will going over 640MB RAM slow down a B&W G3 PowerMac?

blue&whiteman

blue&whiteman

macrumors 65816
I remember back in the OS 8.6 and 9 days reading that a Blue and White G3 can slow down a little if the ram is higher than 640MB.

Think this still matters with OSX?

I have 512MB now and would like to go to the 1GB max.
 
not saying this is a set in stone thing just saying what I read. i'm sure that with osx it wouldn't matter. it does have a 100MHz bus though so thats fast enough I would think.

This kind of thing is not unheard of though. On Pentium 1 boards for example anything over 64MB slowed them down as it took longer to cache that much ram. and yes, a P1 is much older than my tower and a different platform but I just want to be sure I won't be spending money for a slower machine.
 
I have a G3 B&W and have 512 mb of ram in it and it made it only faster! But I also heard about it a couple of years ago. I believe it was startup times that was getting longer. The bios or os had to check the ram with startup. The more you have, the longer it takes.
 
Originally posted by Dreadnought
I have a G3 B&W and have 512 mb of ram in it and it made it only faster! But I also heard about it a couple of years ago. I believe it was startup times that was getting longer. The bios or os had to check the ram with startup. The more you have, the longer it takes.
Click to expand...

I've never heard of this and my mom's currently using my hand me down 400Mhz B&W. I think she's got 384MB of RAM in there but if the startup times are a little longer, I think since the rule of thumb in OSX that the more ram the better, I think it's worth the trade off.
 
hand me down? you speak of it as some ancient tower or something. only thing in my tower that isn't upgraded is the ata bus and that will be soon. the G4 chip and new hard drive make a huge difference. my system is faster than most sawtooth G4 500 scores on the xbench site. just saying that its still a very viable tower if upgraded and that is a much cheaper alternative than buying a new one. I love this tower. it has served me very well since Sept. 99 when I bought it new as a G3/350 and the upgraded cpu and other components will give me at least another 2-3 years.

anyway, I decided to buy the extra 512MB ram. Ordered it half an hour ago online. can't hurt in OSX I guess. with the 1GB of ram and the ata 133 pci card I will buy soon my already snappy under panther blue and white should be even faster.

Have a nice day :)
 
My Blue and White G3/400 has had more than that much RAM for a few years. It never slowed it down. :)

In fact, with Mac OS X, it certainly speeds it up quite a bit depending on the speediness of your disk drive.
 
I believe it was startup times that was getting longer. The bios or os had to check the ram with startup. The more you have, the longer it takes.
Click to expand...

Yeah that is my experience - I upgraded my wallstreet to 500+ MB and the startup in 10.2 takes ages now - apparently doing RAM checks - you get the chime and then a black screen for ages.

Overall performance improved a bit but not staggeringly (this machine has other issues though!!)
 
I have a B&W G3 with a Gig in it and it runs quite well in both OS 9 & X. Upgrading the vid card from stock to a Radeon Mac Edition help a lot too. I have been considering putting in a proc upgrade but the new dual PM's are just to tempting to spend any more money on this machine.
 
Originally posted by blue&whiteman
hand me down? you speak of it as some ancient tower or something. only thing in my tower that isn't upgraded is the ata bus and that will be soon. the G4 chip and new hard drive make a huge difference.
Click to expand...

Well my old B&W G3 @ 400Mhz was purchased in '99 when I left for my freshman year at the University of Hawaii. In its stock form, yes it is getting up there in age. Not that it still can't run many of today's applications soundly. Put it this way, before I bought my Dual 1Ghz MDD, my mom was using our old Performa 6360.
 
Originally posted by Gymnut
Well my old B&W G3 @ 400Mhz was purchased in '99 when I left for my freshman year at the University of Hawaii. In its stock form, yes it is getting up there in age. Not that it still can't run many of today's applications soundly. Put it this way, before I bought my Dual 1Ghz MDD, my mom was using our old Performa 6360.
Click to expand...

That's funny...my brother is still using my old Performa 6400/180 as his every day machine. He also still has my old Performa 550, which still works quite well I might add. We network them occasionally and play Marathon :)
 
Originally posted by Dreadnought
...I believe it was startup times that was getting longer. The bios or os had to check the ram with startup. The more you have, the longer it takes.
Click to expand...

Indeed. In Mac OS 9 you could disable RAM check at startup. Speeds up boot-time significantly if you have alot of RAM installed.
I believe you must hold down the <OPTION> key while selecting the "Memory" control panel. A *hidden* option will be activated then. Only do this if the RAM has been proven to be good....
 
Originally posted by spinner
That's funny...my brother is still using my old Performa 6400/180 as his every day machine. He also still has my old Performa 550, which still works quite well I might add. We network them occasionally and play Marathon :)
Click to expand...

Lol, nice. Which reminds me, I still have the Doom II CD lying around. Might try that on those put out to pasture 'puters.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Back
Top