Beige Upgrades, and HELL

Yet another annoying feature of the software of this excellent site... it didn't like a symbol, so it cropped my post in half. Too bad I don't feel like retyping it! Guess I should preview my posts first.

Back to the computer bench!

OS X has nice little issues where it modifies the Open Firmware NVRAM settings. It caused the failures of the second IDE bus to boot or even show up on my Rev 2/Rev C G3 266. I simply reset the PRAM and the bus showed up again and was fully bootable for OS 9 and YDL. I didn't bother with OS X 'cause of a lack of RAM and a faster CPU.

Since YDL will boot with BootX from an OS 9 partition, you could run a weird triple boot setup so that:

OS 9 can use BootX to boot either OS 9 or YDL.
If YDL, then you can run either OS 9 or X under MOL with only slight speed and memory losses.

Yes, Jon - certainly does have issues! If I ultimately cannot install Jaguar then I might do a Linux distro. My main reason for putting this machine together is to use with a few OS X music sequencing programs. My sort-of studio is in the garage, I want a dedicated OS X machine for music, so I can leave the B&W in the house for other daily tasks. I know of lots of amazing Linux apps for audio, but not much for MIDI sequencers.

I will more likely try to get my PPC Linux on with Slackintosh on one of the 7500 boxes which have been dumped on me. IF I can get the boot procedures completely down on the beige G3 then I might be tempted to try some other OSs on it as well.

A few things I figured out: my beige is a ROM Rev. C
Doing the PRAM zapping combo from my ADB keyboard does not work on this machine, I need to remove the battery. On one of the websites I was blasting through yesterday evening I read about the command-option-o-f routine for getting into Open Firmware. That site mentioned un-confusing beige G3s by getting into OF and typing "set-defalts =return= reset-all =return=. This has indeed gotten my machine back from its unbootable state every time, so I am psyched. However, I expect i am going to need to become more familiar with Open Firmware to really use this machine.

I have gotten the machine to boot with a slave drive! At first, when I put a 4 GB drive next to the CD, the machine would boot telling me that there was an unrecognized drive, asking me if I wanted to initialize. Then, when I'd try to initialize, everything would freeze. I'd then remove the battery, reset firmware, and boot from CD. Initialization froze from the CD also. Finally worked when I reset everything again, and removed the 6 GB boot drive. The startup disk and the 4 GB disks both showed up just fine. I ran a check on the 4 GB drive which said that it was already initialized HFS+ with no problems. Then I reset everything and started with the 6 GB boot drive connected also, and it has worked since! A happy OS 9 system.

The trouble is that I only want it dual-boot for emergencies in which I may need OS 9, but I want it to be primarily a Jaguar box! So far I cannot get this thing to start from an OS X volume at all. If I click on the OS X installer app, it presents me with an annoying warning:

"AN ERROR OCCURRED. STARTUP DISK WAS UNABLE TO SELECT THE INSTALL CD AS THE STARTUP DISK.(-2)"

Initially that was with Startup Disk 9.2.2. I updated to version 9.2.4 with the same effect. I installed the old OS X Server utility System Disk 2.6.2, but it tells me that it cannot select CDs as startup drives. Other methods have proven more annoying! If I actually choose the 10.2 CD from Startup Disk or try booting with the "C" key pressed, then it does a bogus boot where the drives start, but then my display goes off. If I reset everything and start while pressing "C", then it boots but only with OS 9 off of its hard drive. If I remove the OS 9 drive and do all of these things I just get the floppy icon with the question mark. Where's a system disk? And most grating - it then spits the OS X disk out!

I have never had so many problems with any computer, ever! I have done everything I can think of to get it to start from my Jaguar CDs. The CDs worked fine in the B&W with the exact same CD drive, so I know it can read them. I am so baffled. I can only suppose that there is some really stubborn firmware issue going on here. Still, I am happy that I understand the beige G3 better than I did a few days ago.

If you boot from the OS 9 drive, then insert the OS X disk, open it and opent he "Install OS X" icon, it shouldinstall the firmware patches it needs and then reboot and start off the OS X CD. If it doesn't then you have those funky patches on the G3 and I think those cause the trouble you were having. I think OS X installs other patches when it is finished so that the computer will start normally. Try the boot from OS 9, then install from the OS X cd from with-in 9 and see how it goes. If it gets to booting funny, the you know that going inot the OF and reset-defaults works to fix the problem.

