Thread
a Completely Scatterbrained Thread About the Beige G3/266
I recently took my G3/266 Rev1 down from storage hoping that I might be able to turn it into a semi-competent web browser with Tiger (possibly panther), and also add a partition for OS9, for scsi and older games.
[edit: nevermind. I'm working on installing 10.4 with xpostfacto.]
Also, OS8's system profiler says that the video is from "ATY,mach64_3DU GT-B". What in the world is that? Is it some kind of specific video card? I searched Google, but I could only come up with people asking the same question.
I upped the ram to 768mb, btw... will probably swap out the HDD and video card for whatever I have lying around that might improve performance. I'm aware that X needs to be within the first 8gb partition.
[edit: nevermind. I'm working on installing 10.4 with xpostfacto.]
Also, OS8's system profiler says that the video is from "ATY,mach64_3DU GT-B". What in the world is that? Is it some kind of specific video card? I searched Google, but I could only come up with people asking the same question.
I upped the ram to 768mb, btw... will probably swap out the HDD and video card for whatever I have lying around that might improve performance. I'm aware that X needs to be within the first 8gb partition.
ATY,mach64 = ATI Mach64, the chip that the Rage IIc, that is, the chip in the Rev. A Beige G3 is based off.
You will need to source a PCI video card for your machine.
The last OS to support the Rage chip was 10.2.
I would suggest sourcing a cheap Rage128 or better card.
If you get a PCI Radeon you can try enabling Quartz Extreme by using the PCI Extreme program (not available from Apple). This will make the machine much faster.
If you don't want to spend any money, then I don't know what your options are other than Linux. You can try Jaguar, but I think the newer browsers require 10.3 and up.
The last OS to support the Rage chip was 10.2.
I would suggest sourcing a cheap Rage128 or better card.
If you get a PCI Radeon you can try enabling Quartz Extreme by using the PCI Extreme program (not available from Apple). This will make the machine much faster.
If you don't want to spend any money, then I don't know what your options are other than Linux. You can try Jaguar, but I think the newer browsers require 10.3 and up.
Rev 1 beige g3 machines are not the greatest for OSX, stick with OS 9.2.
If I did that, I wouldn't be able to access most of the sites I frequent.
This is not going to be my main machine. I have a MDD G4 that is more than happy to devour any task I offer it. I just need something with a modern browser for seeking out information online in the rare case that my G4 is in pieces or otherwise rendered temporarily inoperable.
I actually had 10.2 on this beige machine for awhile when it had only 256mb of ram... It was slow, but tolerable.
Thanks.
There is a new version of icab for OS 9 out.
I didn't care much for the older versions of iCab... but I will give the new one a try.
Does anyone know what video card this is / how many mb?
It has a chip on it labeled "Velocity 1.1", and I believe it is from STB. It was installed in the PCI slot of my Performa 6400/200 and uses a standard VGA connector. 6400 is in pieces, otherwise I would just check system profiler.
http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h149/aphetica/DSCF0055copy.jpg
Right now, I am installing OS 9.0 and partitioning the disk... zeroing the data is taking forever. I'm using a 30gb Samsung and I believe the cache is 2mb... that should be a bit better than the Fireball that was in there before. I think it only had a 512k cache.
I have 3 partitions in it... is there any reason for leaving any free space outside the partitions? I thought I remembered reading something about a disk needing free, unpartitioned space for something, but I'm not sure.
Sorry I am full of dumb questions tonight. I'm feeling kind of manic.
Does anyone know what video card this is / how many mb?
It has a chip on it labeled "Velocity 1.1", and I believe it is from STB. It was installed in the PCI slot of my Performa 6400/200 and uses a standard VGA connector. 6400 is in pieces, otherwise I would just check system profiler.
http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h149/aphetica/DSCF0055copy.jpg
Right now, I am installing OS 9.0 and partitioning the disk... zeroing the data is taking forever. I'm using a 30gb Samsung and I believe the cache is 2mb... that should be a bit better than the Fireball that was in there before. I think it only had a 512k cache.
I have 3 partitions in it... is there any reason for leaving any free space outside the partitions? I thought I remembered reading something about a disk needing free, unpartitioned space for something, but I'm not sure.
Sorry I am full of dumb questions tonight. I'm feeling kind of manic.
