On Jun 1, 2011, at 10:05 AM, t...@io.com wrote:
Has anyone successfully (or unsuccessfully) used a RealTek 8169 based
gigabit ethernet card in a Beige G3 under OSX?
I banged my head against this thing for several hours last night and
could not get it to work. When I boot the machine in OS 9.x the card
works fine. So, at least I know the hardware is all functional.
The RealTek drivers seem to install okay, but when I reboot the
machine, the only ethernet available in the "Network" System
Preferences panel is still just the "Built-in Ethernet". The card
never appears. I tried RealTek's 10.2, 10.3 and Tiger drivers to no
avail.
I'm running 10.2.8 on the Beige G3. It has a 500MHz G3 upgrade and
256MB RAM.
If you're seriously using this Beige G3, I'd suggest getting more RAM
(768MB = 3x256MB low density PC100/133 DIMM is max.) and a Radeon PCI
card which will speed up the GUI by miles in OS X when you enable
Quartz Extreme.
I haven't tried moving the card to a different slot. Currently, an
Acard 6280M is in A1, the RTL8169 is in B1, and a USB card is in slot
C1.
I'd appreciate any suggestions of stories about experiences with the
same hardware.
In my experience, the Beige is very expandable, but limited by the
three PCI slots. If you're running OS X, one slot needs to be
dedicated the a Radeon card, so that leaves two slots. Another card
needs be a USB card, and this presents real problems because no USB
2.0 cards work in OS 9 at all, so if you need to have USB in OS 9,
you'd likely need TWO USB cards, a USB 1.1 card for OS 9 only, and
another USB 2.0 card for OS X. Then you've got the larger HD issue
which can be solved three ways: 1) a PCI ATA card such as the Acard
6280M you're using 2) an external Firewire boot drive (my preferred
solution) 3) using a software solution from Intech by initializing the
HD in OS 9 using Intech HD Speedtools 3.5 for OS 9 which makes larger
than 128GB work in OS 9; and then add the Intech Hi-cap (high
capacity) kext for OS X which enables greater than 128GB in OS X. This
solution is more difficult, and for safety a partition break should be
added to any large HD at the EXACT 128GB point of 131,072MB. The
advantage of this method is that it frees up a PCI slot, the
disadvantage is a slight HD speed hit.
My preferred use of PCI slots in Beige are: 1) a Firewire & USB 2.0
Combo card in one slot 2) a Radeon PCI card in a second slot, I
believe the best is the flashed PC Radeon 9100 which is the equivalent
of a Mac Radeon 8500(never made as a PCI card) 3) your choice, ATA HD
card, wireless 802.11 card, etc.
I preferred booting from external Firewire using XPostFacto's Helper
Disk boot option. A Beige running 10.4.11 with a 500MHz G4 CPU and a
fast Radeon card w/QE enabled is ALMOST useable by today's standards,
but NOT QUITE.
I'm a little unsure of why you think you'd gain much with a Gigabit
ethernet card? Perhaps I'm not thinking correctly here, but I think
the throughput speeds on the Beige are well below the saturation point
of a 100baseT card, so my thinking here is that a gigabit card is a
waste because you'll never be able to utilize the added speed?
Obviously a 100baseT card would be an improvement over the built-in
10baseT, so perhaps this is a worthwhile card, but an 802.11n card
would also be an option (without OS 9 support, but would work in OS X).
My advice, don't spend any money on this Beige, get an newer, faster
Mac instead. Someone was selling G4 MDDs really cheap on LEM-Swap the
other day. All PPC Macs are being recycled now, you can sometimes find
G5s super cheap at university sales, or businesses that are upgrading.
Cheap PCs can be made into OS X hackintosh with LESS EFFORT than
messing around with this Beige which is about the hardest Mac with
lots of limitations and quirks. I'd upgrade and retire this Beige.
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