overclocking beige g3

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overclocking beige g3

what would be a safe speed that i could overclock a beige g3 powermac to make it run osx faster. i do not have the computer yet, so i do not know what speed it already is, but i will post more info when i get it.

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Best answer...it depends

It depends on the initial clock speed of the beige you're getting, for a start.

A 233 should hit 266 at least, and you can reasonably expect a slightly increasing overclock percentage from each subsequent beige model.
I never had a 233 (owned many) that would be stable above 266, but have read of others hitting 300.
Yet I had a 300 that was rock solid at 366, a far more impressive overclock.

Depends on the individual chip, and if I recall on occasion Apple stamped higher rated chips with lower speeds to fill out the product line.

Best thing is to clock it 'til it crashes, then back down a step until you're stable. Do this -before- trying to install OS X, as that'll add a confusing extra layer to your overclocking.

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I had a 266 doing 292 which w

I had a 266 doing 292 which was very stable, but that was in OS 9. Which OS X do you have going?

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i will either put tiger or pa

i will either put tiger or panther on it. what os would you suggest when i am overclocking it, os 9 from a cd? also, if i install osx to a 7.6gb hard drive in a blue and white w/ a g4 upgrade, will it just work in a beige g3?

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While doing your overclocking

While doing your overclocking, I'd use OS 9 or whatever pre-OS X you've got on-hand.

I would install OS 9 to do your overclocking, since it'll be faster booting, won't give you any false negatives if the CD is dirty and doesn't boot that one critical time. Also, you should do some stress testing once you think you've got your overclock, which you can't really do from CD. Run a bunch of apps, run graphing calculator demo, whatever. Just make sure the CPU has had a workout before you close everything up and install OS X.

You can't just drop in an X install from a B&W or later, since the beige is an old-world Mac, meaning there are differences in the ROM.

You might also want to download Xpostfacto from Other World Computing and read up on that. IIRC, it's necessary for installing Panther or later on a beige.

alk
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I ran a 266 rev A at 315MHz f

I ran a 266 rev A at 315MHz for years on a 70MHz bus with 35MHz PCI. It was rock steady. The only oddness was that I also ran a Voodoo 3 2000 that I don't think liked the 35MHz PCI bus. After running for several days, it would do strange things like leave green artifacts on the screen... A shutdown and reboot usually cleared it up.

More recently, I clocked a 350 MHz G3 to 366MHz with no problem, and I (down) clocked a 500MHz G4 to 416MHz. The G4 is a Sonnet G4 500 with smarts on board that detect the bus speed and set the multiplier accordingly. This allows the same card to be used in a Blue & White and a Beige, and it also means the user doesn't have to mess with jumper settings and possibly void a warranty. It's a better design that XLR8 in that it's plug & play, but it doesn't allow the power users to tweak it at all. Anyway, I had the bus overclocked to 83MHz, and the module applied a 5x multiplier. It must have thought it was in a 100MHz Blue & White... Interestingly, when I tried the same thing with a G4 GHz, it clocked UP to 1.25GHz. That was actually accidental. I had forgotten I had the bus overclocked when I installed the G4. I got a little nervous and powered it off after a short period (just long enough to grab some screenshots). When I turned it on again, it wouldn't boot. Setting the bus back to 66MHz allowed it to boot fine. Naturally, this piqued my curiousity, and I intend to experiment with it a bit to see if I can get a stable 1.25GHz beige G4!

Beige G3s are by far the easiest Macs to overclock and experiment with. While your mileage may vary in regards to the exact boost you'll get, I've never seen a G3 that can't be overclocked at least a little...

Peace,
Drew

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it's an imac g4!!!

i thought that i was going to be getting a beige g3, but instead i wound up getting an imac g4. it has a capacitor broken off of the mother board, so i will have to fix that to make it work. i have never soldered before, any tips on soldering?

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Well, so much for this thread

Well, so much for this thread, then Acute

You'll find lots of soldering tutorials for beginners online. I'd suggest reading several.
Most should recommend things like not using a soldering gun; buy something with a fine tip for electronics; work carefully and hold the iron on parts for only just enough time to melt the solder in place.

If you're working on surface-mount parts,tweezers help.

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