Upgrading my Beige G3

[Redjack]

Hey Guys:

In a move of nostalgia, I dusted off my old 233 Beige G3 MT (bought it at the old CompUSA Apple Store within a Store) and wanted to fire it up. Well, the HD started making alotta noise and it sounds sick overall. So now I'm wanting to update it.

Most likely I'll need a new PRAM battery but I was wondering about a few things:

1) Updating the motherboard. I have a Rev A, how do I update the ROM to say RevB or C? Is it even worth it?

2) Whisper Personality upgrade to Wings....can it be done on a Rev A or would I just need to revamp the whole thing to get the Wings card in?

3) Processor upgrades. Which is better, a faster G3 ZIF (remember 233 MHz) or a G4 ZIF? How hard or easy are these to come by?

I know, I know, I could easily get a B&W or even a Quicksilver...but this beige box was (in my opinion) simply the best industrial design and best access to all internal parts plus I'd like to see more years out of it because it was my first Power Mac. Anyways, Help!

 

[Unknown_K]

The ROMs are on SIMMs so getting a B or C revision is not an issue. I upgraded one of mine to a later revision just so slave drives on the IDE bus worked. I think there are also issues between revisions and OSX compatability, but I run 9.x so it doesn't bother me.

Any of the personality cards should work in any boards, I have the A/V ones in both of my beige G3s.

I think both of my units were 233 G3s with 512K cache and I upgraded one to a 433/1MB and the other to a 300/1M just because the full 1MB cache which speeds things up.

 

[sircabulon]

how much are you looking to upgrade it? I upgraded mine pretty intensely. Specs are in the signature. macsales.com is where i get most of my parts.

 

[Redjack]

I'd like to get a faster G3 before getting a G4. The only reason to run G4 would be OSX but I have another machine with that. I'd just like to trick it out enough to get the Wings AV card, maybe a TV Tuner card, make it my multimedia blast from the past (use older software, etc). Ha, I also have a few older machines lying around that I'm gonna trick out someday... Anyways here are more questions:

So where can I get the RevB/C SIMMs? eBay?

I can find some personality cards, just having hangups that it might do something evil.

Finally, there are issues with which ZIF's can work on mine. I read somewhere that you can't necessarily get a working pull from some B&W's or whatnot and plug and play..because of New World v. Old World ROMs or something. Can't find the article. Bottom line is, should I just buy a straight up "upgrade ZIF" from say Sonnet or can I just go on eBay and get a "working pull" and be fine with it?

Also, can you buy the cache separately or is that part and parcel with the chip/upgrade?

Any help would be awesome!

 

[sircabulon]

cache is built into the processor card, so you dont have to worry about that. you will, however, have to worry about the voltage regulator. There is a certain brand that fries any processor that didn't come in the computer.

 

[Franklinstein]

drivejumper.com/ClockupG3/homepage.html is a fairly good resource for this sort of thing, when the page loads...

Anyways, the Royal VRMs are the bad ones. The Raytheons are good, though, so don't worry about replacing those.

You CAN use a B&W G3's processor card in a beige. I've done it before. However, you must manually configure the processor clock frequency using the little jumper block to the left of the personality card, near the PRAM battery. The page above lists all of the configurations and stuff that you'll need. Otherwise, try googling "g3 overclocking".

 

[madmax_2069]

i used a G3 450 CPU from a B&W (it clocks up to 466mhz in the Beige G3 cause of the 66mhz bus in the Beige) it runs great.

i also have 768mb ram in my AIO which alows it to use less vmem and makes it run better ( in OS X) in OS 9 vmem it turned off.

a PCI Radeon 7000 makes thing even better.

but whatch out you can easily blow allot to buy upgrades for this thing. but the upgrades do make it allot faster. it could almost hang with a B&W

i paid

$55 shipped for the CPU

$40 shipped for the video card

about $100 for 3 sticks of 16 chip (low density) 256mb sticks ( it will not work with 8 chip high density, it will only show half of the ram per stick or not show at all)

all of this was bought in 05 so prices was a tad bit higher.

plus i bought a WD 120gb HDD and replaced the old IDE cables with 80 wire ATA133 cables (which made things load faster)

 

[Bunsen]

Ebay seller IC-China has fast ZIF G3s for dirt cheap. They are sold as-is, but for $15 and flat $5 worldwide shipping, who cares? Look under Chips/Motorola and Chips/IBM.

As for finding a Rev B or C ROM SIMM: anyone who is smart enough to remove and sell that seperately is also smart enough to know what they are worth. IMHO it would be best to try and find a full Rev B/C motherboard with the SIMM, as long as the shipping is reasonable. There are other ICs on those boards that are improved over the Rev A - the ATI video for example. You may need to help the seller with Rev identification, so have a search here or on xlr8yourmac.com for how to identify the revision.

 

[Unknown_K]

The rev A motherboards were the only ones that did 83Mhz I think (kind of like how the Wallstreet 1 did 83Mhz FSB while the later wallstreets were stuck at 66Mhz only).

 

[Redjack]

So in a sense, if I want to overclock, maybe it would be better to stick with a Rev A board? Then I can just buy a pretty decked out G3 (well, nothing very fast) and stick with this or are the later G3 processors (B&W pulls say) only compatible with later Rev Boards?

The rev A motherboards were the only ones that did 83Mhz I think (kind of like how the Wallstreet 1 did 83Mhz FSB while the later wallstreets were stuck at 66Mhz only).

