# Blue and White G3 - OSX or OS9?



## drunkmac (Mar 29, 2005)

I got ahold of a blue and white G3 tower recently. 300mhz, 6.4gb, 64mb of ram. Sucks right? Well Im putting 512mb of ram in there and a 20gb hard drive. So, until I can afford a CPU upgrade, do you think it's best to go with OS X or OS9? I have OS X on CD, OS9 I do not. I feel like OSX might be a little sluggish, soooo....?


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## bobw (Mar 29, 2005)

Will be a little sluggish, but will run, and you already have it.


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## drunkmac (Mar 29, 2005)

Also, I need to upgrade to a dvd drive or burner. Whats a good internal and/or external (firewire 400) burner that has a good price?


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## bobw (Mar 29, 2005)

Look for a Pioneer 106 DVD-R drive.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/powermac/


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## ziess (Mar 29, 2005)

Also, G3s don't allow booting off of firewire devices and I'm sure that includes dvd/cd drives so you'll have to go down the internal route.


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## chevy (Mar 29, 2005)

drunkmac said:
			
		

> I got ahold of a blue and white G3 tower recently. 300mhz, 6.4gb, 64mb of ram. Sucks right? Well Im putting 512mb of ram in there and a 20gb hard drive. So, until I can afford a CPU upgrade, do you think it's best to go with OS X or OS9? I have OS X on CD, OS9 I do not. I feel like OSX might be a little sluggish, soooo....?



My B&W G3 has been overclocked to 400 MHz and operates 10.3 without a problem (348 MB RAM, 40 GB HD). And it is not THAT slow. You cannot use GarageBand but iTunes, Office and VLC player are fine.


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## MrNivit1 (Mar 29, 2005)

I had a B&W G3 that I upgraded to X a while back and even though it wasn't as snappy as what I have now, it got the job done (and I even used it quiet heavily-> games, compiling, etc).  It did have a problem with an external CD burner I had.  Could've been the burner, but I would recomend going internal with any type of burner.


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## HateEternal (Mar 29, 2005)

I use one daily at work, they are pretty solid on OS X, the only thing that annoys me is the slow video card.


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## ziess (Mar 29, 2005)

My G3 (as per sig) runs OS X.3 fantastically well for a machine that I got for around $250. It also runs extra quiet as I've disconnected the case fan - it's not actually got any hotter or less stable, yet, but I'm monitoring the situation....!


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## Natobasso (Mar 29, 2005)

Why not just buy a mac mini and you're golden?


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## drunkmac (Mar 29, 2005)

Because I paid $125 after shipping for this G3 

Looks like OS X will be the way to go. I might do a dual boot with OS 9 though.


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## scruffy (Mar 29, 2005)

You might want to...  Just beware of going anywhere near the OS X drive partition when you're in OS 9 - file permissions are there for a reason.

And incidentally - my rev 1 G3, 300MHz, (320 megs of RAM, a 100 gig, 10 gig, and 6 gig HDs, and DVD-ROM), is solid on 10.3.  10.0 and 10.1 were a bit painful; by 10.2 it was all good.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Mar 29, 2005)

A little off-topic, but OWC has some great deals (< $200) for refurbished B&W G3 machines.

http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Page.cfm?Parent=510&Title=&Template=

With a G3/1GHz upgrade (or even G4/500MHz), Radeon 9200 PCI video card, ATA/133 PCI card and a fast hard drive, these make excellent OS X machines.


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## texanpenguin (Mar 29, 2005)

Well my 350MHz G3 iMac runs like a trooper in Panther with 320 MB of RAM.


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## acidtuch10 (Mar 30, 2005)

I am running a B&W 400mhz G3 with 1 gig of ram.
ATI 7000 Radeon video card
Two hard drives, a 20 with OS9 installed and a 30 with OSX installed both attached to a Accard ATA controller --- The thing runs great! And is awesome for storage, server duties and browsing Once I encoded a DVD  Video_TS folder to AVI (compressed down to a 1024meg AVI file) and it took a little over 12 hours with the CPU @ 75% and above, which I think is pretty good considering the CPU is a 333 from a beige that has been over clocked. Stable though.


