Power Mac G3's Worth Rebuilding?

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ynot_1957 Author

Level 1

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Power Mac G3's Worth Rebuilding?

Just became the owner of 3 bare bones Power Mac G3's (BLUE & WHITE) one is 300mhz, the other 450mhz, and the third is unknown. All look very clean and power up just fine, but all three are missing HD, RAM, Video cards, & I have no OS readily at my disposal. I also will need an adapter for my VGA monitor.

On eBay, I see that HD, RAM, Video cards, OS are available but is this worth the effort to rebuild or not? I'm thinking of moving from PC's to MAC's and this may be a good start. I really have no need for high end home computer to do e-mail and web surfing. Any advice on where to start would be greatly appreciated.

G3

Posted on Dec 4, 2007 10:58 AM

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Answer 1

Bill W

Level 5

4,755 points

Dec 4, 2007 11:23 AM in response to ynot_1957

Sad to say, they probably aren't worth rebuilding unless you have a lot of old stuff laying around to use. I bought a working 400MHz B&W a couple of years ago for $40 and all it was missing was a hard drive (which I've got in abundance!).

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Answer 2

Dec 5, 2007 1:28 PM in response to ynot_1957

ynot_1957,

Welcome to the discussions. If you are near a large city, you can find recyclers who sell hard drives and/or memory for $5. At that price you can tinker to your heart's content. If the third computer is a Rev. A, you will want to limit the size of the hard drives to under ten gig. The others can handle 120 gig drives or better, depending on details that can be learned later. Find some ten or twenty gig drives and test them out.

You can find video cards at recyclers for $5 to $20 so they are reasonable too. No adapter will be needed for vga, that became the new standard. Apple succumbed to pressure to have open standards for greater PC parts compatability.

Post back with the largest city near you and maybe we can find you a surplus or recycling supplier.

We still use the B&Ws as photo download and storage computers. G4s will process video faster but they are generally in use on the internet when I want to clear my digital camera. You will find plenty of life left in those computers, just keep your costs down or you are better off buying a G4 for $100.

Ji˜m

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Answer 3

ynot_1957 Author

Level 1

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Dec 5, 2007 2:11 PM in response to Appaloosa mac man

Thanks for the encouragement. I live in Atlanta. Perhaps you know of a recycler or shop that has these parts. I may have a 20 gig HD and some RAM that I pulled from a PC a few years ago...I'll have to take a look if they're compatible or not.

Just a few questions:

1. Isn't the HD for the 450HZ different than that on the 350HZ (9 GB Ultra2 SCSI hard drive) vs (6 GB or 12 GB Ultra ATA)? What other drives will work?

2. Since there is no current RAM right now, will I need to get specific Apple-brand PC100 168 pin low density ram chips or RAM from third parties acceptable?

3. For video, I see mention of the ATI RAGE 128 video card, but I see various different versions available on eBay. Which is the correct one? Are there other brands worth checking out too?

If I can rebuild this computer (i.e the 450mhz) for under $50 with new HD, RAM, video card, & appropriate OS, then I'll proceed. Otherwise, I'll sell all three of them.

Thanks again.

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Answer 4

Dec 5, 2007 2:30 PM in response to ynot_1957

1. Isn't the HD for the 450HZ different than that on the 350HZ (9 GB Ultra2 SCSI hard drive) vs (6 GB or 12 GB Ultra ATA)? What other drives will work?

That is the "server" model. It was built for fast file access. It has all the regular IDE hardware in it, plus a PCI slot card to talk to a 68-pin Ultra2 SCSI Bus. The internal SCSI cable has three drive connectors.

The 450 MHz model would definitely be a Rev 2, so it could also support two IDE drives up to 128 GB each using a "stacking bracket" and a two-drive 80-wire on 40-pin_headers cable. The Rev 2 sheet metal featured 3 metal "sleds" for quick and easy drive mounting.

The rev 1 has a single solid bottom shelf, and all drive screws install from below, so the shelf must be completely removed to install/remove drives. It is limited to a single small IDE drive.

With the three power connectors provided, you can combine SCSI and IDE drives in any combination, plus use more external drives on an external SCSI cable. But these Macs cannot boot from FireWire without some "tricks".

58193- Power Macintosh G3 (Blue and White): Additional Hard Drive Installation Options

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Answer 5

Dec 5, 2007 2:34 PM in response to ynot_1957

2. Since there is no current RAM right now, will I need to get specific Apple-brand PC100 168 pin low density ram chips or RAM from third parties acceptable?

We were just talking about RAM for these on this nearby thread:

Topic : RAM type to be installed in a B&W G3

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Answer 6

ynot_1957 Author

Level 1

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Dec 5, 2007 3:05 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Then I suppose I should concentrate my efforts on the 450MHZ and not on the other two, not only for the speed, but for the flexibility....

Thanks for you comments, they're helpful for this entry level newbie that I am.

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Answer 7

Dec 8, 2007 8:32 AM in response to ynot_1957

The 450 is the one to start with first for speed. The 350 is the one to play with for flexibility. Or, move the PCI slot SCSI card to the 450 and have both in one machine. The HD in the 450 is IDE. The 9 GB Ultra2 SCSI hard drive is just that. SCSI. You can add up to 14 drives to that card or SCSI chain. External hd towers are a fun way to add drive capacity without overloading the internal power supply. Some of our G4 towers are very sensitive to power demands because they support power to the monitor as well.

We just bought six 4 gig and 9 gig drives in Seattle for $5 a piece. They still want $25 for 18 gig drives. We do not use our G3s for high storage demand tasks because of the expense of large capacity SCSI drives. Your 450 would be a great candidate for a 60 or 80 gig ATA/IDE drive that you find cheap. Look for a pair while you are at it. Having two working towers for redundancy might be worth it if you can solve the video card issue. The other approach is to buy a generation one G3 platinum computer that still has a video card in it. The Seattle recycler did not pull the card to sell for $20. Instead, the computer with card sold for $10. Go figure. Seek and yea shall find.

You will want to get a guarantee that the card is a Mac compatible video card. Recyclers who understand macs will save them to the side. I will have to Google for a recycler near you. Did I mention googling for Mac user groups? They will also have local resources and ideas.

Ji˜m

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