Biege G3 Ready for Panther...

WeeZer51402

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I just ordered my OWC G4 500Mhz Zif, 256Mb more ram and ATI Radeon 7000 for my biege G3. I think I'm just about ready for panther. Anybody have any suggestions for more upgrades? I've also upgraded to USB 2.0 and 10/100 ethernet.
 
Unless you use XPostFacto, you won't be able to install Panther. The only G3s that will install Panther are the Blue and White G3 and the iMacs, as well as the PowerBook G3 (Lombard and Pismo) and the iBook.

In other words, only NewWorld ROM-based Macs will run Panther without help from XPostFacto. The best you can do is Jaguar, which is not too bad...I'm running it on my work laptop, a PowerBook G3 "Wallstreet II."
 
Duh me...I guess I should have read the ENTIRE post... :p

I think with the processor upgrade card you will be fine...

Get a FireWire card if you can as well as USB 2.0. Also try and get as much RAM as possible...512 MB being the minimum.
 
I've got USB 2.0, I read somewhere not havinging integrated FireWire could be a problem n the future but thats why we have XPF! I think I should probably get a new cd-rw/dvd-rom drive and possibly put my 40Gb@7200 rpms in there. I've read that there are ways to get that Biege to boot off of more that and 8Gb partition. Perhaps a completely new IDE controller is what I need but keep in mind I'm running out of PCI slots, the biege only has 3 and mine are currently occupied by NIC and USB 2.0. Maybe I can find some sort of combo card.
 
that cpu will run panther well. my b&w with a sonnet g4 500 runs panther pretty well. your performance should be close. the extra ram you're buying will help.
 
How does tge quartz extreme hack work for you. I read that the reason QE isnt enabled by default is the lack of bandwidth on the pci bus and that it can at times create 5-15% performance increase but that it can also really slow the computer down during big processes also is there any way to OC the bus and lower the multiplier with this upgrade. Have you tried using a 3:1 ratio on your cache settings?
 
WeeZer51402 said:
How does tge quartz extreme hack work for you. I read that the reason QE isnt enabled by default is the lack of bandwidth on the pci bus and that it can at times create 5-15% performance increase but that it can also really slow the computer down during big processes also is there any way to OC the bus and lower the multiplier with this upgrade. Have you tried using a 3:1 ratio on your cache settings?

the quartz extreme hack works well for me but keep in mind that I run it on a 66mhz pci slot. I have no issues at all with it and 2D is sped up a noticable amount. only issues it should give you in a 33mhz slot is that now and then it will make video look odd or play a bit slow.

as for my cpu.. the sonnets are not adjustable at all really. my cache runs at 2:1 (250MHz) by default. I bet with that owc you will be able to get 533 or 566mhz. maybe even 600 if you use some good silver thermal paste.

good luck with everything.
 
Ill have to look into that. I don't want to damage the chip at all, I was running the cache at 333Mhz and seemed to run stabily but it it didn't bench any higher than it did with the 250Mhz cache in XBench. Im thinking of increasing my bus multiplier to 2.5 from 2.0. That should yield a PCI bus of 33Mhz(as it is now) and a FSB of 83Mhz. This is a little unlikey but it has been know to happen. The other configurations I could try are decreasing the pci bu speed to 30Mhz and using a 2.5x bus multiplier(PCI Bus x Bus Mult. = FSB) and have a 75Mhz FSB. Furthermore my CPU speed would be increased to 525Mhz using a 7x multiplier or decreased to 487Mhz by using a 6.5x multiplier. By using the second config I'm kinda worried that it will hurt my quartz/openGL performance as well as my PCI in general. The third option is to use PCI Bus speed of 35.0Mhz and use a 2.0x bus multiplier to yield a 70mhz bus which should mantain the 2:1 ratio as well marginally increase my PCI and Memory I/O perfromance. The only problem with the third config is it will either run the processor at 525Mhz using a 7.5x multiplier or at 490Mhz using a 7x multiplier. I'm not to sure how well this will chip will run at 525Mhz. Yesterday I had it running a 533Mhz and it went fine for a while(though it did XBench lower than @500Mhz) then it completely crashed. If anyone has any suggestions let me know, thanks.
 
a bump in cache speed will make little to no gain in performance. this is why so many don't mind underclocking L2 to make overclocking the cpu more stable. the G4 500's overclocked to 600 that owc, xlr8 and fastmac sell now have the cache set to 240mhz by default. the xlr8 chips are actually tested and verified at 650mhz before shipping. at 650mhz i'm sure the cache would be best set to around 200mhz.

my point in all this is that cache speed has little to do with system performance when it comes to mhz. just having it there is all that really matters.

go for the system bus and cpu boost with the minor loss in pci speed. a 3mhz drop won't really even be noticeable. many beige G3 upgraders seem to opt for this same idea.

edit: check out this xbench score http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge.xhtml?doc1=74944

beige with an 83mhz bus and scores just 1 point under my system with the same cpu but a 100mhz bus. pretty decent results for that person.
 
i eBayed mine for 70.00USD so it was really a better deal and as we all know im still restricted by my 33Mhz pci bus though i am having issues with the 7000 it just creates a fuzzy picture and XPF creates a kernal panic while testing my proc cache ill try to disable the l2 and see what happens.
 
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