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MilkmanDan · Jul 3, 2003, 06:30 PM

I have a rev c 266 Beige G3 with 512 RAM running OS 10.2, and holding 340s of storage for myself and my friends. Also on the inside are a firewire card and a USB card. This old Mac serves me well as a storage tank for lots of different media (music, video, software), and ususally pipes it to a PC (not mine) hooked up to a TV. The problem I have is that the built in Network card on a Beige G3 is really slow. I'd like to put a faster card in, but I don't know which one to use, or more over, one that will work in OS 10.2? This has been discussed before ( don't remember where), but no one gave their results.

I did try one card that has "OS X" drivers, but they didn't work. I need some names someone who has actually done this before.

Also, Dell.com has 200 GIG Western Digital HDs for only $115. (go to dealmac.com for details). Will a 200 GIG drive run into any issues with a beige G3 (besides the beige being slow)? The 120 gig Seagate drive works well thats in there (along with the 80's and a 60). I could not find any info on xlr8yourmac.com that would tell me if a 200 GIG IDE drive would poop out on a beige G3

Taipan · Jul 3, 2003, 07:03 PM

Hi!

I'm quite sure the beige G3 can only use 128GB of the new drive. If you want to use thw whole capacity you'll have to get a PCI IDE-Controller.

MilkmanDan · Jul 3, 2003, 08:35 PM

Thanks for the info. I had that nagging thought in the back of my mind. Oh well, its worth a shot.

Anyone know about a new ethernet card though?

vasu · Jul 4, 2003, 07:24 AM

I know about the ethernet cards. My main recomendation is stay away from any card based on Realtek chipsets. While they are fine (hardware wise) the drivers have issues with beige g3's... I've talked to the 1 developer at RealTek they have working on a mac driver, and he doesn't speak english too well so that'd made it more difficult. Basically they only have 1 mac to work with, so they don't really do compatability testing with machines they don't have.

I had a Realtek 8139 based card for a year and it was miserable. Speeds were generally not as great as I expected, and after updating to 10.2.4, the driver got even more incompatible, causing a kernal panic around 30 seconds into a large continuous file transfer.

But here's the good news. I got an Asante FriendlyNet 696 and it's been working great. They have some competent programers doing the drivers, and there have been no issues with kernal panics, packet colissions, lag, or anything else.

Info page: http://www.asante.com/products/adapters/696/index.html

at the bottom there is a link to buy the card.

I've heard some people have had luck with a D-Link model card and their drivers. If you go to www.d-link.com and click on Mac Compatible you should see the card among other things.

-vasu

MilkmanDan · Jul 5, 2003, 01:48 AM

Man, thanks. That is just the info I needed to hear. I'm sure there are other beige G3 owners that need this information. A beige G3 is still a good OS X computer, and as long as its not a rev a (or even B I think) you can turn it into a nice server with lots of HD space.

I'm even going to get another beige G3 to turn into an OS X webserver (Thanks OS 10.2 server!). Thanks a bunch for your help. I should provide this info on xlr8yourmac.com, and cite you as a source.

vasu · Jul 5, 2003, 09:56 AM

That's the setup I have no (actually I do have a rev a, so I don't have master/slave support)

But I have a beige g3 running 10.2 Server with a USB card, the Asante Ethernet card, and a AT Radeon7000 using the PCI Extreme hack and Grackle Probe to help with the side effects of using QuartzExtreme on the PCI bus of these machines.

It works really well. Adding that Radeon REALLY helped, as it's previous RageII+ chipset wasn't supported at all and everything was dog slow.

I'm thinking of getting the Sonnet Trio card... it's an ata/100 (or maybe even ata/133), usb, and firewire card all in 1 PCI card.. Couple that with the Radeon card, and the Asante card, and it'll be one really capable machine. Esp wtih a 1ghz G4 upgrade!

-vasu

CIA · Jul 5, 2003, 10:07 AM

I had a Rev A 266, Slapped in a new Sonnet Tempo ATA controller and a 200gig drive no prob. Built in only picks up 137GB of it. (no ATA6 support)
Also had a Farallon (spelling?) 10/100 card that worked like a champ. FastEnet+?
This is kinda vague, I know. But Farallon made good sh*t. Is the company even in business anymore?

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Jul 5, 2003, 10:20 AM

IF the new 200 Gig drive is the only drive in the computer then you have to partion it so OSX is installed on the first 10 Gigs of it.

-Q- · Jul 5, 2003, 11:21 AM

Originally posted by CIA:
But Farallon made good sh*t. Is the company even in business anymore?

Nope. They were acquired by Proxim a few years ago.

I have a Farallon card in my beige and it's worked flawlessly. If you can find one, it's definitely a great card.

-Q- · Jul 5, 2003, 11:22 AM

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
IF the new 200 Gig drive is the only drive in the computer then you have to partion it so OSX is installed on the first 10 Gigs of it.

Actually, it has to be within the first 8 GBs of the drive.

tooki · Jul 5, 2003, 11:31 AM

It also doesn't matter if it's the only drive installed: OS X must be installed on a partition that is completely contained in the first 8GB, regardless of what other partitions and drives may be around.

Honestly, I wouldn't bother investing in a beige G3 for OS X, pick up a used G4 for a couple of hundreds and use that instead.

tooki

calumma · Jul 5, 2003, 03:50 PM

Be aware that the Asante FriendlyNet is not compatible with beige G3s that have been upgraded with a G4 ZIF. I tried this and found that the networking became extremely flaky often resulting in a spinning beachball on the target machine. I checked this with Asante and they confirmed the problem.

