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appel · Sep 29, 2006, 12:08 PM

So hey guys, I'm new.

I'm just looking at a PowerMac G3 Blue and White model on eBay, but was wondering what all this revision 1 and 2 stuff means.

So I know already that revision 2 is the one to get, but can the problem with the revision models about the extra hard drive be remedied.

eg, can't I just put a larger main hard drive in (not a secondary) and then install the OS on that. What is the precise nature of the problem, just adding a second hard disc? Thanks

SSharon · Sep 29, 2006, 01:15 PM

I don't know all the details even though I have (what I think is a) rev. a B&W G3, but I think the problem is that you can't add two drives to the ata channel like you normally can. If you really need extra drive space you can add a pci card or use firewire drives.

reader50 · Sep 29, 2006, 01:32 PM

This post has almost nothing to do with Mac Modification. Moving to PowerMac Forum.

I'll leave your questions to someone who knows the B&W characteristics.

Oversoul · Sep 29, 2006, 02:13 PM

Apple-History.com is your friend.

discotronic · Sep 29, 2006, 02:35 PM

The Rev 1 motherboard was known to cause data corruption on larger hard drives due to a flaw in the hard drive controller.

My brother has a Rev 1 with a 40GB hard drive but hasn't had any issues but he is in the minority. If you get one of these you will need to get a PCI IDE or SATA controller to use more than one drive and to make sure your data is safe.

You can pick up a B&W for real cheap right now but in my opinion you would be better off getting a PowerMac G4. Just make sure it has an AGP slot and you will be good to go.

The B&W is a great system to start out on but upgrading can be expensive. 1GB RAM is the limit and you can only use a PCI video card.

appel · Sep 29, 2006, 03:26 PM

So, what about using just one hard disc, can I use a large hard disc and just install OSX onto that.

discotronic · Sep 29, 2006, 03:41 PM

Originally Posted by appel

So, what about using just one hard disc, can I use a large hard disc and just install OSX onto that.

Sure. Check here for more info on data corruption:

Accelerate Your Mac! - G3 Internal IDE drive upgrade

Here is a good article on the B&W

Power Macintosh G3 (B&W): A Good Buy

Gossamer · Sep 29, 2006, 04:01 PM

Originally Posted by appel

So, what about using just one hard disc, can I use a large hard disc and just install OSX onto that.

Yep, up to 128GB.

appel · 03:29 PM

Cool, whats your source for that, just being the Mac Master. LOL.

And so, your saying ANY of the two hard drives can go crazy unless you fix it. (Main and 2ndary)

And on the first article, is it saying that by downloading a driver, you can effectively remove any risk at all of corruption. Thanks for the help guys.

Waragainstsleep · Sep 30, 2006, 04:32 PM

You can install one as a slave on the same bus as the optical drive without getting corruption. But its much slower. Better to get a PCI controller card as mentioned. SATA will be nice and quick. Max the RAM and you will have a great little machine. Don't expect it to blitz through video encoding like a Mac Pro, but for web surfing, word processing, lightweight stuff or as a server it would be fine.

bowwowman · Sep 30, 2006, 07:36 PM

Originally Posted by appel

Cool, whats your source for that, just being the Mac Master. LOL.

And so, your saying ANY of the two hard drives can go crazy unless you fix it. (Main and 2ndary)

And on the first article, is it saying that by downloading a driver, you can effectively remove any risk at all of corruption. Thanks for the help guys.

Well, my source is me & my personal experiences, having owned 3 of these machines, 2x rev 1 & 1 rev 2, I can tell you that the problem can NOT be solved by a driver d/l or other software: been there, done that...... it's a hardware flaw, plain & simple

I tried every proposed fix on the net and still ended up losing data. Fortunately none of was important, but still a hassle nonetheless....

the only real fix is a pci controller card!

Velocity211 · Sep 30, 2006, 07:50 PM

Originally Posted by Gossamer

Yep, up to 128GB.

I tried using one 80GB HD. It worked for a couple of days then one day it just wouldn't boot up so I booted up into the OS X disc. Disk utility said that I had a 232GB HD and the volume name was all random letters and numbers. So I'm back with the original 6GB HD with OS 9. All of my data was lost and corrupted on the 80GB drive. Beware of the REV 1!!!!

appel · Oct 1, 2006, 01:09 PM

LOL, sorry about that mate.

Anyway, so I'm going to have to get a PCI IDE card then. Can someone direct me to what this thing looks like or a manufacturer of a very low budget one. Thanks for the help again.

discotronic · Oct 6, 2006, 09:54 AM

Go here:

OWC: Apple Mac G4 upgrades, Laptop Batteries, Memory, Drives

Click on G3/G4 Upgrades.

bowwowman · Oct 6, 2006, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by appel

LOL, sorry about that mate.

Anyway, so I'm going to have to get a PCI IDE card then. Can someone direct me to what this thing looks like or a manufacturer of a very low budget one. Thanks for the help again.

They look similar to a video card, without so many chips, or even a USB card, but with 2 or more ATA cable connectors along the top and/or back end of the card. They plug into standard black pci slots at the back of the mobo and are secured by the mounting plate and 1 screw.

Sonnet, Siig, AcARD and several other mfgr's make them, but they arent exactly cheap (~$60-90) if bought new. You should be able to find a used ATA 100/133 card on ebay for a more reasonable price though (~$20-40)

The Tempo series from Sonnet is my personal favorite, having owned 2 of them and never a problem from either one, just plug & play, no fuss, no muss, no drivers or control panels etc etc

Gossamer · Oct 6, 2006, 02:48 PM

**You only need the PCI card if you get a Rev. 1 G3

The catch is that for the cost of the G3 and an ATA card, you could get a G4 without those problems. You can find base G4s for under $100 now.

bowwowman · Oct 6, 2006, 10:31 PM

Originally Posted by Gossamer

**You only need the PCI card if you get a Rev. 1 G3

or if you wanna use a HD larger than 128GB in either model

but the cost comparison is correct, IF you can find a G4 for ~$100, probably a Sawtooth, which will also give you AGP-based video, in addition to removing the HD issues of the B&W's.........

