help with Power Macintosh G3 400 (Blue & White)

Nglevin....
 
Point well taken re making floppies from USB 1.1 speeds vs USB 2.0 speeds.
 
RE your post to this enclosure:
 
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I tend to suggest FireWire 400 for OS 8.6/9.x since it comes close to USB 2 transfer speeds and you can find some HD enclosures that support it pretty easily. Here’s one:
  https://www.ebay.com/itm/Iomega-3-5-White-Sata-USB-2-0-HDD-Enclosure-iomega-31735000-Hard-Disk/253814875448?epid=1653567965&hash=item3b188ba538:g:dlIAAOSwarpbcxOF

****************************************

So I run a Firewire 400 cable from the back of the B&W, and plug in this enclosure.  If I never install a hard drive in this enclosure will the port on the back work? See photo.

I need to dive into early OSX versions. That you for the additional information.

mraroid

mraroid said:

I was able to find additional information on my motherboard.  I have a Rev 2 motherboard.  I will only be installing one solid state hard drive.  The smallest in stock at OWC was 250 GBs:
 
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/SSDMXLE250/
 
Do I format it into two partitions - one for OSX and one for a 9.22?

Click to expand...

Notice on the product page for that device the B&W is listed under "Computers below only recognize drive space up to 128GB*". That means that without some sort of special driver you can't utilize the space above the 128GB mark for any OS, either Classic or OS X.

If you want to avoid wasting space you could go really bottom of the barrel like, say, this 120GB drive for $25:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N6JQS8C/
 

And cobble together a SATA/PATA converter:

https://www.amazon.com/Parallel-DVD-ROM-Interface-Convert-Adapter/dp/B0089F7KWY/

and mounting bracket and probably come out around $40, which may or may not be a worthwhile price savings over the native PATA SSD.

Whether you install 9.x and OS X into separate partitions is pretty much up to you. The main reason *not* to install them in the same partition is mainly if you keep your 9.x stuff separate you're less likely to screw up OS X's files while booted into it. (Which is very much a thing that can happen.) But if you think you'll mostly be getting by in Classic mode you can save a little hassle and disk space by just putting them together. As to which version of OS X to go with, *unless* you're planning to try to leverage the backwards compatible Appletalk in 10.2 (I'd personally recommend NetaTalk on a Linux machine as a better Appletalk server solution for a number of reasons.) I'd go with 10.4. If you disable Spotlight and Dashboard it's no slower than any earlier version and there's a *much* better selection of software for it still floating around. (Including TenFourFox, the only modern and therefore remotely secure browser choice.) Leopard won't run on a B&W anyway, so it's as modern as you can go. (And it still has full Classic support, so you're not missing out on that.)

To second regarding "better performance" out of an external floppy disk drive with USB 2.0, I don't think anyone actually made USB 2.0-specific USB floppies and it wouldn't matter anyway because USB 1.1 is still faster by a fair stretch than the interface between a floppy drive and its controller. (Or the data rate of the bits written to the disk. Note that you may well see ads for "USB 2.0 compatible" floppy drives, but I guarantee you that they just run at USB 2.0 "Full Speed", which is the same 12Mb/s as USB 1.1; the only distinction is the USB 2.0 version of it has a few protocol tweaks that allow it to more cleanly share a hub with faster devices than "native 1.1" devices.)

Re: Firewire: remember, a B&W does have a Firewire port, but it's not bootable like it is on the AGP generation Macs. That makes it less useful than it might be otherwise.

Gorgonops said:

Notice on the product page for that device the B&W is listed under "Computers below only recognize drive space up to 128GB*". That means that without some sort of special driver you can't utilize the space above the 128GB mark for any OS, either Classic or OS X.
 

Click to expand...

Could I format the SS drive I have on order into three partitions of about 83 GBs each? Can I do this with Mac format software, or would I need to move to a third party format utility? I used Lido to partition the CF card I used as a hard drive in my Color Classic.

