On Sunday, January 5, 2003, at 04:09 PM, Paul Thompson wrote: > Hello Listers > > I'm returning to the list after an extended absence and I have some > questions about upgrading my G3 beige 233MHz. desktop I'd appreciate > any > suggestions. You can also email me directly at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> if you > wish. > > OK here goes: > > 1. RAM: > > - I want to max out the RAM. What is the most effective max for the G3? > - Are PC100 or PC133 DIMMS equally good - I can get both locally. > - Are there better alternatives? > - Any tricks to installing them?
It is quick and straight forward, the only advantage of using PC-100 or PC-133 is that you could use it in Macs made after your Beige G3 up to the G4s with mirrored drive doors. If you imagine you might own one of those it is a good idea, performance on your Beige G3 will be the same but price is normally about the same you one might as well get 133. > 2. ZIF Upgrades. What to get? > > - OWC has G3/533 and G4/450 MHz ZIFs for about the same price. Is > there any > advantage to going with the G4? > - Other suppliers you like better? > - Installing is easy? I generally use OWC for ZIF upgrades. If you plan on running Mac OS X on your G3 [which with these upgrades you would be very happy doing] use the G4, you will get stronger overall performance than with the G3 ZIF. > 3. USB/Firewire > > - I need a USB card. Will G3 support USB V.2 cards? > - Is USB 1.1 satisfactory? > - Can I use any USB card or must I check for some specific Mac > requirement? > - Is it worthwhile getting a combo USB/Firewire card even tho I have no > present requirements for Firewire? Under Mac OS X it will support USB 2.0 cards, under Mac OS 9.x it will not. More and more is moving to FireWire as an external transfer standard, I think its worth it, but I have a couple FireWire hard drives and an iPod, it is worth noting though that I did not have any of those devices when I bought my first FireWire combo card. USB 1.1 is fine for mice, keyboards, scanners, and printers, for hard drives, CD-RWs, DVDs, etc ... it is much too slow. USB 2.0 is fine for these faster devices but FireWire is superior as it is a peer to peer device like SCSI and does not have to use the processor like USB does. > 4. What other ideas do you have to make my G3 the Mac of my (poor > man's) > dreams? Beige G3s are great Macs, highly upgradable, find yourself a Rage128 based graphics card like an Orion, an OEM card from a Blue and White G3, or a Nexus. The performance increase in both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X is quite great. If you do use Mac OS X [and you should with these upgrades] use Mac OS X v.10.2 as it is a vast speed improvement. I would get a FireWire/USB combo card to conserve PCI slots and use the 3rd one for later expansion, say maybe an ATA card to speed up the drives or a 10/100T ethernet card if you do a lot of network work. David > > Thanks in advance for helping out. > > Paul > -- > Words, like eyeglasses, > blur everything they do not make clear. -- Joseph Joubert -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
