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help with Power Macintosh G3 400 (Blue & White)

mraroid

Well-known member
Do you know the name of the Apple computer this motherboard came out of?  I might be able to track it down that way...

Thanks

mraroid

 

Gorgonops

Moderator
Staff member
The "Yikes" was just known as the "Power Macintosh G4 (PCI Graphics)". And, seriously, don't waste your time. Other than lacking ADB ports it is identical to the board you have, it's not going to fix or improve anything about IDE functionality. If you really want a G4 upgrade you can buy the ZIF ala carte and plug it into the board you already have. (But last I looked at what G4 ZIFs were going for on eBay I suspect you'd be better off just getting a whole AGP G4 tower.) Also note that a G4 only really helps for OS X, there is *very* little Classic software that takes advantage of it, and under OS X about all you'll notice is that things like the icon scale and window minimization animations are smoother.

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
Sorry about the confusion regarding slots and disk sizes.

I personally have a blue-and-white with a G4 (PCI Graphics) or Yikes motherboard in it, but if it's confirmed that Rev 2/B G3 board fixes it, there's no good reason to bother with that board, it's just how I got mine when I bought it back in the day.

I've had relatively little trouble with IDE on my machine, but I've also tried relatively few disks with it. It came to me with a stock 6GB disk in it, and I later used it with a 10GB out of a random PC, a different 20GB out of a random PC, and at least one disk of around 120GB or so. Never larger than that, more by accident than that I knew at the time I was using the machine actively (2005-2007) about the limit.

believe the first machines Apple shipped without the limit are the 2002 QuickSilver G4 and the 867/1000MHz PowerBook G4. I don't recall which eMac, iMac or iBook revisions don't have it.

The big gotcha with the 2002 QuickSilver G4 is that you have to use very specific OS 9 media with it. The eMac 2003 CD works, otherwise it's best to use the original media.

My personal favorite 2002 QuickSilver restore media is  Macintosh_Server_G4_Restore_ASIP_6.3.3v1.3.toast_.zip on http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-9x-project-replace-existing-page - this file is actually what I"m running vtools on and it's a QS2002 restore CD. it restores if you have a QS2002, and I'm told on other machines you can just mount the disk, copy the contents of the disk onto the destination hard disk and manually bless the system folder. (you can burn this .toast file with an ISO burning application on Windows/Linux, I used InfraRecorder myself.)

One more thought: can blue-and-whites boot off of firewire? I remember something a little quirky about the early firewire implementations but I can't remember off the top of my head what it was.

 

Gorgonops

Moderator
Staff member
One more thought: can blue-and-whites boot off of firewire? 
Nope. The Firewire module sits on a proprietary connector roughly equivalent to a CompactPCI connector and is just like an add-in card on the PCI bus with no firmware support.

 

Dog Cow

Well-known member
Sorry about the confusion regarding slots and disk sizes.

I personally have a blue-and-white with a G4 (PCI Graphics) or Yikes motherboard in it, but if it's confirmed that Rev 2/B G3 board fixes it, there's no good reason to bother with that board, it's just how I got mine when I bought it back in the day.

I've had relatively little trouble with IDE on my machine, but I've also tried relatively few disks with it. It came to me with a stock 6GB disk in it, and I later used it with a 10GB out of a random PC, a different 20GB out of a random PC, and at least one disk of around 120GB or so. Never larger than that, more by accident than that I knew at the time I was using the machine actively (2005-2007) about the limit.
I started using my B&W Revision 2 G3 with a 20 GB drive in 2004, then I added a second disk, 80GB around 2007. The original 20 GB disk failed, so that was replaced with a 40 GB drive, so now I have 120 GB total storage on 2 drives in the machine. And it's still going strong at (or near) its 20th birthday!

 

mraroid

Well-known member
The "Yikes" was just known as the "Power Macintosh G4 (PCI Graphics)". I suspect you'd be better off just getting a whole AGP G4 tower.) Also note that a G4 only really helps for OS X, there is *very* little Classic software that takes advantage of it, and under OS X about all you'll notice is that things like the icon scale and window minimization animations are smoother.
Is this the motherboard you are talking about?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Macintosh-820-1086-A-G4-Motherboard-w-XSC7400/200407331079?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131231084308%26meid%3Dd46f419b3c0b4cd7bd8dd5c6d14c7d07%26pid%3D100010%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D322914134014%26itm%3D200407331079&_trksid=p2047675.c100010.m2109

mraroid

 

Gorgonops

Moderator
Staff member
That appears to be a "Yikes" (PCI Graphics) motherboard, yes. Which, again, I think is pretty pointless for you to buy unless you want the G4 CPU. If you look at the zoomed-in view of the port area here:

image.png

in the listing you can see the *one* place where it differs from the motherboard already in your B&W, IE, see those blank solder pads next to the ethernet ports? That's where they omitted the ADB connectors.

Also note this motherboard is missing both the modem and firewire module. The modem you probably don't care about but the missing firewire means you'd need to take the module from your B&W if you did a swap.

