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Going to look at a B&W G3

LaPorta

LaPorta

68LC040
Hey everyone,

Going to look at possibly buying this B&W G3 that’s about 30 min from me. I already know it doesn’t have RAM, and looks like the modem has been removed (don’t need it anyway), but was wondering if anyone saw any other red flags in these photos. I was going to offer him $120 for it. I did see a metal plate in the case in the photo of it opened up: wasn’t sure what that is. I realized I didn’t ask if it still had its HD too…I’ll ask for that.

 
Looks good and wonder what that card in the middle is. Check for cracks on handles, around hex screws on corners, wouldn’t worry too much if Rev A or B, if Rev A you can get a PCI IDE or SATA card. Frankly I’ve never experienced data corruption on Rev A in any config.

And yes to screw in HD trays X 2 usually towards the posterior.
 
The card almost looks like one of those ATI All-In-Wonder cards with a TV tuner. Don’t know if they made them for Macs for bot though.
 
realizing this is several days old:

Some blue G3s, especialy those aimed at the educational environment, were shipped with an 4 or 8-meg (forget if it was upgradeable, or pre-upgraded) ATi Rage 2 variant with a/v in and out, IIRC as a replacement for the beige models with a/v, which I suppose some school ssuper liked. Perhaps this is one of those?

Someone pulled the Rage128 and/or this machine never had it, at minimum, which is, from what I can tell, the only flag I'd have. If the card in it displays video, then it's potentially a more interesting configuration, unless you were relying on getting the 16-meg Rage128 for it's gaming capabilities.

It's secondarily very tough to be 100% sure what that card is with the provided pictures, it almost looks like a D-Sub port, then a DIN port, then 3 squares, which doesn't 100% mesh with the Rage 2 with a/v variant, but I'm also, say, not aware of any cards with USB ports in that orientation, though that's an "I don't see why not if the connector fits..." as well as anything else.
 
So to get back to this…

Seller still has it. Can’t locate RAM for it, so I asked for $125 which he agreed. Hopefully can go see it in a week or two and bring it home.
 
I think so. It says it will do PC-133 3-2-2 or PC-100 2-2-2. The memory controller on the B&W G3 will choose PC-100.
 
joevt said:
I think so. It says it will do PC-133 3-2-2 or PC-100 2-2-2. The memory controller on the B&W G3 will choose PC-100.
Click to expand...
The OWC description also says that it will work in ALL PowerMac G3s...so I assume it will as well. Thanks very much for the help.
 
This stuff has timing parameters of 3-3-3...which I think will not work.

EDIT: looks like it is 2-2-2 when running as PC-100.
 
The original video card also appears to be gone. I'd like to find an original ATI RAGE 128 GL card for the machine, but all I am finding online are AGP-based cards, not PCI ones. Anyone have one of these or know where to get one?
 
I upgraded my B&W tower to a Radeon 9200 many years ago, which I believe is the best PCI Mac graphics card you could get. I dare not look what those would go for these days, but given the prices I’m seeing for old Rage 128s, it’s probably not cheap.

Might have to give those old PCI Mac cards a second look if I see any at the next vintage computer swap meet.
 
When I went through a divorce many years ago, I let the ex wife keep the B&W while I kept all the rest. Part of me still regrets that deal.
 
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