Got a Power Mac G3 B&W

[kite210]

Just got a Power Mac G# B&W from a small shop here in milwaukee.

The specs are:

PowerPC 750 @ 350mhz

586mb SDRAM

6GB HD

DVD-Rom

Zip 100 drive

ATI Rage 128 w/ 16mb vram

SCSI card

ixmicro ultimate rez graphics card w/ 8mb vram

DVD Decoder card

Mac OS 9.1

It came with a bunch of adobe and macromedia software on it as well.

I'm currently in the process of upgrading it to OS X 10.4

It's in really great shape, only has a couple of scrapes on the case.

 

[Bunsen]

Nice score with the RAM and extra cards. May we ask how much?

I suspect that the 6GB drive is the original; upgrading to a more recent drive will improve your speed as well as storage, and will also probably be quieter.

 

[Dog Cow]

Hopefully you've got a Rev. 2 machine with the newer disk controller. The older one has the most bizarre bug.

 

[protocol7]

Yeah I don't know if my Rev.1 is particularly flaky but the only IDE drive that will work on it is the stock 12GB IBM.

 

[Rodus]

Overclock it :beige:

 

[kite210]

It's a rev 1 from march 1999, but the ide controller works just fine, I've got an 80GB HDD next to the original 6GB.

I got it for about $7 dollars plus trading in a cell phone and an extra gamecube lol.

I wouldn't know how to overclock it though, but I would be interested to try.

It came with OS 9.1 and a bunch of media programs, like flash mx, freehand 10, dreamweaver 4, photoshop 7, and illustrator.

I upgraded to OS 9.2.2 and put OS X 10.4.11 on the 80GB Drive, It's pretty speedy, A lot more than it was on my WallStreet( Which is now my dedicated OS 9 machine).

Currently I'm using it with an old Apple Keyboard II from 1991 and 2 mice, One is an Apple Pro Mouse(Black), and an Apple Desktop Bus Mouse II that has turned a very ugly beige color.

I'm mainly using it for games, and internet access with firefox 3.6, and TenFourFox Beta 9 on OS X, and Classilla 9.2.1 on OS 9.

Any ideas on things to do with this machine?

 

[Unknown_K]

Does that Ultimate Rez video card work in OSX?

 

[kite210]

As far as I can tell, it doesn't, ixmicro folded before OS X came out, so there aren't even drivers for it.

I have yet to test it under OS 9, as I've just been using the ati card so far.

I just overclocked the processor to 400mhz and its working just fine, so now I'm gonna try 450mhz, but I'm afraid to try 500mhz though.

 

[Byrd]

I've been able to get 100Mhz out of nearly every B&W G3 I've come across, so yeah try 450 500 too, you'll work out pretty quickly if it doesn't work (KPs, boots to Open Firmware only, no chime)

 

[kite210]

Well, I tried 450mhz and it chimed then nothing showed up on the screen, so I'm not sure what to do next, would trying 500mhz result in anything different?

 

[Gorgonops]

Well, I tried 450mhz and it chimed then nothing showed up on the screen, so I'm not sure what to do next, would trying 500mhz result in anything different?

If it didn't make it at 450Mhz it certainly won't at 500Mhz. You could try prying off the heat sink, cleaning everything, and applying new goo to see if better heat transfer buys you that extra 50Mhz over 400mhz, but otherwise I'd say be happy with what you can get.

 

[kite210]

Yeah, I think I'm gonna stay at 400mhz, it's nice and stable, and a lot more responsive than it was at 350mhz.

Now to install sme games onto it lol

 

[Unknown_K]

My first mac video card was an Ultimate rez and it worked fine in OS 9 (you had to disable something so not to get artifacts on the screen). I used it on my 8500 for years untill I started getting better PCI video cards like the Rage 128 and then Radeon 7000's. For an OS 7/8 machine that video card is very fast.

 

[kite210]

The Ultimate Rez card works great under OS 9, but if you try to boot OS X with a monitor attached to it, the system will stop booting, so no support for OS X. It's a great card though, I think I'll use it for multiple monitor support in OS 9.

The next thing I'm gonna try out is the SCSI card, and I'll let you know if it works. :beige:

EDIT:SCSI card works, it's currently hooked to an 80mb SCSI Conner drive from my Color Classic.

 

[kite210]

I'm actually running SETI@home now through BOINC manager, so I can take the load off of my main PC, it does say that one work load will take 117 hours though 8-o

(Sorry about double posting)

 

[kite210]

Here are some pictures of it(Sorry for the quality, I took them with my blackberry)

The front view along with my Keyboard and 2 mice, It's hooked to an NEC Multisync C400 Montior

A closer shot of the front

The side view, I had to clean off some white marks from it rubbing against drywall

The Back view, and SETI@Home running on the screen

A shot of the motherboard, Kinda dark though

The PCI Cards from top to bottom:

1. ixMicro Ultimate Rez Video card w/8MB VRAM

2. Adaptec SCSI Card, Mac Version

3. ATI Rage 128 Video Card w/16MB VRAM and an apple DVD Decoder Daughter Card

A pitcure of the front of the SCSI Card, I've never seen this kind of connection, So if someone could tell me what kind it is< I'd be thankful

 

[kite210]

Just a little update, I replaced the 5X DVD-ROM drive with a combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, and it completely works, even boots install discs as well.

 

[tmtomh]

@ kite210, glad your optical drive swap worked.

Re the SCSI connector, that's an HD50 connector. They were more common in the PC world; Macs used Apple's own 25-pin DB25 connector at the computer end. Most (though not all) peripherals used the larger, Centronics-50 connector (though some peripherals, primarily for PC, used HD50; and some Mac peripherals used DB25).

But all three connectors supply the same, standard SCSI connection. Your SCSI card will almost certainly provide faster throughput than an older Mac's onboard SCSI port. But other than that, devices with C50, HD50 and DB25 connectors are totally compatible with each other; you just need the proper cable to connect them.

 

[kite210]

ahhh, thank you for explaining.

I just had never seen it, so used to the DB-25 connector.