Reality Check - opinions wanted

6 posts / 0 new
Last post
catmistake's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 4 months ago
Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
Posts: 1100
Reality Check - opinions wanted

reposted (from here) because I am running out of time... please let me know what you think... I really value the opinions of fritterers.

I'm thinking of ordering all this in the next couple hours (some of these prices expire today) and I'm asking for a reality check... is this an extraordinarily bad idea (keep the Mini in mind)...?
or a decent bargain (the B&W was $10)... ?

2X 256MB PC100 RAM + free ship = $64

Western Digital 7200 IDE UltraDMA ATA/100 120GB Hard Drive + $5 ship = $104.99 - 2X $30 rebates = $44.99

Pioneer DVR-109 16X DVD DVD+RW/-RW Drive + free ship = $58.90

AG 320W 320 Watt Intel Pentium 4/ AMD ATX PC Power Supply (I will need to clip a wire) + 7.63 ship = $24.62

G3 bezel + $4 ship = $13

subtotal = $265.51 - $60 in rebates (on HD) = $205.51

------
More dunnos:
Please take a look at my pics:
IMAGE(http://www.applefritter.com/images/bw_-_3-7324_640x480.jpg)
IMAGE(http://www.applefritter.com/images/bw_-_1-7322_640x480.jpg)
IMAGE(http://www.applefritter.com/images/bw_-_2-7323_640x480.jpg)

-looks like I am missing some HD brackets.... I've never seen the inside of a B&W so I don't know what they look like... if someone knows where I can find what I need here, please let me know and tia

-so I have this 450MHz MAChSpeed G4 ZIF CPU, from a MAChCarrierMPe... assuming I collect the proper drivers and/or firmware updates... this will work in the B&W, right? and I can probably overclock it, right? What speeds can I expect to be stable, all things considered?

moosemanmoo's picture
Offline
Last seen: 9 years 3 months ago
Joined: Aug 17 2004 - 15:24
Posts: 686
It all depends on what you re

It all depends on what you really intend to do with this computer. Do you intend to use it as a media production computer? If so, then save your money and buy a Mac Mini. The speed of the Mini will be much greater than anything the B&W G3 could realisticly do.

On the other hand, if you plan to use this as a general purpose computer, then this is not a bad deal. I would suggest not buying a DVD burner unless you need it, though.

As for overclocking, your 450MHz processor can probably do 500MHz just fine.

Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
Posts: 234
Personally I would hold off o

Personally I would hold off on most of the stuff until the see the machine display something. I would only buy 1 stick of ram and the PSU until I knew if it worked.

Question. Were is the video card?

MacTrash_1's picture
Offline
Last seen: 16 years 11 months ago
Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
Posts: 318
Re: Personally I would hold off o

Personally I would hold off on most of the stuff until the see the machine display something. I would only buy 1 stick of ram and the PSU until I knew if it worked.

Question. Were is the video card?

I agree and don't forget at least another $25.00 for video.

I like the B&W's myself so I'm a little biased but they can be a good bang for the buck. I just got one from Epay for $86.00 shipped (300 w/128MB, 6 & 20GB drives, SCSI card, Zip drive) which aint a bad deal. I have 3 of them now but plan on selling a couple to a friend and keeping the 450MHz, 512MB DVD-R model I paid $150.00 for.

catmistake's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 4 months ago
Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
Posts: 1100
depends, yes

actually, depends on what I am using now... which is a 9600 for web and file serving... it streams too... I'm putting this thing together for less than half the cost of the bottom of the line... I wish I could get a grand together to get a real mini...

100MHz bus and a 500MHz+? processor... & 200GB will be much better than 50MHz and a 450MHz proc with maybe 30GB... so I guess its all relative. Man, I wish I had a mini. But I think this server will be around awhile. Once this is up, I swear I am getting rid of everything that can go and see if I can get close to the mini...

btw from my research I've determined that this B&W, that I got for a 10-spot, used to be, when it was intact, the server model, a $10,000 machine, used to hold scsi card, a few scsi drives and a GB ethernet card, as well as some audio card. It doesn't matter much now... all those components are gone...

catmistake's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 4 months ago
Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
Posts: 1100
response & question... seeing more than 128GB

Well, there was no video card, but I happened to have a Rage Orion lying around...

Anyhoo...

The unit works fine... its running Tiger, now... I don't even have all the HD brackets yet, but I'll put those in as they arrive. The G4 I had ran great in it... but unfortunately, I couldn't get the G3 I took out of it to work with the XLR8 carrier the G4 came out of, it just wouldn't boot my 8600 (which Daystar "garuntees" that it will), and I need that machine...
With the G3 in the B&W, it performs a lot better than the G4 in the 8600... so I'll wait until the processors come down in price before looking for a G4 ZIF to replace the G3 (Why are the 1GHz G4 ZIFs more expensive than the proc upgrades for the subsequent non-ZIF G4s? Who is buying these ZIFs at about $2-300???)

I also couldn't get the G3 to overclock with any stability... though the I did increase the cache speed to 233MHz (or something... can't remember exactly)

ANYWAY instead of that 120GB Western Digital, I found a better deal on a Seagate (Barracuda ST3200822A-RK 200 GB ATA Internal Hard Drive -- $80!!).
The problem is that this machine won't recognize all the HD space, just 128 GB of it, as explained here.

So... my question is... a friend of mine has a MDD G4, which should be able to see the whole 200GB... if I have him partition the drive with that machine, such that all the partitions are under 130GB, will my computer recognize all the partitions? I could just try it first, but if it doesn't work... what a waste of time!

If anyone knows... I'd surely appreciate it!

Log in or register to post comments