Resolved What should I do with my crappy old beige G3 and how do I turn on the PSU?

[poiihy]

I have this beige G3 which doesn't really work and has all these problems and falling apart and most of the plastic parts are brittle and/or broken off. I've had it with the thing and now I just want to get rid of it.
I plan to sell the hard drives as they are very valuable, or at least I thought they were.

On ebay the Caviar 34000 ranges from $80-$190. But browsing the sold listings, only one Caviar 34000 was purchased, and only for $15.95. So it looks like I am not going to make a lot of money from this Caviar 34000

I also have a Quantum Fireball. It is an SCSI drive and it is 3GB. The sold listings of this vary a lot in price! So it looks like I may make more money on this than the Caviar.

There is also an 80mb Quantum ProDrive LPS but that suddenly stopped working for some reason so I can't sell it because it doesn't work.

I already zeroed out the Caviar in the G4 because it is ATA, but I can't zero out the Quantum because it is SCSI and I have no SCSI machine, and the 10.2 disk

I don't want to spend anything to get this beige to work. I don't know for sure what is wrong with it (I suspect the RAM though) and it would not be worth it to restore it. It's only a 233MHz G3 and that can't do much. I'd rather repair a G4. And also lots of plastic is broken, etc. And it also takes up space and it is ugly.

Also I found that the Apple Design keyboard is rather valuable so I would clean that up and sell that. The mouse is a Kensington ADB mouse and I have the OS 8/9 software install floppy for it. doesn't have the zero-over option in it.

The annoying part is the PSU. It has a fan that I really want to salvage but the PSU works (I think) so I can't. I could turn the PSU into a desktop power supply but I can't figure out how to turn it on. Connecting green to black does nothing. I asked here on MacRumors but nobody replied.
This is really why I posted this thread. I want that fan D: but I don't want to ruin a perfectly fine PSU. I could recycle the PSU... I don't really need it and it is not ATX. I'm not sure if it completely works but I think it does (there are no bulging/leaked capacitors). I've had ODD problems which I thought was the PSU but bulbfreak said it could've been a "sad ODD".

 

[bunnspecial]

Is yours a desktop or minitower?

 

[poiihy]

Desktop

 

[Intell]

It may be time to send the old beast on to the next life. Part it out and then discard the carcass.

 

[poiihy]

It may be time to send the old beast on to the next life. Part it out and then discard the carcass.

That's what I plan to do....

The big question is the PSU.
Do you know how to turn on the beige PSU without motherboard? Green to black doesn't do anything.
If I can't power it up then I'm not sure what to do with it... maybe take out the fan and recycle the rest? It has a lot of materials in it and would be good for recycling.

 

[Intell]

Pin 14 is listed being the power on wire. There should be a 5+ volt trickle power coming from pin 9 to ground.

 

[poiihy]

Pin 14 is listed being the power on wire. There should be a 5+ volt trickle power coming from pin 9 to ground.

Is pin 9 the purple wire? When I tested the connections with a volt meter, I (only) found 5 volts between purple and black.

So you mean to connect purple to black, then green to black?

 

[Intell]

I don't recall what colour it is, but purple does sound familiar. Have you given though to putting an ATX power supply into that machine?

 

[poiihy]

I don't recall what colour it is, but purple does sound familiar. Have you given though to putting an ATX power supply into that machine?

No, I don't have one.

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I connected purple to black and green to black and nothing happened.

Do you have a pinout for the beige g3 psu connector? I can't find one.

There are two purple wires. One goes to it's own pin, and the other shares a pin with an orange wire.
Edit: Actually there is only one purple wire, the other one shared with orange is actually brown.

 

[Intell]

Pin out:

 

[poiihy]

Pin out:
View attachment 528888

That's the same pinout I had and it does not match my connector.

Also that other wire shared with an orange wire is actually brown, not purple.

 

[Intell]

Can you post an image of your connector?

 

[poiihy]

Can you post an image of your connector?

I draw a diagram. Mine is on the left and the original is on the right, to compare.

 

[bunnspecial]

I wonder if someone installed a PSU out of a minitower(or an ATX PSU) somewhere along the way.

Here's the pinout for the minitower PSU...by the way, if this is what's installed you need to be sure jumper J28 is set correctly.