SLiMeX · Nov 10, 2006, 02:07 AM

Out of curiosity, whats ablue and white G3 going for these days?

Gossamer · Nov 10, 2006, 01:38 PM

I've seen Rev. 1s for $30, Rev 2s might be $50 or less depending on RAM, HD size, etc. I would definitely say go G4 if at all possible. The G4's velocity engine lets you do so much more than the G3...from things like playing videos or even just installing iLife '06.

chris v · Nov 10, 2006, 01:53 PM

I absolutely would not pay more that $50.00 for a stock B&W. They'll run os 10.3 ok, but you've got to max the RAM, wich is what -- 512 mb in those?

seanc · Nov 10, 2006, 02:09 PM

Originally Posted by chris v

I absolutely would not pay more that $50.00 for a stock B&W. They'll run os 10.3 ok, but you've got to max the RAM, wich is what -- 512 mb in those?

4 x 256 = 1gb

littlegreenspud · Nov 10, 2006, 02:24 PM

I had 1.5 GB in mine…

seanc · Nov 10, 2006, 02:27 PM

Originally Posted by littlegreenspud

I had 1.5 GB in mine…

Really? Sure it was a Blue and White G3 and not a Graphite G4?

SLiMeX · Nov 10, 2006, 02:37 PM

Hmm.. this weekend, (tomorrow) I have an opprotunity to pick up 6 blue and white's for $170. Is it worth it? I was going to re-install OSX (they currently have no OS) and try and sell them, but since upfront I'll be paying $28 each, and since some of you said you wouldnt pay more than $30, I may beging to feel like I'm getting jipped. Comments?

BTW, these machines are in pristine condition (not that it matters) but they are all 300mHz.

SSharon · Nov 10, 2006, 03:42 PM

Originally Posted by SLiMeX

Hmm.. this weekend, (tomorrow) I have an opprotunity to pick up 6 blue and white's for $170. Is it worth it? I was going to re-install OSX (they currently have no OS) and try and sell them, but since upfront I'll be paying $28 each, and since some of you said you wouldnt pay more than $30, I may beging to feel like I'm getting jipped. Comments?

BTW, these machines are in pristine condition (not that it matters) but they are all 300mHz.

If they each had a decent amount of ram I would consider $125

Many people will pay top dollar for a 256mb chip, often times half of what they pay for the entire machine.

The real selling point is if you can set them up for people with a specific purpose in mind. I have a g3 that I use as a music server. Copy someone's itunes library onto it, plug it into the network and charge $100.

SLiMeX · Nov 10, 2006, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by SSharon

If they each had a decent amount of ram I would consider $125

Many people will pay top dollar for a 256mb chip, often times half of what they pay for the entire machine.

The real selling point is if you can set them up for people with a specific purpose in mind. I have a g3 that I use as a music server. Copy someone's itunes library onto it, plug it into the network and charge $100.

$125 for all? If so, I dont think I can talk him down that much...

3 of these machines have 128MB, 3 of them have 256MB of RAM.

I know they dont have large hard drves at all. I think ^GB (standard).

Is it still worth it?

SSharon · Nov 10, 2006, 04:15 PM

the ones with 128mb can't run tiger, all of them will need larger hard drives for just about anything you want to do.
I just checked and I have 384mb of ram and a 350mhz chip (and an 80gb drive pulled from my MDD), this is enough for my uses, but I wouldn't even browse the web for very long with this setup.

Unless you have another use for them, I can't see paying $175 for them if you have to spend even more time and money upgrading them.

chris v · Nov 10, 2006, 06:02 PM

Originally Posted by seanc

4 x 256 = 1gb

You are correct, sir. I was thinking it was 4 x 128.

chris v · 09:55 PM

Originally Posted by SLiMeX

Hmm.. this weekend, (tomorrow) I have an opprotunity to pick up 6 blue and white's for $170. Is it worth it? I was going to re-install OSX (they currently have no OS) and try and sell them, but since upfront I'll be paying $28 each, and since some of you said you wouldnt pay more than $30, I may beging to feel like I'm getting jipped. Comments?

BTW, these machines are in pristine condition (not that it matters) but they are all 300mHz.

I would make sure they were the rev B motherboard, then try to talk them down a bit. You might be able to double your money, but that's a lot of work.

littlegreenspud · Nov 10, 2006, 07:19 PM

Originally Posted by seanc

Really? Sure it was a Blue and White G3 and not a Graphite G4?

Yes really, it was a first gen B&W 350MHZ that I clocked to 450MHZ, had 1.5G RAM and a Sonnet PCI card to overcome the Hard drive corruption problems. It is still running! And it is running 10.4.8.

reader50 · Nov 10, 2006, 09:20 PM

You may have had 1.5 GB in it (2x256 + 2x512 ?) but I'll bet the system only recognized 1 GB. The 512's would be seen as 256 modules. Do you still have the system?

If it really could recognize 512 modules, people would be very interested in the details.

brokecollegestudentF04 · Nov 12, 2006, 09:00 PM

I just confirmed the 512MB chips in Blue and White G3's do work, I had that I tried it popped up as 1GB 512MB PC100 in the system profiler.. This was in a revision 2