Oh wait... I finally found it... on page 9 of a google image search there was a tiny, blurry pic of the card... the page is in russian, but it says the card is 4mb.
I probably need more for 10.3+, right?
I probably need more for 10.3+, right?
You should be ok with 4MB.
I bet the onbard Rage IIc is faster though. They can be upgraded to 4MB or 6MB. Look at the motherboard. Next to the video chip should be a small SODIMM looking slot. Stick the VRAM in there.
I bet the onbard Rage IIc is faster though. They can be upgraded to 4MB or 6MB. Look at the motherboard. Next to the video chip should be a small SODIMM looking slot. Stick the VRAM in there.
Onboard is already 6mb... I wasn't sure if a video card would up the total to 10mb or just replace it.
I'm having trouble using xpostfacto... first of all, 9.0.4 won't open a .dmg file... so I mounted it on my G4 and then emailed the xpostfacto application to myself and loaded it on the 266, but 9.0.4 says it can't be opened because the application that created it cannot be found.
I am searching for answers on Google, but have not found anything yet.
This is probably something that is really easy to fix...
The first Mac OS I ever used was 10.2, so I'm still learning when it comes to classic stuff.
I am searching for answers on Google, but have not found anything yet.
This is probably something that is really easy to fix...
The first Mac OS I ever used was 10.2, so I'm still learning when it comes to classic stuff.
Tried mounting the xpostfacto dmg with disk copy, but it says the option did not complete because xpostfacto.dmg does not have a recognized file type.
So... 10.4 recognizes it as a classic application...
but 9.0.4 doesn't recognize it as anything at all.
So... 10.4 recognizes it as a classic application...
but 9.0.4 doesn't recognize it as anything at all.
Nevermind again. Once I found a .sit copy of xpostfacto to DL, everything was okay. Starts fine now.
No, it is not cumulative.
Though with a 2nd card you can run a 2nd monitor.
Hooray! Thanks to everyone who helped / provided information.
It's 6:35am and it took me most of the night to get this done, with all the research I had to do to get over a few snags... but it honestly wasn't as hard as I was expecting it to be. Had no problems booting with the lack of a video card. Installation hung on the first try (on disc 2), but rebooted and everything went smoothly.
Safari 3, Adium, and iStat pro... it's like a home away from home.
It is quite slow when booting up, (a couple minutes?) but once that's done, everything runs well... infact, quite a bit better than I expected it to.
I even played a youtube video... it was quite choppy, but I'm thinking if I could upgrade to a 32mb video card, it would be okay. I was surprised it loaded at all, considering the aneurisms that OS9 had while trying to load javascripts.
I'm really happy with the way things turned out.
Next thing I'm considering is maybe overclocking from 266 to 300mhz... has anyone here done that?
I have lots of pages on how to do it, but I think it would make me feel better to hear some success stories first.
Oh, and thanks to you, I found out that I really like the PPC version of iCab.
I used it on 68k before and didn't have very good luck with it, but the PPC version is very nice.. I don't think there are any browsers that can compare to it on OS9.
icab lets me use gmail when IE5 will not.
Yeah, that's why I liked it... I didn't find a whole lot of limitations to it... I was surprised how well it handled a lot of scripts, plus the fact that even if it did find something it couldn't handle, it wouldn't take the entire machine down with it like netscape or IE.
Go for it. I've been successful getting my 266 to 300 (pushed it a bit higher but it hung a couple of times) and my 300 to 420! (Too scared to push any more.)
Next thing I'm considering is maybe overclocking from 266 to 300mhz... has anyone here done that?
I have lots of pages on how to do it, but I think it would make me feel better to hear some success stories first.
Just get something that can check your CPU temperature. I used the one from powerlogix but it only runs in os9.
See details on the temperature subject at http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/G3_temp.html also http://www.wmld.com/tech/wierdg3.html has some good info.
I don't know how the MT or Desktop are but the AIO design, closing the case is critical to the airflow over the processor. It will heat up to scary levels if you leave it open while you test.
Ahh, the G3.
I still have my BeigeG3 MT sitting in the closet. It's an awesome machine.
Instead of overclocking the machine (which works fine on most boards. I OC'd my 300 to 366 for a while before I bought a ZIF G4), I would suggest picking up a faster processor off of e-bay for cheap.
I still have my BeigeG3 MT sitting in the closet. It's an awesome machine.