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## drunkmac (Mar 30, 2005)

Very cool with the upgrades guys. I'm an hour away from getting an Apple branded Zip Drive off ebay with G3 and G4 bezels.


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## Jeffo (Mar 30, 2005)

i would definately go with X on it.  it may seem sluggish if you are used to a dual g4 or something like that, but with the 20gig drive and 512mb i think it is still very usable.


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## drunkmac (Mar 31, 2005)

Thanks for the input. Anyone else have any suggestions on what I could do to this box?


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## chemistry_geek (Mar 31, 2005)

I have a Frankenmac B&W G3: G4 logic board w/ PCI graphics card slot, 500 MHz IBM G3 w/ 1 MB L2 Cache (from http://www.macsales.com/), 768 MB RAM, OEM 12 GB internal HD, Adaptec 2930 Ultra SCSI w/ 18 GB IBM internal HD, external LaCie Big Disk Extreme 320 GB Firewire 800/400/USB 2.0 triple interface, external GVP 52X/52X/26X CD burner, and Mac OS X 10.3.8.  This computer starts up in approximately 1 minute, burns CDs 700 MB CDs in about 7 to 8 minutes, and is fine for cruising the internet, wordprocessing, spreadsheets, etc...  It is a little slow at rendering sophisticated graphics, but generally quite usable.  The 500 IBM G3 that I purchased from http://www.macsales.com/ did not come with the proper heat sink; it came with the heat sink for a 400 MHz processor, so I bolted on an AMD mini processor cooling fan on the heatsink and it runs fine; the fan plugs into one of the stray hard drive power lines dangling from the power supply.  Mac OS X runs faster than Mac OS 9 ever did, just make sure to load up or max-out the RAM to 1 GB if you can.


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## drunkmac (Apr 9, 2005)

UPDATE:

Well the G3 finally came today, along with a free matching blue keyboard and mouse! To my suprise, it booted up to a clean install of OS 9.2.2!! This makes me very happy and I like using OS 9 on this machine. It's very quick now that I have 448mb of RAM in the G3. However, I tried throwing in a 2nd 80gb hard drive and it bugged out at me and wouldnt boot up. So....if you have any idea why, lemme know. All that's left is to swap out the current CDROM in there for my DVDROM drive.

Anyone ever upgrade a G3 CPU? That's prob the only thing left I'll want to do. 

Oh! And I'll get pics soon considering my apartment is all gadget and macked out...the G3 is an interesting looking piece.


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## chevy (Apr 9, 2005)

drunkmac said:
			
		

> However, I tried throwing in a 2nd 80gb hard drive and it bugged out at me and wouldnt boot up. So....if you have any idea why, lemme know.



You should check the master slave settings of both drives.


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## drunkmac (Apr 9, 2005)

Good point Chevy. I only checked the 80gb that I ripped out of my old PC. That was set on Slave but I never checked the Master inside the G3.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Apr 9, 2005)

Some early versions of the B&W G3 machine (dubbed "revision 1" or "rev A") cannot handle more than one hard drive.  Later versions ("revision 2" or "rev B" machines) can handle two hard drives just fine.

Here's one way to tell (by looking at markings on the IDE controller chip):
http://www.applefritter.com/node/5748


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## TommyWillB (Apr 9, 2005)

Trying to run OS X on my B&W G3 drove me nutts... I loved OS X, but it was frustratingly slow, and I had 750MB of RAM and 50GB drive.

It's what finally triggered me to buy the G4 I have now.


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## blue&whiteman (Apr 9, 2005)

ElDiabloConCaca said:
			
		

> Some early versions of the B&W G3 machine (dubbed "revision 1" or "rev A") cannot handle more than one hard drive.  Later versions ("revision 2" or "rev B" machines) can handle two hard drives just fine.
> 
> Here's one way to tell (by looking at markings on the IDE controller chip):
> http://www.applefritter.com/node/5748



exactly.  some even have troubles with one.  the rev. B board was better and because of that it was used in the first G4 powermac (yikes) 

fastmac now has G4 500 zifs for 99$.  think it ends soon so if you can upgrade now.


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## drunkmac (Apr 10, 2005)

Im liking the G4 500 upgrade for such a low price! But I have bad news!!!

