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YES!! I've made the SWITCH...back (and i need advice)

FF_productions

FF_productions

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Apr 16, 2005
2,822
0
Mt. Prospect, Illinois
From 1991, until 2002, I had a Mac (Performa 500). From 2002 to this day I have had windows.
Today I just received a:
G3 B&W
with a 21 inch monitor (crt)
256 mb's of ram
cd drive
some programs (photoshop)
400 mhz
0S 9 (Im getting OSX as soon as humanly possible)
Ok, these aren't the nicest specs..but this was all free
(came from a relative who had a spare one to give me)
Any advice for me, its been a while siince i used a mac...With the performa 500 i was using os 7 (it couldn't get past 7.5)
 
High probability that you will need a larger hard drive if you're using the stock one it came with.

Also, this is important, MAKE SURE YOUR FIRMWARE IS UP TO DATE BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO INSTALL OS X!
You will need OS 9 to do this..
 
yellow said:
High probability that you will need a larger hard drive if you're using the stock one it came with.

Also, this is important, MAKE SURE YOUR FIRMWARE IS UP TO DATE BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO INSTALL OS X!
You will need OS 9 to do this..
Click to expand...
I 2nd this firmware advice, and i 2nd the more ram, with 256 i wouldnt even bother with OSX.
 
Turn off all the language and extra printer option when you instal OSX (look for customise during the install) as your hard drive will beon the small side. I concur to upgrade the RAM and add extra drive if possible
 
B&W G3s were solid machines, but after six years they begin to show their age. With a bit of RAM, you should be able to get decent performance. Best of luck, and welcome back.
 
FF_productions said:
can i replace the internal drive? its only 12 gb's...but if i do so I don't want it to cost too much money because I have to upgrade the ram and all sorts of things...
Click to expand...
Yes you can replace the internal 12 Gb or install a second IDE (ATA66/ATA100) drive. You are limited to drives of no larger than 128 Gb in size, because the ATA controller can't go higher than that.
 
FF_productions said:
Can any one reccomend where i can purchase a internal hd?
Click to expand...

Can't say I've had a broad range of experience, but I got the upgrade HD for my TiBook from TransIntl and felt that I got a rather good price and excellent service.

Mac is cool. Free is cool. Welcome back.
 
CanadaRAM said:
Yes you can replace the internal 12 Gb or install a second IDE (ATA66/ATA100) drive. You are limited to drives of no larger than 128 Gb in size, because the ATA controller can't go higher than that.
Click to expand...

I think you might be able to use Intech's SpeedTools package to use a larger ATA hard drive. This seems to be a well-liked option in the Cube community.
 
OWC www.macsales.com has all the parts you need to upgrade you B&W G3

You'll need a bootable DVD drive to install Tiger.

The best place to check out Mac upgrades is xlr8yourmac.com.

Pioneer DVR-106 and higher are generally bootable,

You'll need at least an ATI Radeon 7000 card to run the DVD player.

The problem is that I went through all this with my beige G3 and it all works fine, but now you can get 4 times the performance out of a base Mac mini
at about the same price of all the upgrades and the purchase price of Tiger.
 
with the upgrades (as mentioned above), will final cut pro work smoothly? I'm willing to spend the money on all these upgrades because I got this computer for free and this is my first time editing video with a mac...In the near intel future, I will get a brand spanking new mac.....
 
FF_productions said:
not even FCP 3 or 4???? Im in deep ****...
Click to expand...

Someone else already mentioned it in this thread...it's really not worth spending too much money at all on the B&W G3 (even though it was free). The lack of Altivec and AGP graphics will hold you back with a lot of modern software. A Mac mini can be had brand new for probably not much more than you would spend modernising the G3...and would offer superior performance.
 
I went through all of this with my G3 and there's simply a point where
you're spending way too much trying to modernize an old system.

The major advancement to running a Mac is OS X.

If your B&W came with a bunch of OS9 software, then you may have some
possible benefit of being able to purchase upgrade OSX software rather than
paying the full price for your licenses.

I would run the G3 'as is". sell it,
or donate it to charity for the full retail value
and take the tax write off.

Over 7 years, considering the original 1998 purchase price of $2700 for my beige 300MHz tower and all the upgrades, I've spent upwards of $3400 for the CPU alone.

A reasonably equipped Mac mini is 4 times faster now for less than $700.

So don't feel too bad.
 
FFTT said:
The problem is that I went through all this with my beige G3 and it all works fine, but now you can get 4 times the performance out of a base Mac mini
at about the same price of all the upgrades and the purchase price of Tiger.
Click to expand...

I second this comment! What I would do is sell the machine, but a mac mini if the monitor is worth keeping. If not, then sell both and get a refurbished iMac G5 and skip the buying of Tiger for over a hundred, the memory for over a hundred, the HD for ?? It starts adding up quite fast and you still end up with some bottlenecks even if you upgrade the hard drive and such. You also end up with a machine that has some quite old parts that could fail easily.
Check out the apple specials/refurbished page to see- there are lots avail. right now.

If you end up looking for a HD for the tower I would personally go with an external HD that way you can use it on another machine if you end up upgrading in the near future.

Good luck and welcome back!
 
On ebay MAYBE i'll purchase a g4 quicksilver or something like that...I already have a very huge monitor, and the fact is that I just got it yesterday, it wouldn't feel right to sell everything I just received from my relative...Thanks for the advice everybody!!
 
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