Beige G3 vs. Beige G3 MT

They both have the same motherboard. the MT came with a 333mhz processor, and a more powerful poersupply, though you can easily mod an ATX power supply into the DT G3. The MT also has alot more upgrading room. You can easily overclock the DT to 333mhz if you end up with a DT G3.

and they take standard pc ram, right? i have a couple 128mb sticks of PC-100 that I would like to put in it, would that work?

thanks,

John

for the extra internal space and the heftier PS. Of course, if this Mac has to share desktop space with a display, the DT might be the better choice as the display can sit on top of a DT.

dan k

They will both take up to768Mb of pc-133 ram.(meaning either pc-66, pc-100, or pc-133) keep in mind, the largest stick of ram it will be able to use is a 256mb stick.(low density).

Yes, PC100 128 MB sticks will work just fine.

The Beige G3 series will use PC66, PC100, or PC133 memory, with a few caveats:

1) PC133 will "clock down" to PC100.

2) Sticks over 128 MB may not be fully compatible. For sticks larger than 128 MB, you need to use "low density" sticks (chips on both sides of the card).

If you use "high-density" sticks (256 MB or larger, chips on one side of the card), the machine will either (a) see only half the stick, (b) boot up, but totally ignore the stick, or (c) not boot up. (This is also true in some slot-loading iMacs, BTW.)

3) Don't even bother with 512 MB sticks. The Beige G3 series doesn't support any stick over 256 MB, and I've never seen a low-density 512.

My Beige G3 minitower has 3 sticks of low-density 256 MB PC100, and reads a full 768 MB RAM. I also managed to find a 350 MHz G4 ZIF processor card to fit it, and overclocked it to 375 MHz. With a little patience, I was able to install Mac OS X 10.2.8 (Jaguar) on an 8 GB partition of my 30 GB HD. Not as quick as my iMac DV, my Lombard, or my iBook, but it's a nice little machine.

If the style of case isn't an issue for you, and you're deciding between a couple of different machines, you might want to look and see which one has the better motherboard revision.
Later revisions are better. Revision B and C ROMS support IDE slave drives.
Also worth noting if you already have ram, taller chips won't fit in the desktop model.

Ok, well I have 2x256mb PC-133s in my iMac (unused) and the one 128mb PC-100 stick. If I'm reading right, I can put *all* of these in an MT, and get a total of 640mb RAM? If so, thats awesome.

Also, how overclockable are these things? The one I'm getting is a 266 ($40 shipped ) Could I make that a 300? I've read that you just have to change some little jumpers.

And for SAC drives, they work in these right? I have looked on ebay, and they seem to be pretty cheap, with a PCI card too. Do they need any kind of drivers or extentions? Or do they just work?

Thanks,

John

I have had my 266mhz overclocked to 333mhz and an 83mhz bus for over 2 months and it has never crashed. Though nothing above 333mhz would work(wouldnt do anything, wouldnt turn on front light, wouldnt turn on screen, nothing.)

Assuming you're talking about a slot-loading iMac there's a fair chance those DIMMs *will not* work.

Take the DIMM, set it in front of you, and count the number of black squares on it. If it's less then 16 (alltogether, both sides) chances are excellent a Beige G3 will *not* accept it.

--Peace

really? eek. the 128 stick i have has 8 chips. i still have to check the imac sticks.

john

If its a 128mb stick it should work. I have never seen a 128mb high density stick of ram. I am using 2 128mb single sided sticks of ram in one of my beiges. Works perfectly fine.

ok cool. the other sticks i was going to use are the 256s, and they are both 16chipped. will they work ok?

John

Look at the RAM sticks. If they have chips on BOTH SIDES of the card == front and back -- they should work and clock down to PC100. But I'm not sure I've seen a PC133 low-density chip. Remember, if it's a high density chip, it'll only see half the card, or not at all.

You can do some overclocking without changing the processor. There's a little "jumper block" on the logic board that has the proper jumpers to make it work at 266. You can replace that jumper block with individual jumpers and overclock the processor to a certain degree. Beyond that point, you'll need to replace with a different G3 or G4 ZIF and set the jumpers properly for that processor.

There are websites around that describe exactly which pins need to be jumpered to clock up to different speeds. Make sure you consult one of these sites before you begin, so you don't wind up hosing your Beige. Do a Google search for "overclock beige g3" or "beige processor jumpers" or something to that effect.

I remember getting one of the desktop G3's when they were new, and had to futz around with different RAM chips because the first ones I tried were too tall and interfered with the power supply. The PS swings up & away to access the RAM slots, and there isn't much clearance between the two when closed. I bought a used desktop machine a year or so ago, and the previous owner had apparently had the same trouble, but took a pair of pliers to the shield around the fan on the underside of the PS to make more room. Not a pretty job, but it was effective.

The minitower has more room between the PS & logic board, so doesn't have the same problem.

I've got a PC-133 128MB stick, with 4 chips on one side. It works in my slot-load iMacs, but won't work in a Toshiba Equium 7100S. Other 128MB sticks I have work fine. I haven't tested it, but I'm fairly sure it's high density and won't work in my G3MTs.

As for SCA drives, they're just SCSI drives with a single combo power/interface connector. Fairly common in servers. Are you sure they're SCA, and not 68-pin SCSI Wide? If it's got a controller card with them, it should also have a back plane of some sort that the drives plug into. If they need a SCSI cable, and a power cable, they aren't SCA. They might be SCA, but are being sold with and adpater to use them on 50 or 68 pin SCSI setups.

i think 128mb sticks only have 8 chips and mosh all of them will work its just the 256mb sticks you have to watch out for. I got a 256mb stick from here http://www.datamem.com/AMM9.asp it works great and is pc100 cl 2 and its affordable to boot.

the best rev of rom is rev b IMO, there is some pci cards that wont work with the rev c rom.

I put a G3 450mhz cpu in this AIO and have it clocked to 433/66 ive seen that if you overclock the system bus above 66mhz it will slow down the memory timing to cl3 and cause of that reason you wont really se much of a diffrence in speed. all my spec's are in my sig

No, i meant i was going to get an SCA drive, not that it came with one. The RAM I have I think will work; the 256 stick has 16 chips, and the 128 stick has 8 chips. both sticks work in our iMac.

John

BTW- its a minitower that I got, so there are no worries about RAM hight.

well turns out the first guy couldnt sell, so the new one i found goes like this:

366mhz
256mb
DVD-ROM
8gb HD

im going to add 384mb ram for a total of 640, and i may and another 256 for 896 mb, but i doub it.

How well would this thing run panther? xpostfacto of course, but other wise? could it even run tiger?

John

I'm running Jaguar 10.2.8 on my Beige MT (375 MHz G4 upgrade, 768 MB RAM). It works -- barely. Pretty doggone slow. But I really only use it for a print server.

As for Panther or Tiger ...

How patient are you?

Did you buy a Blue and White G3? If not the beige g3 only has 3 ram slots.

oh, i didnt know that about the ram slots. ill just have to settle with 640 then. also, speed isnt an issue, i run panther 10.3.9 on a 233 wallstreet with 256 ram and its ok.

John

Also, are you sure the speed is 366? There was never a G3 released at that speed that wasn't portable (iBook), IIRC.

it more than likly has a B&W G3 350mhz cpu in it set to run at 366/66 it is common to put a B&W cpu in a beige G3 cause its the simplist way and prolly good bang for buck i paid $40 for a B&W G3 450mhz 1mb cache cpu and man the speed diffrence between 266 to 433