Beige G3 restoration questions

[JAG]

Bought a nice Beige G3 minitower and am working on cleaning it up and getting it restored to its former glory (it was filthy). Have two questions:

1. The previous owner put what appears to be a 400 Mhz G4 from a Yikes in it. I've installed 8.5 and it doesn't recognize the CPU in system profiler. Would applications like photoshop etc take advantage of the G4 if it isn't recognized? I'm guessing I need 9.0 or so to get it recognized?

2. What is the part number for the HD sled above the PSU? Mine is missing and am having a hard time finding one for sale on eBay etc.

 

[slomacuser]

I have that sled send me PM if you want it

 

[croissantking]

It’s odd that it’s not recognised. Usually, it should work natively including AltiVec. What’s probably not enabled is the cache. Try installing Powerlogix Cache Control, or similar.

That said, I have a Yikes! G4/400 CPU and it had really weird issues in my Beige G3. I gave up and am now using a G3/350 from a B/W.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Could it be a bus-speed mismatch problem?
I'm fairly sure that G4s can run at 66MHz. It ran originally at 100MHz in the Yikes!.

 

[croissantking]

Could it be a bus-speed mismatch problem?
I'm fairly sure that G4s can run at 66MHz. It ran originally at 100MHz in the Yikes!.

I doubt it has to do with the bus speed. I did set up the multiplier correctly.

 

[demik]

I had issues with ZIF G4s if the VRM was a little too weak as well as heat issues

 

[croissantking]

I did think about the VRM. And the 7400 is indeed hot, I didn’t feel too comfortable running it in a Desktop G3. Much happier with the 750L

 

[JAG]

Looks like the G4 upgrade is actually a NewerTech G4 upgrade. Working on tracking down a manual for it to check compatibility, settings, etc.

The machine keeps freezing when I do any significant disk activity, though this may be from the SD to IDE adapter I'm using. I'll have to try and find an actual hard drive somewhere and see if it makes a difference.

Do these boards generally need to be recapped?

 

[croissantking]

Do these boards generally need to be recapped?

It’s less crucial on these than on other Macs from the late eighties to the mid-nineties whose caps leak electrolyte everywhere.

 

[croissantking]

The machine keeps freezing when I do any significant disk activity, though this may be from the SD to IDE adapter I'm using. I'll have to try and find an actual hard drive somewhere and see if it makes a difference.

It’s likely - any sort of solid state solution using an adapter on the built in IDE bus is asking for problems, and in general people on here have not had good results. A Parallel ATA hard drive will work great though.

Note that you’ll only be able to access the first 127GB of the drive, and if you’re planning to install OS X then this needs to be on a partition that fits completely within the first 8GB of the drive.

 

[croissantking]

I'm guessing I need 9.0 or so to get it recognized?

I just thought about it some more, and it could be the ROM revision of your G3. For example, with a Rev A ROM fitted I can’t boot with my 750L CPU installed, but I can with a Rev C ROM.

It could also be the OS version as you suggest, I don’t think any actual G4s shipped with less than OS 9?

 

[JAG]

This G3 is bizarre. I pulled out a known working 2GB IDE drive and installed 9.2.1 from a known good CD-ROM. Formatted and installed fine. Reboot and the hard drive is gone. Doesn't show up in Drive Setup. Doesn't show up after a reboot. Not quite sure what to make of this. It's a Rev.C ROM G3/300 with no upgrades other than the CPU. I think I have a G3/266 here somewhere I can try.

 

[croissantking]

This G3 is bizarre. I pulled out a known working 2GB IDE drive and installed 9.2.1 from a known good CD-ROM. Formatted and installed fine. Reboot and the hard drive is gone. Doesn't show up in Drive Setup. Doesn't show up after a reboot. Not quite sure what to make of this. It's a Rev.C ROM G3/300 with no upgrades other than the CPU. I think I have a G3/266 here somewhere I can try.

That is weird.

 

[JAG]

I think I’ve narrowed it down to problems with the SD to IDE adapters I’m using. If I use an actual IDE hard drive, I can get it working reliably after zapping the pram, the Drive shows back up and everything appears to work.

Some of the IDE adapters I’ve tried will work somewhat, but will freeze after any significant fine activities, such as copying a file or network activity.

I’m not sure if this is due to the poor implementation of the ATA standard with the Beige G3 or the adapters I’m using. I have a Sonnet Tempo 100 here somewhere I’ll try next.

 

[croissantking]

the poor implementation of the ATA standard

I think it’s this, yes. IDE only became relatively solid starting from the G4 (Yikes/Sawtooth) onwards. The B/W G3 was even worse than the beige G3.

I have a Sonnet Tempo 100

This should work better.