I retried using the installer from the Jaguar cd from OS 9, but it isn't any different than before.

Now I am wondering what is going on with the Rage128 card. Mac OS installs drivers for these cards anyway. I ran an updater with the most recent drivers and control panel, but no go. No signal from the card. The ATI controls detect my built-in Rage Pro chip, but they are automatic, I can't find any way to specify that there is another video card. I suppose I can try various versions of shelving drivers and re-updating before or after the card is introduced.

Each task with this beige appeared to be completely straightforward, but I am getting schooled by it at every turn. I hope it eventually works in some reliable way.

It doesn't show up in Monitors&Sound CP? I guess it seems that you need a PCI video card to run 10.2.8 anyway, so that could be part of that trouble.

I'm running 10.2.8 with a beige G3 and the built-in video. I had to remove an ATI kext file to prevent the blacking out that commonly occurs with these two items.

I use my G3 with built in video, and I didn't have to anything (I will end up installing the 128 card, anyhoo, but that is ood).

I've had to chill on this project a bit for a few days. Also, one of my updates to this topic appears to have been "lost".

I was finally able to get the beige G3 to sort-of boot from the Jaguar disk! I noticed somewhere that Syatem Disk referred to the installer on the CD as bus0, device0, partition2. But some utility (BootX?) was saying that it was going to default to partition1. I just wrote in partition2 and when I restarted, it begun to spin the CD drive right away!

Trouble is the same as with 10.1 install CD, when I can get the computer to try booting from it, the disply disappears and things eventually cease happening.

I expected I'd need to learn more Open Firmware! I will try again soon with autoboot off, so it drops me into OF each time, and specify the use of input and output hardware. But now I am too tired to deal with that machine, it takes a lot out of me.

TOM

Ah! Thank you, Tom!

TOM

Things are going much better than they were when I started this topic, still amazes me that I haven't gotten Jaguar running after this much tinkering. Has been quite the learning experience though.

Since the "upgrades" work fine, and the "HELL" has become a few managable issues, I am going to finish this and start a new, more specific topic!
Thanks to Jon, Tom, and all of you who chimed in!

My built in video refuses to work with Jaguar, and promptly causes a major kernel panic.

I also have a PCI card, and it is not detected by OS 9. It does appear, however, in the output device list of XPostFacto.

Which kext file was it?

Beige G3's will not boot from any ATA drive which is designated anything but master. I was experiencing problems such as have been mentioned until I found this out. Make sure your CD ROM is the master device, preferably on the secondary chain.

Cheers,

The Czar

I don't think I'm different,
Or in any way unique.
Think about yourself for a minute,
Then you'll find the answer in it:
Everyone's a freak.

i have a beige, and it sucks [deleted]!
it wont boot from any osx cd anymore.
if it even does boot and install it crashes every 5 minutes and wont stop.
id recomend just not waisting your time on these poses, just go back to your b/w

[edited for language by drw]

Just for a bit of balance, I've been running a beige Rev C as my main every-day-use machine for two and a bit years now, with no problems at all. It's gone from OS 8.6 to 10.2.6, and now has two ATA drives on one bus, an ATA CD on the other, 512 MB of RAM, a G4 CPU, and a generic USB card, all installed by me, and all running without a hitch.

If you can crack the issues with your machine (and it does sounds like a firmware issue to me) you'll have a reliable little second-duty box. Unless it's just a dud.

However, it resolutely refuses to suck cock, no matter how nicely I ask

Beige G3 boxes have thier share of problems. I'm getting my old one back and the first thing I need to find for it is a good Apple CD-ROM drive that works so I can install X, as most of the CD-ROM drives I have are old and often don't work that well.

The good thing is that there is alot of information available for the Beige G3 boces, but it requires a good deal of patience. They are very picky.

My beige has been pretty well perfect. I have had a heck of a lot running on it. With OS 9, I was able to have window transparency, motion effects, menu transparency and fading, photoshop 5, flash mx, word, itunes, audion (before it refused to start up) and over 80 control panel extensions running at the same time with no performance lag! I also had it looking cool with allegro themes project skins and kaleidescope!

However, (after extensive backing up of data) it wont install X! This is incredibly frustrating, the beige is totally supported by the version of X I want to install (10.2)! The installer quits after less then five seconds with a kernel panic!