I am still unsure how to install a clasic OS (9.22) and OSX.  Do I instll one OS in one partition and the other OS in the other?  And then choose which OS to boot to?  Or, with OSX, do I install 9.22 in the same partition as OSX is running in?

mraroid

You can install OS X on a partition with OS 9.2 and boot between both OSes on the same partition. And that’s probably easiest since you won’t have to worry about partitioning.

To be safe, make sure you have the Power Mac G3 1.1 firmware update before you try installing OS X:

https://www.pure-mac.com/appud.html#g3firmware

mraroid said:

Could I format the SS drive I have on order into three partitions of about 83 GBs each? Can I do this with Mac format software, or would I need to move to a third party format utility? I used Lido to partition the CF card I used as a hard drive in my Color Classic.

Click to expand...

No. The problem with drives larger than 128GB is with the firmware of the computer, not some OS-level thing. ATA revisions lower than ATA-6 (Ultra ATA-100; the B&W's controller is ATA-33, aka, ATA-4 compliant) used 28-bit LBA addressing to access hard disk space, which means the maximum size of a hard disk is 2^28 (268,435,456) 512 byte (2^9) sectors, which makes the total accessible size of a hard disk 2^37 (137,438,953,472) bytes, or 128GB binary gigabytes. This is a *firmware level* limitation. (If you lived through the 1990's in the PC world you might remember various limitations like the 512MB and 2GB barriers; the former was a BIOS limit with CHS addressing, the latter was actually an ATA standard issue as the first revision only allowed 22 bit LBA. This is like that one.) ATA-6 changed to 48 bit addressing, which hypothetically allows disks as large as 144 petabytes; the 2TB limit Cory mentioned is due to another combination of problems largely on the OS side of the fence.

Anyway, TL;DR, your machine simply cannot see hard disk space above the 128GB mark because its firmware can't use the alternate addressing mode. There was a company called Intech that sold a skanky driver that replaces the firmware driver and allows you to use larger drives on machines with non-compliant boot ROMs, but even at the time there were a lot of complaints about it. The only reliable way to get around this is buy an ATA-100 (or SATA) controller with a Mac ROM and connect your drives to it instead.

(And, again, this sort of thing underlines why I'm not really a fan of the B&W. Sure, the first few revisions of AGP G4 were also handicapped by this limit, but they have bootable Firewire ports so there *is* a workaround already built into them.)

Cory5412 said:

The main thing you get from the newer motherboard is that the original version's IDE controller was buggy with primary/secondary (or master/slave) hard disks. If you stick to running a single hard disk in the system, it should be fine.

Click to expand...

There's more to it than that with the Revision A motherboard G3. I had one of these for some time. The size of the hard drive also matters. You may be stuck with a small 6 GB HD in the earlier revision.

Get the newer motherboard revision if you can!

Gorgonops said:

No.

Click to expand...

OK.  I understand now. 

I went to OWC and searched under Power Mac G3 Blue and White.  I was looking for a battery and a SS drive.  I was going to buy a 128GB SS drive, but they were out.  They had two more listed under the Blue & White upgrage page.  The smallest one was the 250GB drive.  I wish they would have posted some info about this....  :-(

I think I will keep it rather then return it.  I have other old computers I like to rebuild.  I might have a use for it. 

I will look for a 128 GB SS drive.  Someone posted one and I will check it out.

In other B&W update news, I was able to remove all the blue and white plastic and wash it.  Motherboad is out and now the rest is getting ready to be remove.  Hooked up the air compresser.  Might run out of contact cleaner.

Another late night.  Coffee pot is on.....

Thanks

mraroid

Dog Cow said:

There's more to it than that with the Revision A motherboard G3. I had one of these for some time. The size of the hard drive also matters. You may be stuck with a small 6 GB HD in the earlier revision.

Click to expand...

I have a Rev B. motherboard in my B&W and it's strangely picky about hard disks. It's been too long for me to be particularly specific about which drives it had problems with but it basically boiled down to "some work perfectly, some don't work at all, and some worked *seemingly* okay with OS 9 but wouldn't boot OS X". My vague memory is it hated Deskstars, full stop, had a weird issue with the Western Digital I tried where I could install OS X on it off a CD but when the machine tried to boot off the hard disk I got a big "(/)" NO! symbol on the screen, and Maxtor drives worked perfectly.