Instead of overclocking the machine (which works fine on most boards. I OC'd my 300 to 366 for a while before I bought a ZIF G4), I would suggest picking up a faster processor off of e-bay for cheap.
I have 2 Beige G3's, I removed both stock chips and replaced them with the 1MB cache ones (400 oc to 433 in the tower, and a 300 in the desktop). 1MB cache seems to make them decently faster then the older 512K versions they started with (266 I think they were).
I'm planning to do that, but I just thought this would be fun (and a learning experience) right now, while I'm utterly broke.
Are there any problems with adding a G4? Any loss of compatibility in OS9? One of my main reasons for having this machine around is to have something with functional scsi and OS9 gaming, etc.
By the way, I had no problems getting 10.4 installed without a video card. Did you mean official support?
Do you remember what jumper settings and bus speed you used? It seems like there is more than one way to get to 300mhz.Go for it. I've been successful getting my 266 to 300 (pushed it a bit higher but it hung a couple of times) and my 300 to 420! (Too scared to push any more.)
Next thing I'm considering is maybe overclocking from 266 to 300mhz... has anyone here done that?
I have lots of pages on how to do it, but I think it would make me feel better to hear some success stories first.
Just get something that can check your CPU temperature. I used the one from powerlogix but it only runs in os9.
See details on the temperature subject at http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/G3_temp.html also http://www.wmld.com/tech/wierdg3.html has some good info.
I don't know how the MT or Desktop are but the AIO design, closing the case is critical to the airflow over the processor. It will heat up to scary levels if you leave it open while you test.
In the desktop model, the fan is almost directly over the processor, so I don't think heat should be too much of a problem, although if it is, I could always redirect some airflow or... I'm sure I have a larger heatsink around somewhere.
Just ran into a minor problem.
I used the G3 in 10.4 all last night and earlier this afternoon, shutting down several times and everything was fine.
I went to start it up late (2am?) today, and it loaded to the happy mac icon and simply hung there perpetually.
Following the troubleshooting file included in Xpostfacto, I rebooted into OS9 by restarting with the option key held down. (the timing was kind of tricky)
I relaunched Xpostfacto from within OS9 and chose my 10.4 partition and rebooted and everything worked fine once again.
Not a big deal, but I figured I'd post my progress / troubleshooting in this thread incase anyone else runs into the same issues.
I believe I initially ran into this problem because my battery is slowly dying... (it won't keep the system time and date) I'll have to replace that eventually.
I used the G3 in 10.4 all last night and earlier this afternoon, shutting down several times and everything was fine.
I went to start it up late (2am?) today, and it loaded to the happy mac icon and simply hung there perpetually.
Following the troubleshooting file included in Xpostfacto, I rebooted into OS9 by restarting with the option key held down. (the timing was kind of tricky)
I relaunched Xpostfacto from within OS9 and chose my 10.4 partition and rebooted and everything worked fine once again.
Not a big deal, but I figured I'd post my progress / troubleshooting in this thread incase anyone else runs into the same issues.
I believe I initially ran into this problem because my battery is slowly dying... (it won't keep the system time and date) I'll have to replace that eventually.
If you're using XPostFacto for OS X, a good PRAM battery is crucial. I found that with almost every machine i've run it on, running without a good battery can cause the machine to hang on boot, restart into OS 9 constantly, etc.
Do you remember offhand approximately how much they cost?
Does anyone know if there is a firmware update available for the 266, and if there is, will updating the firmware effect the way xpostfacto works?
Does anyone know if there is a firmware update available for the 266, and if there is, will updating the firmware effect the way xpostfacto works?
if i recall they cost no more then a fiver
and what do you want a firmware upgrade for ?
and what do you want a firmware upgrade for ?
You got real lucky bumping that 300 to 420. Most beige G3's don't have the parts necessary to do that. I know my two don't. 
When overclocking in general, though, you want to bump the bus as high as you can get away with even if it means knocking down the CPU multiplier. A slightly slower CPU on a faster bus makes for a faster machine overall. If you can bump both the bus and the multiplier then you're golden, but more often than not that won't happen.
When overclocking in general, though, you want to bump the bus as high as you can get away with even if it means knocking down the CPU multiplier. A slightly slower CPU on a faster bus makes for a faster machine overall. If you can bump both the bus and the multiplier then you're golden, but more often than not that won't happen.