More: http://www.macworld.com/forums/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB1&Number=289950&page=0&view=&sb=&o=&fpart=1&vc=1

The beige works well. It is a solid machine, and for its time, it would have been an incredible technological breakthrough. Don't knock it, if you use it correctly and know what you are doing (unlike me), you will succeed in making your beige a powerful and usable computer.

Hey guys (and gals!)

I've been digging around on the net looking for some help with my beige G3, and this looks like the spot!

Here's the scoop: 256 MB ram, new AV card since the old one bit the dust (noisy sound, then none), 2G SCSI drive with OS 9.2.2, 18GB SCSI (segate, I think) with OS 9.1 from my PowerTower 250 that died from a second lightening strike, and a 4G IDE drive on the internal buss with OS 10.2.8. This was set up by the previous owner, and OS X works fine most of the time.

Problems: video dies once in a while accompanied by a system freeze. Annoying, worse if I'm using Safari and Classic. Big pain, as it take s a hard restart to get it running again.

I cannot boot OS 9 from either internal drive, even if I pull the plug on the OS X disk. I get an error 11/restart with extensions off error and a system freeze, usually followed by having to unplug the two OS 9 disks to get the stinking thing to boot of the OS X disk.

I've zapped the PRAM from the keyboard and after reading this post actually pulled (and replaced) the PRAM battery. Only thing that changed is that I got a "cannot open...." error for a while.

I can boot into OS 9.1 on an external SCSI drive, but I'm afraid to use startup disk to set it this way for fear I'll bonk that drive too -- somehow, 9.1 seems to get "deactivated" once I've booted the machine with X. Big pain in the patootie since I cannot, also, use the SCSI buss for my scanner under OS X. I've been reduced to using my Powerbook to scan film. Urgh.

Any thoughs here? This is driving me nuts. I've even done a clean install of 9.1 on the 18G drive with no better results.

It will boot Classic off that disk -- is that a problem? Does using that system folder for Classic bonk it so it won't boot, or have I done something strange. I'm not a Unixhead, so I've not done more that fix file permissions, and I've not tried the OF reset yet (will do that latter).

I really need to get this machine booted up in OS 9 _OR_ get the SCSI buss working properly in X so I can use my scanner and wide format photo printer.....

Thanks a million!

Peter

HI. Seems like a few others have been switching (backwards).Cheap and or free is good. I have been using Beige G3 [G4 upgrades} for 4 years now! Ugh some days.
I have found that:
The OE cd-rom drive MUST be present to install X.
The Ram MUST be good for X, ( OS 9 isn't a good test ) I'd buy a 256 or a pair from OWC for $25. ea SPECIFICALLY for the Beige. Add NO OTHER ram.
The HD should be formatted By the OS X Boot disc.
The Primary boot drive must have X installed in the first {top half} partition of the drive.
Slave drives work in X but on rev 1 machines...they are only visible in X.
Clear the pram by removing the battery for several hours.
Next restart MUST have the NVRAM RESET [All 3 COMMANDS}!
If you MUST install past 10.2.6 then the video drivers can be removed from system/library/extensions to prevent the blackout screen issue. I have found that the same machine may have NOproblems with video and when a reinstall takes place...freeze! The OS seems to install and makes mistakes or { and it's not magic I know} ?? Anyway the install is bad and needs to be fixed or reinstalled, reinstalling 10.2.6 update if the package and receipt is removed is possible.
I have fixed a few of these machines for friends and these machines seem to be rock solid if they are left to work without fiddling around with the guts or system.
I have also found that Disc Warier 3 is the BEST/ONLY repair utility that works on Beige {as far as I AM CONCERNED} AND the best optimizing utility is PlusOptomizer(OS 9 only) also from Alsoft.
Oho Ya... if you want a CD-RW {they like to be master} most of them work with Toast Titanium well but keep the OE CD-ROM for booting in to X. I'd use 10.2.6 and a USB 2.0 card and an external CD-RW.
Did you hear/know there is a CHEAP APPLE Airport compatible PCI card that is "plug and surf" No additional drivers needed. I'm using a Beige box in the garage as my streaming iTunes Jukebox. A really good use for a Beige G3 box, for those who can afford the space.
It's too bad the floppy doesn't work properly in X.
Thanks.