Thread

So, Beige G3's.

· Hardware · 70 posts · Jun 20, 2008 — Jul 11, 2013 View original thread ↗

#31 Thu, 10 Jul 2008 - 15:12

I just caught up on this thread. I'm going to have to dig up some of my supposedly "dead" beige motherboards and try TechTool on them. Thanks for the tip Driverguru.

Meanwhile: re "Nike": I guess the idea must have hung around for a few years and resurfaced.

#32 Thu, 10 Jul 2008 - 21:53

Gefen

Click to expand...

Griffin?

with an 83MHz-rated Grackle and Rev. F ROM. So, it runs 416MHz on an 83MHz bus

Click to expand...

I wish I could find a beige with 83mhz parts.

Click to expand...

Yeah word. How do you identify which version of the Grackle IC you have? And Rev. F ROM? Never heard of that one.

You don't have to test for the speed of the Grackle chip. The speed of the chip is contained in the part number stamped on the top. When the beige G3 was originally designed, it was expected it would have a longer lifespan and more possible combinations of bus speeds and cpu multipliers were going to keep it current as G3 speeds continued to ramp up. The return of Jobs and the complete overhaul of the G3 Powermac killed ended those plans early. The beige G3 as originally designed could have taken all but the very fastest G3's that came later if it's life had been allowed to continue.

http://www.wmld.com/tech/jumperchart2.html

#33 Fri, 11 Jul 2008 - 11:51

... The longterm puzzle is to find a Gefen EXT-VGA-2-ADC adapter so that they can share a 17" ADC Studio Display.

eBay's @#$%&* software fritzed on me with 4sec to go in an auction for a Gefen adapter, but I now have a Dr Bott DVI-to-ADC converter and Radeon 7000 PCI cards with DVI-I/VGA/S-Video out. Nice display, but the reported failure to wake from sleep, and no support for the USB power and brightness controls, take some of the gloss off the arrangement.

de

#34 Mon, 1 Sep 2008 - 08:19

My beige config is in the signature. Are there any ways to get the freaking dvd player to work on this thing?!?!?!?! I did a mod/hack where you delete the install check file in the installer package, but now the app wont open. I have an ATi 9200 in it as well as a DVD burner.

#35 Mon, 1 Sep 2008 - 09:40

On the other hand, what is it with beige motherboards dying? I replaced the one in mine twice over the years. Both times the symptoms were a non-booting OS X install, OS 9 booting fine. Tried everything logical, but only swapping out the mobo seemed to fix it.

Click to expand...

I have a wild theory, and its an ugly and pessimistic one.

BAD SOFTWARE PROGRAMMING, NOT HARDWARE.

True, salt ions in the air can corrode contacts if you live near an ocean, and true, some capacitors from a certain era on all motherboards will fail because the stolen chemical formula replicated by the chinese taken from japan was missing a key ingredient, affecting all capacitors in the world deriving from that plant... but the reason is BAD SOFTWARE PROGRAMMING, NOT HARDWARE.

How ?

Well OSX likes to set things up for "OpenBoot" a strange and complex set of technologies that was to be a open standard. The try to get their way and tuck stuff in PRAM.

When pram battery charge is off, low, corrupt, whatever, or you THINK you cleared it with Command-Option-P-R at startup with capslock off and watch it double boot.

Well it DOES NOT REALLY ZAP THE PRAM.

Apple is full of assholes that keep squeezing a byte or two of vital non-crc-checked data into the parameter non volatile ram area (PRAM) and putting these unsanctioned new bytes in areas NOT CLEARED EVER by Command-Option-P-R.

result ? bad serial ports that are not really bad !! (i replaced 3 motherboards at 410 dollars apiece before writing a PRAM clearing program to really fix the bug)

Yep ! Many Apple engineers are assholes. They want you to buy hardware whenever they pollute the PRAM. Draining battery and using paperclips will not help. You want all bits zeroed.

