Got a G3 MAC...
01 May 2008, 02:25 PM
#1
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Got a G3 MAC...
300mhz, 512mb ram and 16mb ATI Rage 128 video card and 6gb hard drive. What is the latest OS it will run and can it be upgraded to run even later OS's?
Been sitting under my desk for the last 2 years as a foot rest but been told to 'lose' it as it was supposed to have been skipped 2 years ago. Can it be of any use other than an itunes server?
Been sitting under my desk for the last 2 years as a foot rest but been told to 'lose' it as it was supposed to have been skipped 2 years ago. Can it be of any use other than an itunes server?
Last edited by Bravo2zero_sps; 01 May 2008 at 02:39 PM.
01 May 2008, 03:07 PM
#3
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I recently resurrected a G3 Lombard 333mhz powerbook that will run the latest Tiger, my B&W tower G3 also runs it.
The only stumbling block might be your 512mb, it will run it but it wont be fast.
The only stumbling block might be your 512mb, it will run it but it wont be fast.
01 May 2008, 03:11 PM
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Thanks. I've just turned the thing on and all I get is a grey screen with a flashing folder with question mark/face flashing.
Did a quick google and found that to boot from cd hold down the c key but its not working with the os9 cd in it the tray.
The hard drive is a 27gb drive so not the original and even though I have disconnected this it still wont boot from cd.
In fact the ram is just one dim with 512mb, can it support that or are they only supposed to take 256mb dimms?
Did a quick google and found that to boot from cd hold down the c key but its not working with the os9 cd in it the tray.
The hard drive is a 27gb drive so not the original and even though I have disconnected this it still wont boot from cd.
In fact the ram is just one dim with 512mb, can it support that or are they only supposed to take 256mb dimms?
01 May 2008, 03:29 PM
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This G3 is it beige or a blue and white?
Often a Mac will make a weird beep when RAM is faulty or not recognised.
Not sure if the B&W G3 will take 512's, I have a feeling the max was 1gb in 4x256s
The Crucial memory tool might help work it out.
Grey screen flashing ? is trying to boot OS9 but cant find the blessed system folder.
*IF* you get it to boot and the HD looks OK, try creating two new folders in the system folder, move the finder in one and the system file in the other. Then move them back again. The system should then recognise it as a system folder and 'bless' it. The os9 icon should appear as part of the system folder.
If holding C key down doesnt work, either your CD drive is knackered or there is no bootable system on that disc.
Often a Mac will make a weird beep when RAM is faulty or not recognised.
Not sure if the B&W G3 will take 512's, I have a feeling the max was 1gb in 4x256s
The Crucial memory tool might help work it out.
Grey screen flashing ? is trying to boot OS9 but cant find the blessed system folder.
*IF* you get it to boot and the HD looks OK, try creating two new folders in the system folder, move the finder in one and the system file in the other. Then move them back again. The system should then recognise it as a system folder and 'bless' it. The os9 icon should appear as part of the system folder.
If holding C key down doesnt work, either your CD drive is knackered or there is no bootable system on that disc.
01 May 2008, 03:31 PM
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Thanks. Its the blue and white one. I'm guessing the ram and drive have been swapped with ones that aren't compatable then as it wont boot to anything other than that screen with the flashing folder.
Might as well bin it then.
Scrap that, just found its restore CD and booted fine
Now i've just got to work out what to do 
Might as well bin it then.
Scrap that, just found its restore CD and booted fine
Now i've just got to work out what to do
Last edited by Bravo2zero_sps; 01 May 2008 at 03:36 PM.
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01 May 2008, 06:29 PM
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Firstly, you want to nab a copy of MacTracker, has specs for most if not all Mac models, old and new.
My 500Mhz G3 iMac with 256MB RAM will run 10.4.11 quite happily. Getting it on there would require CD media/firewire target disk mode, as it's only got a CD-ROM drive.
As for 10.5, forget it. I tried it on the aforementioned iMac. Firstly you need to mod the installer so it doesn't complain about the hardware specs, that's not too difficult to do, however, the installer will hang if the machine you're using to install it doesn't have at least 512MB RAM in it. Even if you do manage to get it installed, it won't boot, again, unless you have 512MB RAM on the thing.
Memory specs for the machine are:
4 slots, PC100 3.3v, unbuffered, 8-byte, non-parity 168-pin SDRAM. Max of 1GB RAM, so Rich's comment about it not supporting >256 chips sounds about right.
My 500Mhz G3 iMac with 256MB RAM will run 10.4.11 quite happily. Getting it on there would require CD media/firewire target disk mode, as it's only got a CD-ROM drive.
As for 10.5, forget it. I tried it on the aforementioned iMac. Firstly you need to mod the installer so it doesn't complain about the hardware specs, that's not too difficult to do, however, the installer will hang if the machine you're using to install it doesn't have at least 512MB RAM in it. Even if you do manage to get it installed, it won't boot, again, unless you have 512MB RAM on the thing.
Memory specs for the machine are:
4 slots, PC100 3.3v, unbuffered, 8-byte, non-parity 168-pin SDRAM. Max of 1GB RAM, so Rich's comment about it not supporting >256 chips sounds about right.
01 May 2008, 06:32 PM
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As for price of RAM, eBay might be the best place to source it, I would suspect it to be a bit pricey brand new as not many machines will be using it.
01 May 2008, 06:42 PM
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As for wether it's run it, well, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, yes, without a doubt it'll run those versions of the OS. I'm pretty confident it'd run 10.4 as well, which to be honest is what you'd want to run, the other versions of the OS are obsolete now, and one could claim so is 10.4 since 10.5 came out.
