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zerostar · Sep 7, 2005, 11:48 AM

Hey my friend has an old G3 350 that s running Mac OS 9, it has 1GB Ram and I think an 8MB Rage Card

Should I upgrade this machine to OS X? The internet sucks on this machine as it is such an old version of Explorer and Mozilla seems even worse. They have 6MB cable but it loads pages like dialup.

Also, the machine doesn't have a DVD drive so if I want to install OS X what are the options? if I pull my drive from my G5 (Pioneer 107 I think) will it boot OS X installer on the G3 Machine?

angelmb · Sep 7, 2005, 03:59 PM

Well, being a G3 350 Blue&White you can install Tiger there, Safari 2.0 (comes with Tiger) is really a fast browser.

The G3 350 B&W came originaly with an ATI Rage 128 Pro 16 MB card, I would check that fact since a 8 MB old is not going to be an ally to run Mac OS X.

To enhance the browsing experience under Mac OS 9 your friend could get a look at iCab (www.icab.de) a great german browser.

To get a DVD drive from an Apple computer is the easier way to solve the lack of DVD drive. I placed a DVD drive from a MDD G4 Power Mac into a G3 350 B&W PowerMac, it worked flawless, no need for 3rd party controllers/drivers (www.patchburn.de)

But have in mind that if the graphics card inside the G3 350 B&W is not at least the original ATI Rage 128, your friend is going to lack the possibility of play DVD movies.

P · Sep 7, 2005, 04:37 PM

Go Tiger. I have an iMac G3/400 - a very similar machine, performancewise - and it's on Panther with good results. Since I got the iMac G5, it's just my secondary machine and I only have one Tiger license, but Tiger is generally faster than Panther anyway.

You can increase performance even further with a cheap PCI graphics board, such as a Radeon 9200, and the PCI Extreme hack.

zerostar · Sep 7, 2005, 09:46 PM

Your right it is 16MB card, she has 320MB Ram but I am going to upgrade it to hopefully 1GB and I think that is the max the machine will take.

How much ram do you have in yours?

zerostar · Sep 7, 2005, 09:56 PM

Do you think the DVD drive will boot on the G3?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Genuine-Apple-Hi...QQcmdZViewItem

angelmb · Sep 8, 2005, 05:42 AM

Well, my B&W has just 512 MB but you are right, you can place up to 1 GB RAM there.

About the DVD drive, I think Matsushita (Panasonic) are more usual than Hitachi drives. That seller offers them also. Link here

This another Matsushita is indeed an Apple OEM drive, see the Apple logo in the label.

bowwowman · Sep 8, 2005, 05:01 PM

I installed a dvd drive in my B&W and it works great, plays movies, installed Tiger, and burns discs too

P · Sep 9, 2005, 09:00 AM

Originally Posted by zerostar

Your right it is 16MB card, she has 320MB Ram but I am going to upgrade it to hopefully 1GB and I think that is the max the machine will take.

How much ram do you have in yours?

512 MB now, but I had 384 MB for a long time, which worked fine. 320 MB is OK, but on the low side. Keep your eyes open for deals on memory chips to upgrade at a good time.

zerostar · Sep 9, 2005, 05:15 PM

I found $40 for 512MB so I will just get her that.

P · Sep 10, 2005, 10:35 AM

One chip or two? Because I'm not sure that a 512 chip will work in that machine - it has a 1 gig limit and 4 slots. If it is one chip, make sure you can return it if it won't work.

bowwowman · Sep 10, 2005, 05:02 PM

yep, the B&W is limited to 256mb per chip max X 4 chips =1GB

zerostar · Sep 11, 2005, 07:33 AM

Yes 2x 256, thanks!