YOU ARE IN LUCK! You can repair a dead motherboard by using a PRAM zapper tool not written by apple that clears the DRM areas that contain odometer information (hours your machine used, manufacturing date, etc).

goddamned DRM.

really zapping PRAM should reset mouse and sometimes clock zone and also :

AppleTalk status

Serial port configuration and port definition

Alarm clock setting

Application font

Serial printer location

Key repeat rate

Key repeat delay

Speaker volume

Alert sound

Double-click time

Insertion point blink rate

Mouse speed

Startup disk

Menu blink count

Monitor depth

32-bit addressing

Virtual memory

RAM Disk

Disk cache

Use MicroMat's free TechTool or commercial TechTool Pro to salvage "dead" motherboards that are not really dead, because zapping PRAM is useless using apples methods

I would be less hostile on this topic if I did not have to buy so many motherboards in the past because of the scam.

So how exactly do you fix a dead motherboard using that if the board does not boot?

#36 Mon, 1 Sep 2008 - 09:41

My beige config is in the signature. Are there any ways to get the freaking dvd player to work on this thing?!?!?!?! I did a mod/hack where you delete the install check file in the installer package, but now the app wont open. I have an ATi 9200 in it as well as a DVD burner.

Thats one heck of a beige G3, any reason you went that overboard on it? Also is it a MT or desktop?

#37 Mon, 1 Sep 2008 - 16:22

haha thanks! It is a minitower. Also I should note that I have a firewire USB tango card in it as well as an Acard 6280M ATA 133 controller in it. Reason for such upgrades is my mini died and I like vintage macs. I have prolly 15-20 macs i am working on currently to networked together for duke nukem! I also like to tell people that my main desktop is 11 years old.

Here are some pics of the set up.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/mjvndrhrt/n1258140095_30067054_5842.jpg

http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/mjvndrhrt/?action=view&current=n1258140095_30067055_6150.jpg

http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/mjvndrhrt/?action=view&current=n1258140095_30067056_6426.jpg

http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/mjvndrhrt/?action=view&current=n1258140095_30067057_6714.jpg

http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/mjvndrhrt/?action=view&current=n1258140095_30067058_7001.jpg

http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/mjvndrhrt/?action=view&current=n1258140095_30067542_9918.jpg

The last one is just to show the customized GUI

#38 Tue, 9 Sep 2008 - 03:40

how do you tell what revision ROM you have?

#39 Tue, 9 Sep 2008 - 04:12

how do you tell what revision ROM you have?

Get to know (and love) LEM.

http://lowendmac.com/ppc/beige-power-mac-g3-1997.html

#40 Tue, 9 Sep 2008 - 15:49

how do you tell what revision ROM you have?

As you are probably aware, ASP tells you which ROM is installed:

$77D.40F2 revision A

$77D.45F1 revision B

$77D.45F2 revision C.

This knowledge is of precisely zero use to you as you stand at a recycler's ROM bin, or staring at an eBay sale, wondering how to get around the puzzle that all Beige G3 ROMs are numbered 820-0954 on the card. To be sure, some are marked 'WRAITH' as well as the Apple ©, and some are 820-0954-A and some are 820-0954-01. Don't be cozened into the expectation that if there are -A cards there will also be -B and -C. 'Taint so.

Somewhere (but which where escapes me) is an (incomplete) essay about chip differences as diagnostics of ROM version. Here are a few pages about the general notions in upgrading Beige G3s, and I shall post the somewhere page when I refind it.

http://www.maccetera.com/news/beigeg3.html

http://resale.headgap.com/osxnotes.html

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/g3-zone/

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4559815

de

Codicil at 1550GMT: Eh! voilà!

http://eshop.macsales.com/Tech/Load_Page.cfm?page=zifrommainpage.html

#41 Tue, 9 Sep 2008 - 19:14

My beige config is in the signature. Are there any ways to get the freaking dvd player to work on this thing?!?!?!?! I did a mod/hack where you delete the install check file in the installer package, but now the app wont open. I have an ATi 9200 in it as well as a DVD burner.

that is one hell of a Beige G3 its what i wanted to do to my Beige G3 AIO. i use to run dual monitors on my AIO very nice to have.

do you have PCI extreme enabled on it (a enabler to force Quarts extreme on PCI Macs with compatable video cards). i enabled it on my AIO in my sig and the GUI ran so much smoother, unlike so many others i didnt see any bad side effects of having it enabled.

again very nice Beige G3 MT

#42 Tue, 9 Sep 2008 - 19:51

I thought about doing that, But I also have an ATA 133 controller card as well as a USB/FW card, so having that enabled might hinder overall performance.