MilkmanDan · Jul 5, 2003, 06:16 PM

Its nice to know that the beige will only see 137 GBs of space on the 200 GIG HD. I guess I'll just have to put the 200 GIG in my G4. I guess I'll have to tell my roomies to cut down on the anime than, taking up too much room, that or get a smaller drive.

I ordered the Asante Ethernet Card yesterday, I'm looking forward to having a beige G3 that actually pumps data out a resonable speed. Not to worry, I have no plans of installing a G4 upgrade card on it (or the webserver).

Also, I've been told that Panther will not run on a Beige G3, something to the effect of a B&W G3 or above. Which is too bad, because they can be upgraded rather cheaply.

Any other advice anyone can throw out about Beige G3s? Everythign so far has been great!

yg17 · Jul 5, 2003, 11:58 PM

In my beige, I have a DLink ethernet card, model DFE530TX+ that works with OSX using some drivers on ftp.dlink.com. Best of all, the card is only about 15 bucks at Best Buy

Cipher13 · Jul 6, 2003, 05:28 AM

Any NIC based on the Tulip chipset will work fine, in my experience.

Anyway... My DFE530TX's work beautifully, as do the KNE100's or whatever from Kingston (I can't check right now, I don't have the cards on me...)

Taipan · Jul 6, 2003, 02:52 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
It also doesn't matter if it's the only drive installed: OS X must be installed on a partition that is completely contained in the first 8GB, regardless of what other partitions and drives may be around.

Again, unless you hook it up to a PCI ATA card, that is.

MilkmanDan · Jul 9, 2003, 01:46 PM

I couldn't actually install 10.2 on the 120 GIG drive I have in my beige, because the first 8 GIGs do not show up (damn you, you crappy drive!). Just as a word of warning about big drives and Beige G3s, you may not be able to install OS X on them if you have a big drive.

MilkmanDan · Jul 10, 2003, 08:02 PM

So I get my 200 GIG HD from Dell, and it came with a free ATA controler card! Boo yeah. The thing is, will it work with the Beige G3 under 10.2.6?

Here is the model infromation. Please be candid.

It says it by: Promise Technology, inc.
The Card is a: Ultra100 Tx2

Works in any 32 bit PCI slot. Will this work if I stick it in a Beige?

-Q- · Jul 10, 2003, 09:39 PM

Originally posted by MilkmanDan:
Works in any 32 bit PCI slot. Will this work if I stick it in a Beige?

I wouldn't hold my breathe but give it a shot. So long as the card fits the slot, you can't hurt anything.

Mac Write · Jul 11, 2003, 04:54 AM

I have a Rev A Beige G3 266 MT as my only Mac. with 768MB RAM a 80GB and 120GB, Radeon Mac:Edition, OrangeMicro USB/Firewire PCI (March 2001) Yamaha 16x10x40 Firewire CDRW ($600 OUCH April 2001)

when I installed the 80GB (warrenty replacement for the dying 60GB from Maxtor) I formatted partitoned 7.9GB for Mac OS X then 1GB above that for Mac OS 9 (Mac OS 9 is not limited by the 8GB limit), I had to restart to get X to see the new format.

other then that X has run well, but I am growing and look forward to theslim chance of a DP 2.5GHZ G5 in the new year.

I will want that Asanta ehternet card so I can run this as a Web/File server (it was going to be Music cuase of the RCA but thanks to Digital Optical in the G5 I no longer will require that).

The Rev A can support slave but only in X. combined the it can support 222GB of usable spce (2x120GB).

Great little server. running a server AND using as a desktop is nice (server hardly take ip any CPU.

B&W G3's are going for like $600+ in Canada. and Beiges for $400+

drjoe · Jul 15, 2003, 01:59 AM

Originally posted by vasu:
That's the setup I have no (actually I do have a rev a, so I don't have master/slave support)

... ...

-vasu

Well if you have a rev A beige AND if you are running OS X you DO have slave drives. At boot time the roms are patched and there they are. Just put another drive on the chain, set the jumper to slave and you are good to go. It is astounding the number of people who don't know this. But it's true - I sit here in front of my beige with master drives an LG 4120B combo drive and a WD 60 gig drive. A WD 80 gig is slave on ATA bus 0. Also have a i gig SCSI on the internal SCSI bus as a swap partition.

MilkmanDan · Jul 29, 2003, 01:45 AM

The Asante PCI card I put in is being really slow, as in slower than the onboard ethernet. Heres the model I got.

http://www.asante.com/products/adapters/696/index.html

The upload speed appears to be better, but the download speed is like a dog!

MilkmanDan · Jul 29, 2003, 02:00 PM

After a lot of testing, heres what happens with the card. When I connect to the beige and download a file, it works just fine. But if I UPLOAD a file to it, its speed drops to a few hundred kps.

If I go to the Beige and connect to my G4, I can download a file from the G4 just fine, but uploading a file to the G4 drops its speed back down to nothing again.

I'm running 10.2.5, and have no idea why its acting so damn strange.

MilkmanDan · Jul 29, 2003, 04:04 PM

Ok, so i did even more testing and found this.

When I directly connect my G4 to the Beige I get great speeds both ways. Everythign is fine.

When I plug them into my Linksys 5 port switch, thats when all the problems happen. (I tested out some different cables and I still get the same probles, so its not the cables)

Heres the networking setup. I have a cable modem hooked into the Upload spot of the Switch. I than have my G4 hooked into the First spot, the Beige into the second, and a rev a iMac into the third. The Switch is a 10/100 switch that I bought at the beginning of the summer. If anyone has advice, I'd be willing to try anything. (It beats havign to plug the G4 and the Beige directly together to get any work done)