recommended B&W G3 processor upgrade

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Level 1

10 points

recommended B&W G3 processor upgrade

hey. sort of new to this forum.
i just won a B&W G3 400mhz on ebay [wahoo!] and was wondering if there was a decent economical [OMG!]processor upgrade recommendation. as a background reference, i am not new to macs. the last mac machine i ran was my 7500 powermac.....about 8 years ago or so, that i had upgraded to a sonnet G3 400. as i recall, the upgrade was pretty spendy.
i don't expect the speed of multi-GHZ modern machines.....or i would have bought one of them. i just want competent performance and a usable OS to work with. the B&W already is supposed to have OS 10.4, the PCI ATA hard drive upgrade, video, USB 2 and 3/4 of a gig of RAM. thanks....

B&W G3 ebay special, Mac OS X (10.4), upgraded 7500 powermac w/ OS9.1

Posted on Mar 19, 2009 1:39 AM

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Answer 1

Jeff

Level 6

12,328 points

Mar 19, 2009 9:44 AM in response to rtabish

The least expensive option is a 400 MHz G4 ZIF processor, taken from a PCI Graphics G4. After running a firmware update to enable the use of a G4 processor in your B&W G3, the rest is plug-and-play. Subsequent G4 models used a different processor form factor, so anything faster than the 400 MHz mentioned would be a third-party product. Depending on your budget, you could probably find something at eBay that's reasonably priced.

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Answer 2

rtabish Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 19, 2009 3:36 PM in response to Jeff

so, with the G4 upgrade, would i also upgrade the OS, or would that pretty much be unnecessary? i found OS 9.1 to be pretty useful at the time i was using my powermac. OS X was just coming out when i stopped using macs, and i never got the chance to use any of the X versions.
this is probably a matter of personal choice, but is there a particular online seller i should check out. i did some business with Otherworld computing, and still get their catalog.

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Answer 3

Mar 19, 2009 7:30 PM in response to rtabish

"would i also upgrade the OS, or would that pretty much be unnecessary?"

You won't need to upgrade the OS, but you will need to patch the firmware before installing a G4 chip, as Jeff mentioned.

G4 upgrades up to 650MHz can use the B&W's full system bus speed.
700MHz and higher G4 upgrades use a later version of G4 chip, which requires slowing the B&W's bus speed down to 66MHz (from the original 100Mhz) because of a hardware issue with the B&W's memory controller.

G3 upgrades of all speeds can use the B&W's full bus speed.

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Answer 4

rtabish Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 19, 2009 9:01 PM in response to Dave Hamilton

thanks guys. very helpful info saving me a lot of time! i paid $50 for this G3, and i still have a bunch of stuff i can use on it, including some pc100 ram. if i can find a bit faster processor, i may have a bit of fun relearning all this mac stuff over again.
will i be able to upgrade the optical drive to DVD, or would that be worth the trouble? my main interest is in photography, but digital video might be fun too.

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Answer 5

Mar 19, 2009 9:34 PM in response to rtabish

"will i be able to upgrade the optical drive to DVD, or would that be worth the trouble?"

You can install a DVD burner, but the burn speed for DVDs will be limited to under 12x, because of the low speed of the optical bus.

Also, B&Ws are picky about booting from optical drives.
Pioneer drives usually work well, and can be had for around $30 online.
This page has Mac user reviews of different drives.
http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/drivedb/search.drivedb.lasso
Select your Mac model, and "DVD+R/RW + DVD-R/W" for the drive type.

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Answer 6

rtabish Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 19, 2009 10:26 PM in response to Dave Hamilton

thanks. this should answer enough questions to keep me busy for a while. ha ha.

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