 

[sircabulon]

you best bet is finding one with an 83mhz grackle and switching out the roms. best of both worlds. If you get the high end sonnet, you can only run at the 66 mhz anyways though.

 

[tmtomh]

I would say your main question is this: Do you want to enjoy this machine by playing with it and using it now and then, or, do you want to enjoy this machine by really challenging yourself (and spending money) to upgrade it as much as possible?

If your answer is the first option, i.e. something a bit mellower and less ambitious, I recommend the following:

(1) Stick with a G3 upgrade (or a G3 ZIF scavenged from a B&W) - a G4 upgrade will give you a boost over a G3 only in certain circumstances, and those will generally require adding more RAM, using XPostFacto to try to install unsupported versions of OS X, and perhaps adding USB cards and the like.

(2) Better yet, just overclock the existing CPU. Remove the jumper block and use individual jumpers. You can overclock 99% of 233MHz beige G3 CPUs to 266MHz, and I'd say your chances of stably OC'ing it to 300MHz are at least 50-50 as well.

(3) I would say don't mess with the bus speed and leave it at 66MHz. In my experience the CPUs, PCI bus, and PC66 RAM may or may not like a bumped-up system bus. Again, go ahead and do it if you just want to have fun. But for a quick performance bump, I think upping CPU speed is much simpler and more dependable.

(4) Don't worry too much about the ROM upgrade. If you want a 2nd HD on the main IDE bus just for fun, I have a couple of Rev. B/C ROM boards (which also have Raytheon VRMs and various other updated on-board chips) and I could send you one for a few bucks plus shipping. But in terms of enhancing usability, the Rev. B/C boards don't really do much in practice.

Bottom line is that architecturally these machines are much closer to the 7300-9600 Macs that came before them, than they are to anything that came after them. They're not really OS X machines, and their speed and functionality when running OS X falls of a cliff relative to OS 9.

On the flip side, they are absolute screamers when running Classic Mac OS, and if you're looking for a Power Mac on which to enjoy OS 8/9, these definitely are the best.

M

 

[Unknown_K]

For the 83Mhz bus you need pc100 ram, same with the early wallstreets that used 83Mhz FSB.

 

[Huxley]

That's an awesome tip - thanks!

That being said, I'm about to put down $21 for this item:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230304040895

...and I thought it would be prudent to check with you guys to make sure that this upgrade with "play nice" with my Beige G3!

Any tips or suggestions would be killer,

Huxley

Ebay seller IC-China has fast ZIF G3s for dirt cheap. They are sold as-is, but for $15 and flat $5 worldwide shipping, who cares? Look under Chips/Motorola and Chips/IBM.

 

[equill]

It's been a long, long drought since ic-china had much in the way of 500MHz ZIF cards, and even now it is only the 750s rather than 7400s. Grab while the skips/dumpsters of the world are being harvested, because the next drought could be even longer. Sonnet made the most desirable ZIF cards, which need no speed jumpering—just a cache-enabling extension—and carry 1MB caches.

In non-Sonnet cards, conventional wisdom is to prefer IBM CPUs ahead of Motorola, but I have to record that I have not suffered from use of either on XLR8 PDS cards, if that has any relevance for Beige G3 Power Macintoshes. Sonnet being Sonnet, they probably had a fairly tight prescription for the 'raw' CPUs that they used, and seem mostly to have used those from IBM in making their own ZIF cards.

de

 

[Bunsen]

The only relevant tip would be that you have to configure the jumper block yourself to run the CPU at 500 MHz (or as near as you can get it by multiplying 66 MHz). Apart from that, a ZIF is a ZIF is a ZIF, and as equill says, grab it while it's hot - noting of course that in return for the bargain price, you accept the risk that it's DOA.

 

[equill]

... noting of course that in return for the bargain price, you accept the risk that it's DOA.

Sixteen purchases from this seller, all but one ZIF cards, and the other a 603e/117MHz card for a PB 500 series. Not one dud amongst them, which is not a bad batting average on his part.

de

 

[Bunsen]

I'm about to put down $21 for this item:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230304040895

So buy it already! [] ]'>

 

[Huxley]

Well, I'm happy to report that I'm posting this from my freshly-renovated Beige G3! I scrounged eBay and found a nice Rage128/16 card, a 500MHz G3/ZIF chip, and a set of overclocking-friendly jumpers.

Following Bunsen's advice, I picked up the G3 from IC-China, and it was an awesome experience! The ZIF arrived perfectly packed in a tiny little envelope, and I was very happy to find that it was actually a Sonnet G3 upgrade card with 1MB of L2 cache, rather than a "plain-jane" G3 card. Sweet, and barely $20!

I've been sitting on these parts for a bit more than a week, but with a day off tomorrow I can afford to stay up late tonight, so I put some vintage Etta James on my iPod ("Etta James Rocks The House" is a must-have album!), popped open an ice-cold Blue Moon ale, and set to work.

I've now got the hardware totally put together, and Jaguar 10.2.8 running nicely in 384 megs of RAM. One thing that changed from my earlier posts is that I've combined some parts from the Minitower with a G3 Desktop that I had kicking around. Since the Desktop has the better VRU and a later, more stable set of ROMs, it made a better testbed for these random parts, and frankly, I'm much happier with the smaller size of this unit, so I think I'll keep it as-is for now, and retire the 'Tower to the garage.

Onward and upward!

Huxley