10.5, as mentioned, unless you want to learn how to mod installers and want to try it for a bit of a giggle then I'd not bother. I only tried it to see if I could get 10.5 installed on unsupported hardware, and for the G3, it failed, mainly due to lack of RAM and I didn't have any additional RAM to hand to see if it would boot with 512MB in it. My guess is if it did boot, it probably would not be that quick, but depending on what you want to do with it, that might not be a problem.
01 May 2008, 06:46 PM
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My iMac has an 80GB drive in it, so I would suspect your machine could cope with that too.Specs also indicate it might have a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or even DVD-RAM drive, so install from DVD media may be possible.
System Profiler is your friend here as it'll tell you what it's actually got inside, hopefully a DVD-ROM, that'd be nice.
01 May 2008, 07:02 PM
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Thanks, would settle for 10.4 (although don't know what that is as I only supported MACS on OS8 years ago). Not back in work until Tuesday now so will play with it some more as I only looked at it today when my manager said it had to go. Don't know if its dvd or cd, will that matter for the OS or do they come on cds as well still?
01 May 2008, 07:13 PM
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Also if I get this home can it be set to be powered on with no monitor, keyboard and mouse and is there any way to remote desktop to it from a windows pc? Ideally want just the box powered on hidden away with a wireless card and be able to control it remotely. Probably asking too much but worth checking.
01 May 2008, 09:30 PM
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10.4 came on DVD, you had to special order the CD version, and I only have the DVD version, and I don't think you can split it across disks nor remove enough content to get it onto a CD.
As for headless, have a read of this. Seems like an adapter is needed to spoof the video card, and unless they have that laying around, you might not be able to go headless.
Remote access is possible, headless or not. Use something like OSXvnc, which is a VNC client for OS X. I use it a fair bit on my older machines here, works rather well.
As for headless, have a read of this. Seems like an adapter is needed to spoof the video card, and unless they have that laying around, you might not be able to go headless.
Remote access is possible, headless or not. Use something like OSXvnc, which is a VNC client for OS X. I use it a fair bit on my older machines here, works rather well.
02 May 2008, 09:38 AM
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You can VNC to Macs although I can't remember if you could with 10.4.x
I can certainly control my G5 (10.5) with my PC laptop.
You could use Timbuktu although I used to use that in a ISP environment and did have problems with G4s being headless and the video not starting properly.
I can certainly control my G5 (10.5) with my PC laptop.
You could use Timbuktu although I used to use that in a ISP environment and did have problems with G4s being headless and the video not starting properly.
02 May 2008, 01:48 PM
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OSXvnc will certainly work on 10.4. I have a feeling that the Remote Desktop Client in 10.4 has an option to allow VNC clients to connect as well. 10.5 has it's own ScreenSharing facility, so you can just enable that in System Preferences.
06 May 2008, 03:13 PM
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OK well it's only got a cdrw drive. I've managed to find a 40gb drive for it which is also installed with 9.2.1 on it. Do macs use standard ide cables? I want to have both drives connected so need to change the cable to one with 2 connectors on it.
06 May 2008, 06:47 PM
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B&W G3's will be using standard IDE, so a normal IDE cable with 2 connectors will work for you. From what I recall the default cable with my G4 Towers only had one connector, so it was from motherboard to drive, but I replaced it with one that came with the additional hard drive I purchased and it worked without issue.
13 May 2008, 09:09 AM
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Some more questions as still playing about with it, I have a 2nd hard drive which is formatted in fat32. I thought I could plug this in and it will boot up and use disc manger to format it to make it mac compatable (no idea what the format is). However it wont boot with the 2nd disc plugged in.
Got hold of some G5 discs with OS 10.3.5 on but when I put them in it doesn't see them so assuming they must be DVD, doesn't say on them anywhere. If I put a dvd drive in it and use these discs will it try to install all the G5 drivers as well and fail the install?
Got hold of some G5 discs with OS 10.3.5 on but when I put them in it doesn't see them so assuming they must be DVD, doesn't say on them anywhere. If I put a dvd drive in it and use these discs will it try to install all the G5 drivers as well and fail the install?
13 May 2008, 09:54 AM
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Apple started shipping DVDs with system specific OS again.
I have a G5 and that OS wont install on my G4, you could probably hack it, you might even be able to 'target disk mode' to it using the G5 if the G3 has firewire, I'm not sure it will though.
Re the other disc, have you checked the jumper settings, it might be conflicting and thinking thre are two masters or something like that....
I have a G5 and that OS wont install on my G4, you could probably hack it, you might even be able to 'target disk mode' to it using the G5 if the G3 has firewire, I'm not sure it will though.
Re the other disc, have you checked the jumper settings, it might be conflicting and thinking thre are two masters or something like that....
13 May 2008, 10:46 AM
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Thanks. Looks like its screwed now, found an external usb dvd drive and plugged it in and it was ok. Set the boot up option to this drive and rebooted and now can't get it to boot at all even with it disconnected and holding down c key etc. Can not get it to boot back from the hard drive 
Reset the PRAM and that fixed it!
Reset the PRAM and that fixed it!
Last edited by Bravo2zero_sps; 13 May 2008 at 10:51 AM.
13 May 2008, 11:05 AM
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Funnily enough, I am having exactly the same problem with a G3 laptop, PRAM reset hasn't fixed it though.... Booting in OS8.1 off a CD works but nothing else...
but nothing else...
13 May 2008, 11:29 AM
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lol mine now isn't booting from the hard drive after changing the jumpers and then putting them back to how they were and holding down the c key has never got it to boot from the cd drive so no idea how I get it to boot from cd as the cds say hold down c key!
Who said Macs were better than pc's?
Who said Macs were better than pc's?