Yesterday I was installing OS X and halfway through it, my monitor went ZAP! and now doesn't work anymore! What the heck happened?! Now my G3 is sitting around doing nothing...argghhhh!


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Apr 10, 2005)

It depends on what monitor you have: is it the blueberry- or graphite-colored Apple Studio Display with a VGA connector?  If so, you can get it repaired for free by referencing this tech note when you call Apple:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=88195


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## drunkmac (Apr 10, 2005)

The monitor I had...was some generic beige KDS 17" monitor. Im just gonna go drop $100 on a new one tomorrow..but I wish i didnt have to. It keeps clicking in the back.


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## chevy (Apr 10, 2005)

Get a flat screen if you can afford it (and if you don't need true colors): it's some much smaller on your desk, better for your eyes (no flicker) and needs far less power.


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## chevy (Apr 10, 2005)

TommyWillB said:
			
		

> Trying to run OS X on my B&W G3 drove me nutts... I loved OS X, but it was frustratingly slow, and I had 750MB of RAM and 50GB drive.
> 
> It's what finally triggered me to buy the G4 I have now.



Yes, 10.0 and 10.1 were slow on G3s. 10.2 and 10.3 are much better.


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## drunkmac (Apr 10, 2005)

Yet another UPDATE:

Best Buy has this nice 17" black CRT for $99 with a $20 mail in rebate...so score. Except I paid $30 in cab fees between getting there and back to my apartment, but whatever. Did I mention the goods? The auction said the following:

+No Zip Drive included
+6.4gb hard drive
+No OS

It came with a Zip Drive, with a 10gb hard drive (still tryin to get that 80gb in there...im going to check the version of the G3 I have), and with OS 9.2.2 freshly installed! And the guy threw in a matching Apple G3 blue keyboard and puck mouse.

As for performance, I just installed OS 10.3.4 off of DVD and it's updating all the software which Im sure is killing performance. But even with the lag, it's pretty smooth considering it's 300mhz with 320mb of RAM (gonna try the last 128mb stick I have left tonight)

Next post will have pics! Now...whats the best way to up the CPU?


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Apr 10, 2005)

Forget about the G4 chips -- go with a 1.1GHz G3 ZIF!

http://powerlogix.com/products/g3_zif/index.html


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## blue&whiteman (Apr 11, 2005)

ElDiabloConCaca said:
			
		

> Forget about the G4 chips -- go with a 1.1GHz G3 ZIF!
> 
> http://powerlogix.com/products/g3_zif/index.html



good point but those are 350$ US.  plus if altivec is well used by an app then a G4 of half the speed or less can beat it.  a guy on spymac with the 1.1 G3 said high res/high frame rate video was a tad choppy in vlc and mplayer(which are both altivec apps).  my G4 500 zif never skips a frame.

don't forget that osx uses altivec quite well also.  get a G4 500 cheap and max the ram.  the same config never leaves me feeling left out.


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## Hydraulix (Apr 12, 2005)

drunkmac said:
			
		

> Thanks for the input. Anyone else have any suggestions on what I could do to this box?



Install Linux on it!


You can use Yellowdog Linux (I've never used it) or what I recommend it using Gentoo Linux (www.gentoo.org). Go get the livecd and do a stage 3 install on it (the stage 1 isn't worth it for slow computers). Then emerge fluxbox or enlightenment. You can install Gnome or KDE but it's going to take longer. In fact it took up to three days to install KDE on my G3 500mhz 640MB iBook. Gnome took about a day or so. Linux on the PPC is very fast and smooth. Everything for your notebook should be supported except the 56k modem. I'm not sure about that since I use cable internet. Not to mention there's tools to clockdown your processor speed (cpudyn) and other tools to spin down the hard drive(hdparm) that will make the batter last longer. That's what I did with my old iBook and it runs like new. IMO Gentoo has better support with PPC and installing packages is easy.