I mean, seriously, I'm not sure why you've latched onto this as a thing you need to look for. It's not going to run any better than your current board. The "Yikes" was literally just a B&W with a G4 upgrade shoved in it which Apple only sold for a few months because they were having problems ramping up production on the AGP model, which is the "Real" Power Mac G4. I guess if you *really* want the G4 ZIF $30 for it isn't terrible, but it's only a 350mhz one; if your B&W happens to be a 400mhz one you'd actually take a little bit of a speed *hit* from swapping it.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

Gorgonops

Moderator
Staff member
No, that is a "Sawtooth" AGP model. You can tell from both the port layout on the back (which is almost the only way to tell them apart with the case closed) and the brown AGP slot the video card is plugged into, among other things.

 

mraroid

Well-known member
Thanks Gorgonops.  I am trying to get my head around where I am with my B&W, what upgrade options are available, and what I need.  I am not going to be filling the hard drive in my B&W with a lot of files and data.  128 GBs is way more then I would ever use.  So I am OK with one "smaller" hard drive.  I do want to get a solid state drive working in it.  I will have to see how that goes when the parts arrive.

mraroid

 

PB145B

Well-known member
Can an AGP G4 logic board be installed into a B&W case?

c
Correct me if I’m wrong. Could be way off here, but aren't the boards in these just standard ATX form-factor? If so, that should work just fine. Stealth G4 :)  

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
I would probably use a B&W with a B&W or Yikes board installed and then just buy a separate Power Macintosh G4 if you need a newer system for some reason.

 

mraroid

Well-known member
What is the most current browser that I can run under 9.22?
 
When I am ready to install an OS on my G4, do I install OSX first, then 9.22, or is it the other way around?
 
With a Yikes motherboard and a G4 running at around 400Mhz, Low End Mac recommends Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Would I have less compatibility issues if I installed Panther?  By compatibility issues, I mean down loading files and then burning CDs or floppies that I can read with my Color Classic Mystic under 8.1 (or 7.6.2)?
I am still confused by the file systems.  Am I correct in thinking that  7.6.OS ran under HFS file system, and 8.1 ran under HFS+?
 
I do not want to run a copy of OSX that is so new that I loose support for down loading files, and burning them to CD or floppies that my Mystic can read.
 
I guess I am asking for a recommendations as to which OSX to install.
 
I am a total nob when it comes to OSX as you can tell.
 
OS 8.1 seems so new to me.  When I move to 9.22, it will be quite a jump into the future.
 
I am still in search of a heat sink that will fit onto a G4 CPU in a Yikes! motherboard.  If you have one for sale, let me know.
Thanks
 
mraroid
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Gorgonops

Moderator
Staff member
When I installed a 400mhz G4 ZIF in my B&W (using the stock board because it's identical and by using it I didn't lose the ADB ports) I used the G3's heatsink and it fit fine. I'm 99.44% sure it's the same part as the Yikes shipped with; I've never been inside of a Yikes but from the pictures I've seen it looks the same.

Third party ZIF modules that ran at much higher speeds usually shipped with their own bigger cooler, but for the stock ones the passive B&W sink is fine. Remember, when the case is closed the CPU is right next to the large slow-moving fan built into the case, a design Apple came up with to avoid the need for a whiny high-piched fan on the CPU cooler. A G4 at 400mhz only draws about as much power as a midrange Pentium MMX, you don't need a gigantic slab of metal on it.

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
10.4 is probably the safest compromise if you absolutely must run OS X on that hardware.

A newer G4 would be better for OS X, a G5 or an early Intel Mac would, ultimately, be better still and still have HFS read/write compatibility under 10.4 and 10.5.

10.5 has full HFS read/write, and slightly less good AppleTalk compatibility.

(Remember: largely networking is your best bet here.)

10.5 won't run out of the box on your G3/G4 configuration, but if you get a G4 CPU, you can trick it. It's not generally worth it, though.

What sites are you browsing? Netscape 4.8, WaMCoM Mozilla 1.3.1 or Classilla [most recent version] will run fine and be good for most sites explicitly offering vintage Mac downloads - (in particular, Macintosh Garden).

Regarding filesystem: 8.0 or 8.1 and newer (I forget which) can boot HFS+ on PPC machines, but that version can also use HFS+ data partitions on 68k.

So, ultimately, if you do something like:

1)buy a literally brand new iMac or MacBook from the apple store in downtown Portland

2) buy a SCSI2SD v5.1 - store.inertialcomputing.com/SCSI2SD-V5-1-p/scsi2sd-v5.1.htm (you can get it with a db25 port to use externally)

3) buy a big SD card

4) run 8.1 on your CC

5) format the SD card HFS+ using 8.1 on your CC

6) you can now move the SD card between the scsi2sd in your vintage mac and a USB card reader in your modern one

While you're booted in system 7 or older, you'll only be able to use plain HFS volumes this way, but you could run a big HFS volume on a SCSI2SD and use OS X on 10.5 or older to be able to write to the volume.

you can just put the SD card from the SCSI2SD, and you'll have the fastest possible computer compatible with a filesystem your vintage Mac can use and suitable for preserving resource forks when transferring data.

(I actually recommend using networking rather than doing all of that, but the point is that it *is* possible.)

This kind of hearkens back to a comment I made in the previous thread about not really needing a bridge Mac given that your CC's got an '040 and a bunch of RAM and OS 8 on it, and can load Macintosh Garden in Netscape 4.08.

 
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