#43 Tue, 9 Sep 2008 - 21:00

I would think Quartz Extreme would be best for the 66Mhz PCI slot video cards in B&Ws, not the slower normal 33mhz PCI slots that share bandwidth with other cards like in a Beige G3.

#44 Wed, 10 Sep 2008 - 02:22

I would think Quartz Extreme would be best for the 66Mhz PCI slot video cards in B&Ws, not the slower normal 33mhz PCI slots that share bandwidth with other cards like in a Beige G3.

yea i would think also as well but i have a Yikes G4 that i tried it on and it actually hurt performance. the most systems that i have seen that has performance issues wit PCI Extreme was the B&W and Yikes sysyems. i didnt have a bit of issues on my Beige G3 with it enabled.

my Beige G3 AIO has a PCI wifi card, and a USB PCI card along with the Radeon 7000. the thing i did was move the Radeon card next to the wings personality card, the USB card next to the Radeon and the wifi card in the last PCI slot.

#45 Wed, 10 Sep 2008 - 03:17

i just tried it for giggles in grins, but took it off because it wasn't consistent. Some things would work better, but then they would be slower again if the hard drive was doing anything. All the cards in mine are bus hogs.

#46 Wed, 10 Sep 2008 - 04:57

I have a radeon mac edition in both my B&W's (one is the original no number, the other is a 7000) and never seen the need for hacks (I don't play 3d games). Seems fast enough in OS 9.2.2 and OSX 10.3.9 to me.

#47 Mon, 15 Sep 2008 - 17:33

beige G3 333 mhz tower

256 mb ram

20 gig hd

stock cd rom

running jaguar

its been gathering dust for a while these days

#48 Thu, 30 Apr 2009 - 22:17

what is it with beige motherboards dying? / the symptoms were a non-booting OS X install, OS 9 booting fine.

Click to expand...

you THINK you cleared it with Command-Option-P-R at startup with capslock off and watch it double boot.

Well it DOES NOT REALLY ZAP THE PRAM.

/ putting these unsanctioned new bytes in areas NOT CLEARED EVER by Command-Option-P-R. / Draining battery and using paperclips will not help. You want all bits zeroed.

YOU ARE IN LUCK! You can repair a dead motherboard by using a PRAM zapper tool not written by apple that clears the DRM areas /

Use MicroMat's free TechTool or commercial TechTool Pro /

Click to expand...

So how exactly do you fix a dead motherboard using that if the board does not boot?

See top of quote, and pardon the thread necromancy. TechTool runs under OS 9. If you get the version on CD, or on the Apple Hardware service CD, you don't even need a booting hard drive.

#49 Fri, 1 May 2009 - 02:05

I have been tinkering with mine lately, and it will end up like this:

G3 Tower with G3/400mhz processor from my Blue/White G3

384MB RAM

9.1GB SCSI hard disk

3GB IDEhard disk

Zip 100 drive

Wings A/V card from a G3 AIO

24x CD-RW drive

USB 1.1 card

2MB VRAM

Apple PC Compatibility card (P166/80MB)

Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerator

MacOS 9.2.2

You should see the video pass-though I have to do on this thing. 8-o

#50 Sun, 3 May 2009 - 22:43

what is it with beige motherboards dying? / the symptoms were a non-booting OS X install, OS 9 booting fine.

Click to expand...

you THINK you cleared it with Command-Option-P-R at startup with capslock off and watch it double boot.

Well it DOES NOT REALLY ZAP THE PRAM.

/ putting these unsanctioned new bytes in areas NOT CLEARED EVER by Command-Option-P-R. / Draining battery and using paperclips will not help. You want all bits zeroed.

YOU ARE IN LUCK! You can repair a dead motherboard by using a PRAM zapper tool not written by apple that clears the DRM areas /

Use MicroMat's free TechTool or commercial TechTool Pro /

Click to expand...

So how exactly do you fix a dead motherboard using that if the board does not boot?

Click to expand...

See top of quote, and pardon the thread necromancy. TechTool runs under OS 9. If you get the version on CD, or on the Apple Hardware service CD, you don't even need a booting hard drive.

Or just pull the battery for a few hours...