 

[poiihy]

I wonder if someone installed a PSU out of a minitower(or an ATX PSU) somewhere along the way.

Here's the pinout for the minitower PSU...by the way, if this is what's installed you need to be sure jumper J28 is set correctly.

Jumper 28 has always been set correctly

 

[Intell]

Your pin out does look like an ATX pin out. As noted above, make sure the jumper is set correctly for the right model power supply. If it is an ATX and shorting green to black doesn't turn it on, then it is dead and should be replaced.

 

[poiihy]

Your pin out does look like an ATX pin out. As noted above, make sure the jumper is set correctly for the right model power supply. If it is an ATX and shorting green to black doesn't turn it on, then it is dead and should be replaced.

Jumper is set to MAC. I've tried it set to PS/2 and it did not work.

This PSU is Delta Electronics, Model Number DPS-150GB H, Apple Part Number 614-0077. 150W max output.

 

[poiihy]

I wonder if someone installed a PSU out of a minitower(or an ATX PSU) somewhere along the way.

Here's the pinout for the minitower PSU...by the way, if this is what's installed you need to be sure jumper J28 is set correctly.

It is not a minitower PSU. Minitower has the fan on the back, but desktop has the fan on the bottom.

To the left is a minitower PSU and to the right is my PSU.

 

[bse5150]

It may be time to send the old beast on to the next life. Part it out and then discard the carcass.

It's a shame that it has come to this. I also own a beige G3 and it is a great Mac OS 9 machine.

 

[poiihy]

I connected a 5v fan to the 5v purple wire and black. Then connected green to black. Nothing happened, only the 5v fan spun.

 

[bunnspecial]

It's a shame that it has come to this. I also own a beige G3 and it is a great Mac OS 9 machine.

I have two of them. I've spent some time working over one of them, and have it running at 400mhz now with a CPU from a B&W that I upgraded to a 450mhz G4. Once I get some more airflow over the heatsink(surprisingly difficult in the desktop case) I may try a mild overclock to 450 or 500 mhz(or whatever frequencies I can get close to those with the 66mhz system bus).

I have it running OS 9.2.2 and have it connected to my Personal Laserwriter 300. With Wordperfect 3.5e, Chemoffice 2002, Office 2001, Mac Spartan, and Photoshop 7 it's a killer exam writing machine. I have USB and Firewire cards in it for connectivity, an Apple Extended II Keyboard for pleasant typing, and a Rage 128 so that I can drive a 1680x1050 widescreeen LCD with reasonable performance under OS 9(and lots of screen real estate compared to what was normal for when these built).

The other one is cosmetically rougher, and is where I experiment with upgrades before trying them in my good one . I also have 10.2 on it, although IMO these machines really do best with OS 9.

 

[poiihy]

So nobody knows anything about the power supply?

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Your pin out does look like an ATX pin out. As noted above, make sure the jumper is set correctly for the right model power supply. If it is an ATX and shorting green to black doesn't turn it on, then it is dead and should be replaced.

OH, I should've noted, this is the pinout when looking at the plug from the power supply on the front. When looking at the back, or when looking at the socket on the mother board, the pinout you gave me does match, except the POK and Ground immediately to the right of it are missing, and the yellow +12v and blue -12v are swapped. (edit: no they are correct, the colors don't match the atx standard but the actual output matches the pinout.)
Here is a drawing and pictures of it

 

[poiihy]

Ugh, I have tried everything! Nothing works!!!

 

[poiihy]

Omg yes i found out the answer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I connected pruple to green
and it worked!!!!!!!!!!!
YayyyyyyŸyyy :d :d :d


Orange wire is 3.3v, red is 5v, and blue is +12v. yellow is -12v

 

[DeltaMac]

The reason that your connector drawing is different:
The diagram provided by Intell is exactly as shown in Apple's service manual.
And, it shows a view while the PS is connected to the logic board for testing.
So, that is the connector layout as seen from the back of the connector, and not the pin side as you would normally view with the plug disconnected.
And, the layout shows what voltages might be expected with probes tucked in to the rear of the plug, while it is connected.
Flipping that graphic vertically will show what you see in your drawing.