Edit: I forgot to mention the fact that I'm not saying Linux is better then OS X. Since I will be buying a new powerbook this fall just because I enjoy OS X that much. I'm just saying that for old PPC hardware it's better to use a operating system that's not going to blog down the system. If you wanted to you can dual boot OS X and Linux on that machine. In fact that's what I'm doing right now. Also I can run OS X in linux using MOL. www.maconlinux.org/ Linux on the PPC is improving. Java and Flash is still a bit shady. But everything else runs great.


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## nixgeek (Apr 12, 2005)

Hydraulix said:
			
		

> Install Linux on it!
> 
> 
> You can use Yellowdog Linux (I've never used it) or what I recommend it using Gentoo Linux (www.gentoo.org). Go get the livecd and do a stage 3 install on it (the stage 1 isn't worth it for slow computers). Then emerge fluxbox or enlightenment. You can install Gnome or KDE but it's going to take longer. In fact it took up to three days to install KDE on my G3 500mhz 640MB iBook. Gnome took about a day or so. Linux on the PPC is very fast and smooth. Everything for your notebook should be supported except the 56k modem. I'm not sure about that since I use cable internet. Not to mention there's tools to clockdown your processor speed (cpudyn) and other tools to spin down the hard drive(hdparm) that will make the batter last longer. That's what I did with my old iBook and it runs like new. IMO Gentoo has better support with PPC and installing packages is easy.



As much as I love Linux/ppc, there are some things you are going to have to live without if you DO decide to go the Linux/ppc route:

1. No Flash (I can deal with this, but some sites that I actually enjoy I can't view because Macromedia is being a PITA about supporting PPC Linux)
2. No Java (unless you use Kaffe, which I might have to use myself for Java support on Linux/ppc)
3. 3D Acceleration Support (You're limited when it comes to 3D support on X11 in Linux.  I believe the best you can do now is a RADEON 9200 series card.  Anything beyond that for ATI cards will not support hardware 3D.  Same goes for all NVIDIA chipsets)

Other than that, it's all good.  Just making sure you understand what will await you in Linux/ppc land.


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## nixgeek (Apr 12, 2005)

Hydraulix said:
			
		

> Install Linux on it!
> 
> 
> You can use Yellowdog Linux (I've never used it) or what I recommend it using Gentoo Linux (www.gentoo.org). Go get the livecd and do a stage 3 install on it (the stage 1 isn't worth it for slow computers). Then emerge fluxbox or enlightenment. You can install Gnome or KDE but it's going to take longer. In fact it took up to three days to install KDE on my G3 500mhz 640MB iBook. Gnome took about a day or so. Linux on the PPC is very fast and smooth. Everything for your notebook should be supported except the 56k modem. I'm not sure about that since I use cable internet. Not to mention there's tools to clockdown your processor speed (cpudyn) and other tools to spin down the hard drive(hdparm) that will make the batter last longer. That's what I did with my old iBook and it runs like new. IMO Gentoo has better support with PPC and installing packages is easy.
> ...




Man...you beat me to it.


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## Hydraulix (Apr 12, 2005)

nixgeek said:
			
		

> As much as I love Linux/ppc, there are some things you are going to have to live without if you DO decide to go the Linux/ppc route:
> 
> 1. No Flash (I can deal with this, but some sites that I actually enjoy I can't view because Macromedia is being a PITA about supporting PPC Linux)
> 2. No Java (unless you use Kaffe, which I might have to use myself for Java support on Linux/ppc)
> ...







The flash thing is going to be a problem until Macromedia decides to join the Linux PPC community. Until then you can do this. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-117774-highlight-flash+ppc.html

Java is also shady right now. A couple of my friends are trying to work this one out. 

3D Acceleration Support is just luck of the draw. Hopefully it will get better with X.org


I forgot to mention that sleep does work on old G3 machines. Just make sure you have enough swap space. 512MB should be fine.


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## BenG (Apr 24, 2005)

> Also, G3s don't allow booting off of firewire devices and I'm sure that includes dvd/cd drives so you'll have to go down the internal route.



I boot my Pismo off a firewire 80G HD every day.

BenG


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## themacnut (Apr 25, 2005)

The no-boot from firewire is a problem specific to Blue and White G3 powermacs.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Apr 25, 2005)

It's not a "problem," so to speak -- it's just not supported.  It's also not supported on Yikes! (PCI graphics) G4 machines as well.


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