Franklinstein
Well-known member
Some of the old ones are rated 83MHz, yes. Many of the people I talk to don't seem to know about that, so I thought I might mention it.
Why would you not post that information?If anybody is interested, I know some interesting tidbits of information concerning clock speed modifications on beige G3s (specifically, ID'ing components to determine whether or not higher bus speeds are possible). It won't work on every beige G3 (usually just the first two revisions), but when it does, it works perfectly. Any interest and I'll put it in the G3 section.
Bumping the clock from 66 to 83 results in about a 26% O/C on the CPU using the stock multiplier. That's a tad high without additional cooling. You'll probably want to knock the multiplier down a bit to keep your CPU cool. Also, how does o/c'ing the system bus to 83mhz affect the timings on the PCI bus? You may end up with problems there, as well.If other people knew about it, there would be no point in me saying anything about it. The whole thing is simple, really: just look for the system controller - a small FCBGA microchip on the motherboard (near the processor and memory slots - it looks a lot like the processor, actually). The chip will have writing on it, like this: MPC106ARXxxYY. The YY doesn't matter, but usually it's CG. The xx is what the hopeful overclockers will want to look at: if it's 83 instead of 66, then clock your bus up to 83MHz and rejoice! Your system will run 100% stable and all subsystems will continue working (sometimes overclocking the bus on 66MHz parts resulted in non-functional or unreliable floppy drives).According to some Apple manuals (some still available on Apple's website with some scrounging around), the beige G3 had a range of frequencies available, some at 50MHz (that's why you'll find some chips with 250 and 275MHz ratings on early models), others faster. I guess they went 66 to keep everything standard and to avoid confusion or having to deal with extra stock.
Yes, I originally tried to install Tiger on mine with that drive as you're supposed to use as many stock components as possible with XPF, but it kept stopping with file copy errors during the second stage of the installation (from the second CD, after the reboot during Setup), yet it worked fine with a Sony DVD-RW.Matsushita is the worst for optical drives. They'll often have trouble reading perfect discs, or just crap out half-way through an install for no reason.
FWIW, I set up a beige G3 with an 83 MHz bus and a G4 500 downclocked to 416 MHz. Gauge Pro reports 105 MB/s.in gauge pro (in OS 9.2.2) shows my memory performance at 75mb/second - 78mb/second and that is with a G3 450mhz (OC to 466 cause of system bus) system bus is at stock 66mhz with 3 256mb PC100 CL2 stick's.
i would like to see other peoples results with the system bus OCed to 83mhz around the same speed or slower G3 CPU. for the life of me i cant remember what memory performance gauge pro showed with the stock G3 266mhz CPU with the same amount of ram (i am thinking around high 40's or mid 50's) but its been a long time since i have seen what it shows so i am not for sure on those numbers.
You're better off with a faster bus and a slightly slower CPU. You might still find a way to get the extra speed out of the CPU, but dropping the system bus speed wouldn't be a good way to do it.FWIW, I set up a beige G3 with an 83 MHz bus and a G4 500 downclocked to 416 MHz. Gauge Pro reports 105 MB/s.in gauge pro (in OS 9.2.2) shows my memory performance at 75mb/second - 78mb/second and that is with a G3 450mhz (OC to 466 cause of system bus) system bus is at stock 66mhz with 3 256mb PC100 CL2 stick's.
i would like to see other peoples results with the system bus OCed to 83mhz around the same speed or slower G3 CPU. for the life of me i cant remember what memory performance gauge pro showed with the stock G3 266mhz CPU with the same amount of ram (i am thinking around high 40's or mid 50's) but its been a long time since i have seen what it shows so i am not for sure on those numbers.
Slower-than-expected ZIF upgrade
Peace,
Drew
Do you have any other CD or DVD drives at all, not only Apple-logoed ones? PC ones should work, though not all will boot the machine - Sony ones usually play nicely with Macs if you have any of those.If I had a spare CD-ROM, I would swap that in. Hell, if I had an apple DVD-ROM, I would pop my decoder card from my RAGE 128 in my B&W on to the ATI video card in it.