My Bondi iMac had similar issues, which makes me suspect the problem was somewhere higher up in the firmware tree than the controller driver level. (The Bondi used the built-in 16.7Mb/s IDE controller on the Paddington I/O chip while the B&W uses an accessory UDMA/33 chip, so I'd presume there are different low-level drivers in play.) So unless you tried the same hard disks with the Rev. B board that failed on the Rev. A and had them work there's a possibility it wasn't the controller at fault for *that*.

Gorgonops.....


 
I hope I have not screwed my self.  I am a big fan of SanDisk and Samsung SS drives.  I ended up ordering this one on Amazon:
 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07621PNWC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
And I ordered this adapter you posted a link to:
 
https://www.amazon.com/Parallel-DVD-ROM-Interface-Convert-Adapter/dp/B0089F7KWY/
 
The B&W box is quite roomy, so I do not believe I will have any trouble using the adapter.  The 250 GB drive I ordered from OWC comes with mounting hardware which I plan on using.


 
I am loving the service manual for the B&W.[SIZE=small][/SIZE][SIZE=small] [/SIZE][SIZE=small] [/SIZE]Time for another cup of coffee and more tear down. [SIZE=small][/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=small]mraroid[/SIZE]

 

Dog Cow said:

Get the newer motherboard revision if you can!

Click to expand...

I got lucky an dended up with a rev. 2 motherboard.....

mraroid

mraroid said:

I hope I have not screwed my self.  I am a big fan of SanDisk and Samsung SS drives...

Click to expand...

As long as the B&W's firmware doesn't decide to not play nice with your drive/adapter combination that should do fine. (The "decides not to play nice with it" is probably a significant caveat based on my bad luck with those blue plastic Macs, but perhaps I've just had an unusually unfortunate streak at the dice with them.) Back in the day (2005) there were stability issues with those SATA-IDE bridges but I've not heard much bad about them since.(*)

Technically speaking OS X 10.4 (or 9 for that matter, I guess) aren't really optimized for SSDs, being they lack things like TRIM support, but assuming you're not going to be pounding on this 24/7 I don't see it being that much of a problem.

EDIT: You know, reading the reviews for that bridge board isn't particularly encouraging. I just picked it for a link as it was close to the top of the list (and cheap), but one of the reviews specifically says they tried this (and several others) and none of them worked in a G4 cube. This Startech:

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Drive-Optical-Adapter-Converter/dp/B00EOJNGC2/

has one review where someone says it works great for G4 macs, five stars, and another that's nowhere near as positive, so... I take it back. Apparently they do still involve rolling the dice. :/

One can also take a PCI G4 motherboard and put it a B&W G3. Those are essentially revision 3 boards, with the only real downside being the lack of an SDB port (although the port itself is unimplemented, the support circuits are still present; all one has to do is add the absent components).

I don't know for certain, but were most of the weird IDE issues resolved with that board? At the very least, it's an easy way to upgrade to a G4 (which is better for OS X because altivec) while keeping the nice blue-and-white case plastics.

c

CC_333 said:

I don't know for certain, but were most of the weird IDE issues resolved with that board? At the very least, it's an easy way to upgrade to a G4 (which is better for OS X because altivec) while keeping the nice blue-and-white case plastics.

c

Click to expand...

My AGP graphics Power Mac G4 still has the 128 GB limit.

Just for fun, I have tried several different IDE to SD and IDE to Compact Flash adapters and have found them to be pretty decent, depending on the card you use.  Semi-Fast SD cards (UHS-1) are pretty cheap these days.  I bought a Sandisk 128GB microSD card for $30 at BestBuy yesterday for my Nintendo Switch.  I have seen them even cheaper then that.  The IDE interface in those era computers will not take full advantage of the 100MB/s speed but it will be faster then an HD in most cases.  I have found them to be a decent replacement for HDs.

Just a thought...

