Beige G3 Tower ROM Revisions

[Tempest]

I just found out that my G3 tower is a Rev 2. I know that the Rev 1 ROM had issues, but what about 2? Is there any reason to track down a Rev 3 rom?

Tempest

 

[trag]

I just found out that my G3 tower is a Rev 2. I know that the Rev 1 ROM had issues, but what about 2? Is there any reason to track down a Rev 3 rom?

No. At least, not as far as anyone has been able to determine. And the Rev. 3 (usually called Rev. C) ROM has an issue with some kind of network expansion card (not a common card) which the Rev. B did not. So Rev. B is probably the sweet spot.

BTW, the way to identify the ROMs is to read the numbers on the ROM chips on the ROM DIMM. OWC put up this big ol' web page on identifying the ROMs and how hard it is and they went on and on about the circuit board part numbers and how they could be one revision or the other. If they had bothered to look at the part numbers on the CHIPS all the ambiguity would have been gone.

Unfortunately, it's been so long since I worked wtih them, I don't remember the part numbers. The Rev. A is something like 343S0401 and 343C0402 or maybe 341Sxxxx. I think the Rev. C was 343S0494 and 343S0495 but again, that's from memory. I never knew the Rev. B number.

Ah, I found an old post of mine on the topic from back when I remembered this stuff. The Rev. C does not work with Skyline Brand ethernet or wireless products. I can't find an old post that lays out the chip numbers though.

The main difference in the Rev. A motherboard from later motherboards was the video chip. I think it was Rage II vs. Rage Pro and later Apple went to the Rage Pro Turbo, but never took advantage of the Turbo's extra features in software so there's no difference in practice between the latter two.

 

[Unknown_K]

I think OSX had issues with the original video chip during installs of 10.3.x that pretty much made you do a full reset to get the machine working again. There are also differences in the power board regulator (removable) that CPU upgrades might kill if you had a specific version.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

This thread is the best hit that came up on this topic, so here's a bit more info:

I just checked all the info on my Tempo Trio Cards (ATA-133/USB/FW) on Sonnet's web site. The Tempo Trio is listed as incompatible with the Beige Rev.3 Board in the Q&A. The ROM identifier for Rev.3 is an Apple System Profiler listing of the ROM revision as $77D.45F2

My ROM revision is $77D.45F1 so I'm guessing I must have the Rev.2 Board. It has the ATY,Rage128y chipset. I'll hazard a guess that this is called Rage Pro from some reason or other, despite conflicting info abut that name on Wikipedia, but that info also shows that Rage128 is definitely not the Rev.1 Beige G3's RageII chipset.

This all jibes with the production dating on everymac.com listing production of the Rage"Pro" Beige series commencing on 5/1/98 while my BeigeG3- DT/266 was produced 5/13/98.

I'm guessing that the Rev.1 boards have a ROM revision of $77D.45F0 or would that be too much of a coincidence?

Whatever . . . I'll be making sure that the triple threat Tempo Trio from Sonnet works in my bare nekkid' metal "Beige" DT/MT.

To summarize, the Sonnet Tempo Trio is another card that's incompatible with the rev.1/A Beige G3.

Can anyone give a yeah or nay to my guesswork here?

 

[trag]

I'm guessing that the Rev.1 boards have a ROM revision of $77D.45F0 or would that be too much of a coincidence?

Whatever . . . I'll be making sure that the triple threat Tempo Trio from Sonnet works in my bare nekkid' metal "Beige" DT/MT.

Rev. A ROM for the Beige G3 has revision number $77D.40F2. Not very sequential of them.