g3 Beige no video after upgrade, hard drive problem.

[chris]

Well, fixed the slowness problem, but now when I try to install a new 400mhz g3 upgrade card, I get a bong but no display.

Ram is confirmed good, as is video. CUDA reset and PRAM reset both tried. Different jumper settings tried.

It works when I swap the old proc back in, with the exception of one thing: the hard drive. This thing for some reason powers up, then power to it is cut off abruptly for no apparent reason. Powers up again, shuts off. Ad infinitum.

Anybody got any idea how to fix either/both of these problems? Obviously I'd like both fixed, but preference is of course given to the hard drive thing (can't boot without it)

 

[porter]

Sounds like a bit of problem determination is required.

Try producing a list of boot up times with varying amounts of memory.

Also, duplicate that same list without virtual memory on.

 

[chris]

RESOLVED.

Seems that something on the hard disk that for some reason was loaded even while booting from CD was causing the problem. Now it seems slow, but just because I'm used to faster computers, and the boot times are back in the 1min 30sec range.

Gonna grab a cheap CPU upgrade card from eBay for this baby... upgraded the HD to a super-quiet 30gb one instead of the loouuud 10gb one that was there.

 

[chris]

Well, purchased a guaranteed working 400mhz proc off eBay for $14 shipped... Seemed too weird to have a machine with 768mb RAM and a 30gb HD with a 233mhz proc.

What's the average max stable speed of a 400mhz g3? I'm thinking about trying to push it up to 450 or so if that wouldn't cause problems.

 

[jhvaughan2]

What's the average max stable speed of a 400mhz g3?

Can't relate to that one but I pushed my 350 to 420 with no problems.

 

[chris]

Woo!

This thing has been upgraded and is working properly (posting from it now.)

Pushed its pathetic 233mhz up to 333 for now, seems perfectly stable with a good fan, though when I get my 400mhz upgrade card I'm going to push that up to at least 450, maybe 500 if I can get stable performance like that (I've got a big old PC case fan hooked up right next to the proc and it gets a LOT of air flowing.)

Gonna try some version of Linux (most likely Debian/PPC) once the card arrives, I've set aside a 15gb partition for it, same as the mac OS one.

 

[madmax_2069]

Woo!
This thing has been upgraded and is working properly (posting from it now.)

Pushed its pathetic 233mhz up to 333 for now, seems perfectly stable with a good fan, though when I get my 400mhz upgrade card I'm going to push that up to at least 450, maybe 500 if I can get stable performance like that (I've got a big old PC case fan hooked up right next to the proc and it gets a LOT of air flowing.)

Gonna try some version of Linux (most likely Debian/PPC) once the card arrives, I've set aside a 15gb partition for it, same as the mac OS one.

I would try for 433 or 466 since the bus speed is only 66mhz. i am not sure (cant remember) if you can reach 500 with the stock jumper block without OCing the bus to 83mhz in a Beige G3

that CPU made for being on a 100mhz bus so that should give you a little head room for OCing it.

putting any flavor of free OS is a PITA to get to run on a Beige G3. just to give you a little heads up, now OS X will instal and run fine (panther and tiger require you to use xpostfacto). i played around with ubuntu on my Yikes G4 and it was down right horrid, very slow and very unstable and hard to get things working properly altogether.

 

[chris]

ARRRGH!

Got the 400mhz upgrade card, installed it according to the instructions.

No video.

Reinstalled the original proc and jumper thing.

Video, but now there's a hard drive problem. It spins up, then abruptly stops before loading anything. The other drives I've tried do the same thing, so it isn't that particular drive.

Anyone have any idea what this is and how to fix it? I did a CUDA-reset, no effects. Some help diagnosing and repairing the proc problem would be nice too.

 

[sircabulon]

get your power supply checked out. in the shop i work at, these symptoms happen often when a unit has a bad power supply. we have a tester that just plugs in, but for a mac, you would need to get a wiring diagram and a multimeter.

 

[madmax_2069]

get your power supply checked out. in the shop i work at, these symptoms happen often when a unit has a bad power supply. we have a tester that just plugs in, but for a mac, you would need to get a wiring diagram and a multimeter.

it would depend on the Beige G3 model, one or two models used a standard ATX PSU , and a few used a Apple PSU.

the Beige G3 mobos can use both, there is a little jumper next to one of the PCI slots that is used to select what PSU is being used