I finished taking apart and cleaning the B&W late last night.  I love the fact that apple made it so all the plastic could be removed and washed. I had already blow out the power supply with air when I removed it. But as the machine was so filthy, I decided to take the power supply apart just in case.  I am so glad I did.  It was covered in dirt. I removed and cleaned everything but for one plate that held the ribbon cables up next to the wall as they run from one half of the computer to the next.  I pulled some of the ribbon cables.  I know they are suppose to be gray.  But the ones in this unit are brown.  As soon as I can pull them again and measure the length I am buying new ones. I washed down the motherboard and video card with contact cleaner and set them out to dry.  I unplugged everything and sprayed contact cleaner into each pug and socket and let them dry.
.
I just plugged it in, turned it on and it booted just fine. It even remembered the time with no battery - something I believe my Color Classic will not do (capacitor?).  I have one very small screw left over and I am searching for its home. The most troublesone part of the the total tear down was removing the blue plastic around the USB, Firewire, etc ports.  One needs to go very slow and use smaller tools.  I made it with out breaking any of the blue plastic tabs.  Just dumb luck.
 
The only sound from the B&W is the hard drive.
 
I have a CF2SCSI card in my Color Classic.  I did think about this for the B&W, but decided on a solid state drive instead. 
 
I am intrigued with a motherboard upgrade.  Can anyone tell me the name of the Mac computer that this R3 G4 motherboard came from?  I am not interested in running newer software, I am only interested in a speed boost.  While I am sure I will play on the B&W, the main reason I bought it was to support my Color Classic.
 
I will report back later and post some photos.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions and help.
 
mraroid

The G4 motherboard in question comes from the "Yikes" G4, aka the PCI Graphics model.

I don't think the "Yikes" motherboard fixes anything about IDE or anything else relative the Rev. 2 B&W board. It omits the ADB ports and is recognized as a different part number but everything else is essentially identical. (The "different part number" is only significant in that Apple released a firmware upgrade for the B&W and Yikes that blocked G4 ZIFs from working in the B&W board; if you want to plug a G4 ZIF into your B&W there's a third-party patch that fixes that, I have a G4 ZIF in my B&W.)

AwkwardPotato said:

The G4 motherboard in question comes from the "Yikes" G4, aka the PCI Graphics model.

Click to expand...

I could not find any Yikes motherboards in ebay.  I found some under Apple G4 PCI motherboard like the following:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-Mac-G4-Logic-Board-Motherboard-PCI-X-AGP-w-Modem-Card-Emc-1914-M8570/163380758072?hash=item260a408638:g:yRcAAOSwaXpb8OIl:sc:USPSFirstClass!97301!US!-1:rk:2f:0

and a another kind:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-Mac-G4-Logic-Board-Motherboard-PCI-X-AGP-w-Modem-Card-Emc-1914-M8570/163380758085?hash=item260a408645:g:QNkAAOSwQXlb8OIm:sc:USPSFirstClass!97301!US!-1:rk:3f:0

are any of the two the correct one? 

mraroid

I had a Yikes motherboard I receieved just to take the G4 zif out of it.  I'm pretty sure it uses the exact same IDE controller as the later B&Ws.  Apple didn't really change anything on it as it was just a stopgap machine.

You won't get the high bandwidth but an SSD is going to be a lot more responsive than an old mechanical drive.  I'm pretty sure even that will be noticeable.  TRIM support isn't THAT big of a deal from what I've heard.  Its helpful but most drives still do their own garbage collection and such.

mraroid said:

I could not find any Yikes motherboards in ebay.  I found some under Apple G4 PCI motherboard like the following:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-Mac-G4-Logic-Board-Motherboard-PCI-X-AGP-w-Modem-Card-Emc-1914-M8570/163380758072?hash=item260a408638:g:yRcAAOSwaXpb8OIl:sc:USPSFirstClass!97301!US!-1:rk:2f:0

and a another kind:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-Mac-G4-Logic-Board-Motherboard-PCI-X-AGP-w-Modem-Card-Emc-1914-M8570/163380758085?hash=item260a408645:g:QNkAAOSwQXlb8OIm:sc:USPSFirstClass!97301!US!-1:rk:3f:0

are any of the two the correct one? 

mraroid

Click to expand...

Neither of those are Yikes boards.