#51 Sun, 3 May 2009 - 23:40

The best way to reset the pram is to disconnect main power, disconnect the PS from the motherboard, remove the pram battery, tap the power button to kill any residual voltage, and then let it sit 30 minutes.

I had to do that on a beiege desktop that OSX 10.3 was installed on and messed it up where it would not bong.

#52 Mon, 4 May 2009 - 12:49

I have:

G3 desktop

OS 9.2.2 (I'm struggling to get it to dual boot Ubuntu)

1000 MHz G3 (running from a 83 MHz FSB)

768 MB ram

80 GB hd

24x cd-rom

ATI Radeon 9200 PCI

2-port USB 1.1 card

10/100 ethernet (Realtek 8139)

Logitech optical mouse (I don't like the Apple one button mouses, creepy things)

Internal zipdrive still needs to be added and the cd-romdrive needs to be replaced by a fully compatible DVD-RW drive. The keyboard sucks, so this needs to be replaced, too. Feels quite 'spongy', while a prefer something with a more definite 'click'.

Bought it about two years ago out of curiosity: I started out with a Commodore 64 in about 1984, then the Amiga 500, went to the 486 (Windows 3.1) in 1993 and upgraded my pc until arriving in 2009 while using Linux (Ubuntu) for my normal computing needs. I am currently branching out to other older hard- and software (Acorn Archimedes, Apple IIci, Apple G3, Sun Ultra 2) with the accompanying OS for the respective platforms just for the fun of it.

My all time internal design favorites are the Mac IIci and the Sun Ultra 2, with the Ultra 2 as the absolute best. The Beige G3 is ok, but the case and its internals sometimes feel a little flaky. OS 9.2 is not to bad when compared with Win9x, although it certainly is not better from my point of view.

All in all, my beige G3 is a fun system to tinker and fool around with, and it scores high on my 'switch it on to check something out' list...

Ubuntu is not coöperating with it, though: when booting the installation cd through BootX, the standard OS9 desktop doesn't get replaced with the bootupscreen of the Ubuntu cd. Ah well, life isn't perfect.

#53 Mon, 14 Sep 2009 - 05:06

I have one its like 333Mh or somthing, it is the server verson

But i killed it,

I put a stick of ram in backwards and poff, its dead, I took the disket drive out and lost that, I took the scsi card the nic and the fire wire,

I do use the fire wire card the cd drive the hard drive, ram, and the rom card in it in other mac,s in my house

#54 Mon, 14 Sep 2009 - 05:31

I have one its like 333Mh or somthing, it is the server verson
But i killed it,

I put a stick of ram in backwards and poff, its dead

How do you put RAM in backwards? It's keyed and won't go in backwards.

#55 Mon, 14 Sep 2009 - 05:44

With a hammer.

#56 Mon, 14 Sep 2009 - 15:02

With a hammer.

I find that whenever trying to force a component into a computer it is better to use a rubber mallot instead of a hammer. These are less likely to break the parts 8D

#57 Mon, 14 Sep 2009 - 15:40

the one time i managed to screw up ram like that the machine was unharmed, the ram was toast tho

#58 Wed, 16 Sep 2009 - 00:16

Mine is a Desktop model.

333MHz overclocked to 350

192Mb of RAM at the moment I think

8Gb hard drive

iXMicro Twin Turbo 128-3D video card

PCI USB card

Currently running 10.2.8 but I think I'm going to install 10.1 just for the heck of it.

#59 Wed, 16 Sep 2009 - 03:01

433MHz (overclocked 350MHz B&W CPU)

448MB RAM

4GB 133x CF card

DVD-ROM that I can not remember the speed of.

32MB Radeon 7000

2 port USB 1.1

10/100 ethernet

Audio only personality card(they call it whisper as opposed to wings right?)

ATX case

Running 9.2.2

It is sitting behind my desktop PC connected to the second input of my 22" display. I run OS 9 at 1680x1050 and it is pretty nice.

#60 Wed, 16 Sep 2009 - 05:25

My G3, which I use as 2nd machine:

G3 233 DT, overclocked to 83MHz systembus and CPU@292MHz. Working extremely stable! 384MB Ram, 500GB Sata HD, ATI 7000 64MB.