On Jan 12, 2011, at 4:32 PM, Bruce Johnson wrote:
No you do not. In fact, the firmware on these models is not
updateable (that's what the never-used firmware ROM slot is for in
these systems)
Actually on the Beige G3 the firmware slot is populated with a ROM
DIMM, either a Rev.1, Rev.2, or Rev.3 ROM which correspond to the
Rev.A, Rev.B, or Rev.C Mac versions. You can change these DIMMs. The
Rev.1 ROM (Rev.A Mac) doesn't support Slave drives on the ATA buses,
so an upgrade to a Rev.2 or Rev.3 ROM can but somewhat useful perhaps?
On Jan 12, 2011, at 2:37 PM, Jeremiah Stevens wrote:
Hi everyone, I am new here. I have a question relating to one of my
Beige G3
Powermacs, it is the 266mhz model with 128mb of RAM. I am looking to
install OS
X 10.2
Not enough RAM, you'll need more, it's low-density (with chips on both
sides of the DIMM) only.
and I was wondering if I would need to update the firmware.
Not required, but can be somewhat useful if you have a Rev.A module.
Right now I have no idea what version the firmware is
You'll have to inspect the ROM itself for the # printed on it:
Rev. 1: $77D.40F2
Rev. 2: $77D.45F1
Rev. 3: $77D.45F2
and I do not have a hard drive in it
currently, I got it along with another one for free with no hard
drive.
If you have a PCI Firewire card you can boot from external Firewire
HDs using XPostFacto 4's Helper Disk boot option.
Do I need to install OS 9 in order to update the firmware if it is
needed for OS X 10.2?
No, it's only upgradeable my changing the physical DIMM, it's not
flash firmware.
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_G3>
This is a tough model for OS X, perhaps the toughest? It can run
10.4.11 using XPostFacto 4.0, but you'd want a lot of RAM, a Radeon
PCI card, and probably a faster ZIF G4 CPU. These upgrades would be
prohibitively expensive considering the speed of this old Mac. At best
it's a "project" computer I think?
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