide :D
 
Mine makes a great night stand. I have my alarm on it, a lamp and my iPhone.:p

I did have plans on turning it into a music server, but have not gotten around to it.
 
roker said:
Well, I just bought a 400mhz G4 Power Mac, waiting to pick it up to find out what gfx card this one has so that I know what kind of LCD to get for it (if I have to get a 1280x1024 max or a 1440x900), fingers crossed it will support wide :D
Click to expand...

Whichever it is, I again suggest poking around the strange dogs forums (recently moved to a new site, but all the old posts and ROMs are still there); google the name to find it. There are tons of options for late G3 and early G4 towers up there, and they will tell you what cards fit what machines and which can be flashed (as well as guides to how to flash, what freeware to use, proprietary and homemade ROMs, etc.). I flashed an FX5200 for my Sawtooth that works perfectly and outperforms the stock card about 4 to 1 (and offers dual monitor, which the stock cards don't)...
 
Thanks for that, will defo have a good look & try & learn something!! (looks like the perfect place to start lol) :D
 
another resource

the forums here have a ton of info on upgrades...some very knowledgeable folks to answer questions on if, how, why, to upgrade...etc, etc...

also, you can buy stuff from the store...i bought a seritek card and sata drives for my eight year old g4 450agp and they work great...

no tie financially, just a happy customer...

http://www.macgurus.com/
 
I am happy to report that my Hightpoint Rocketraid 1740 arrived today. I put it in my G4 with 4 x 500GB Western Digital HD's in a RAID 5 configuration and it's running flawlessly. It's just a wee-bit slow.

It took about 6 hours to initialize the RAID 5 array and about 2.3 hours to copy a 59.5GB folder over the network. I don't have a gigabit ethernet card attached to it, so that could have been the bottleneck. But for the price $130, this is a great RAID 5 solution.

I am in the process of setting this up as my iPhoto and iTunes sharing computer... will report back at some point about how well that works.
 
9Charms said:
I am happy to report that my Hightpoint Rocketraid 1740 arrived today. I put it in my G4 with 4 x 500GB Western Digital HD's in a RAID 5 configuration and it's running flawlessly. It's just a wee-bit slow.
Click to expand...

I am also going to eventually need one of those, but I think that one might be a bit out of my price range (here it's US$250) :eek:, so is anyone using the Adaptec CAR1210SA, PCI, Raid Controller & can anyone tell me if it's compatable? (I think mine's the Gigabit Ethernet model) Otherwise, is anyone using anything under US$100 ish?

Cheers ;)
 
I don't remember what model I have, but I bought a non-RAID IDE controller for my G4 and built a software RAID. As long as the card has separate drive controllers, you'll still get the performance boost at a much cheaper price (though obviously not the same level of quality out of it).
 
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