<I have just received my Beige G3 that I bought off eBay for $38 CDN. Is this a good deal? It is 333mhz (overclocked sucessfully at 400mhz) with 512mb SDRAM, 6mb VRAM, AV card, 10, 15, and 10gb drives on a ATA 66 PCI controller, burner, panther 10.3.6 and 9.2.2. I installed a USB card to use my Pro keyboard/mouse. Are there any tips/tricks to fully optimize this system? How are the upgrade cards/pricing?>
No, that's not a good deal - it's a *STEAL* 8^)
Some thoughts about your config, point by point:
1) Wait until you've used your new system a while before declaring that it's been "successfully" overclocked, especially as much as yours has. Just because your system will boot and run at that speed doesn't mean that it will continue to do so stably; you could get a lot of little glitches and just odd behavior after a while. Also, pushing a processor that hard generates a lot of heat that will shorten its life. I wouldn't o/c any processor 20% without adding active cooling as well, such as a fan on the heatsink; and I'd also use Arctic Silver thermal paste.
2) 512 MB is a decent amount of RAM for OS X; you're fortunate to get that much in a used machine. If your current config is two sticks of 256, I'd add another to your last slot for a max total of 768 - Panther will thank you for it.
3) 6 MB is the max onboard VRAM, so you're good to go there. You can drive a decent-size monitor at millions of colors at just about any resolution you're likely to use.
4) If you truly do have the "Wings" AV personality card (S-Video in & out as well as RCA audio jacks) I'd consider selling it, especially if that function isn't *REALLY* important to you. IIRC, the video part isn't fully compatible with OS X. Buy a "Whisper" personality card (audio only) on ebay or the swaplist; they're not too hard to find and relatively cheap. Then put the Wings card on ebay - they're rare and usually fetch a pretty penny. You could easily pay for your entire G3 (including Whisper card) that way.
5) The ATA/66 controller is a *NECESSARY* minimum upgrade and a real improvement over the woefully inadequate 16.7 MHz onboard IDE controller. You got a lot more hard drive space than usual. Check the drives' specs on the mfrs' websites; you want 7200 RPM drives. If your drives are 5400 RPM models (very likely) consider selling the two 10 giggers and buying a 80 GB Western Digital or Maxtor. That seems to be the "sweet spot" for size/price value. I'd keep the 15 gigger as a backup drive on a separate drive channel.
6) Burner's always a plus. Make/model/speed? Bootable, iTunes/Disk Burn compatible?
7) Only three PCI slots could hamper any upgrade plans. Consider a FireWire/USB combo card; then you'll still have a slot free for that next upgrade.
8) Tips/tricks....keep an ADB keyboard/mouse connected - could come in handy for troubleshooting and forced restarts, etc.; you might wanna play with jumper settings to see if your machine will accept faster bus speed settings - my G3 AIO is running on 83 MHz system bus, but some logic boards little or no tolerance for the higher settings.
9) When considering ZIF upgrades I'd recommend a PowerLogix G3 (800 MHz to 1.1 GHz) unless you plan to a LOT of audio/video or Photoshop work. If you *GOTTA* have a G4, go with the DayStar/XLR8 600 MHz G4 ZIF, available at: http://www.daystartechnology.com/
10) Have fun!
-- Gene, a.k.a. G-Man Friends don't let friends do Windows
-- 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
