Combining two 1997 Beige G3 Power Macs and maxing it out! The Beige Beast, Part 1!

[@robsquared2]

There's so few channels that do anything more than restoring things to their original state. I love the fact this channel just goes all the way to the wall upgrading stuff. It reminds me of the first computer I built/repaired in high school. It was a 75mhz pentium 1 (yes I know they start at 90mhz but this one was a cheap binned version). It also only had 8 or 16 mb of ram. So I maxed it out to 96mb and used a special upgrade chip to put in a P2 233mhz intel. I even installed a DVD player and it could almost play a dvd.

[@d4r1pp43]

Dust inside PCI or RAM Slots can cause many issues you should clean them before putting something in. A clean computer is a happy computer :)

[@thecooldude9999]

I’ve fixed so many non booting PCs at work just by blowing out the ram slots :)

[@marc6340]

This was the first Mac I ever owned! I bought it from a friend for $100 dollars. I loved it because I could literally completely disassemble it and put it back together. I knew every inch of it and upgraded it a lot. It used OS9 when I first got it, and when I upgraded to OS X I hated it! Thought I would never get used to it. Now OS9 is completely foreign to me. Can't believe I used it for so long on that OS. How times change...

[@pokepress]

Funny how monitors got lighter around the same time we stopped putting them on top of computers.

[@ActionRetro]

Omg you're right

[@coolkitty1654]

Just stumbled onto this channel. If it wasn’t for recommended, I would never find you. Glad I did, new subscriber!

[@IoIxD]

This will be an interesting series! My personal suggestions would be: - swap the hard drive out with an ssd (using an ide to sata converter) - not bother with the zip drive and either put in a second floppy drive or a floppy drive emulator. - clean up and retrobright the case for the best look.

[@ActionRetro]

Oh I didn't even think about a floppy emulator, nice idea!

[@orestes1984]

These were one of the most sensible designs in the world, and supremely easy to upgrade. Even the VRAM was able to be upgraded to 8mb at the time. That doesn't sound like much but it could get you all the resolution you needed for the screens up to the 21 inch Apple Trinitron and being an ATI Rage card onboard it had a fair amount of power for the times. I even played the original Sims on mine and it ran well with an upgraded video card. Although my ultimate upgrade would have been a 3DFX Voodoo 3 but I could never afford one. I even used my "personality card" to output to a TV and record video from mine when I owned it. I loved the beige G3. I also even loved the "Old Word" ROM it had. Everything was designed to be easily replaced and rebuilt in this case. But you should upgrade the ATA cables with rounded ones so it's easier to route them.

[@james42519]

You knew what you were doing doing the thumbnail at the beginning. Making it look like going to some how connect them together making some kind of server farm thing combining the power of both.

[@StevenSmyth]

Good video. Zapping the PRAM is not going to fix your memory issue, you have to reset the CUDA chip. The button to do it is located by the expansion slots on the left of the logic board as you’re looking at the front of the Mac. To do it so you don’t kill your logic board: 1 Unplug the computer. 2 Remove the battery from the logic board. 3 Disconnect the power supply cable from the logic board and then press the Power On button. 4 Wait at least 10 minutes before replacing the battery. 5 Make sure the battery is installed in the correct +/- direction. 6. Reassemble the computer and test the unit. This is copied straight from Apple’s Service Source guide on the G3. A couple of tips: To find out if your PowerMac supports master/slave on the IDE bus, look at the graphics chip on the logic board. If it says ATI 3D Rage Pro PCI your Mac supports multiple drives on one channel. If it doesn’t then only one drive per channel. More than one drive would make it possible to replace the SCSI Zip drive with an ATAPI version. The sockets for the IDE channels are marked J9 and J10. Use J9 for your hard drives. J9 is the socket to use for a single drive when J10 isn’t populated but i have mixed up my CD and hard drive cables and found that the G3 seems to only boot from J9 regardless. I use a newer DVD burner in mine. The only thing I had to do was remove the tray’s front cover because the enclosure is built to accommodate only Apple designed drives. Also, pretty much any optical drive will boot the G3, it doesn’t have to have an Apple logo on it. Looking forward to part 2 and I subbed.

[@ActionRetro]

Wow thanks for that, I really appreciate it!

[@rich1051414]

"ATI 3D Rage Pro" Damn that brings me back. It was the integrated graphics chip on the first PC that was mine.

[@brostenen]

Here in Denmark the desktop case was iconic in the 1980's. Around 1992, everybody wanted one of three tower types. Mini tower, midi tower and full tower. It might have been an Apple thing in the 1990's. However we did not use Apple computers before the launch of the iPod. Here it was all generic Dos computers and Commodore computers through the 1980's and 1990's.

[@Aus-gw4gn]

Nice video! I got a 7500/100 and I have upgraded it with a g3 and rage 128. It’s my favorite Mac in my collection!

[@ActionRetro]

Oh woah, that's awesome! How fast of a G3? Is it Sonnet?

[@Aus-gw4gn]

Action Retro It’s a newertech maxpower 400mhz

[@minty_Joe]

@@Aus-gw4gn 500 MHz Sonnet Crescendo and Sonnet Tempo Trio Card on mine. :-)

[@veryconfusedcreature]

Thank you so much for this video! I have one of these, but the hard drive was faulty so I couldn't install an OS onto it. This video helped me figure out how to open it up and be less scared of taking it apart and fixing it myself :D

[@MaxOakland]

I really like this computer in this form factor. It has so much expansion!

[@steaker-gi9uw]

Lol, my modern Mac Mac mini is being used as a desktop with its monitor on top of it. The monitor stand sticks out at least an inch on either side of the computer and it looks pretty silly.

[@ActionRetro]

Hahaha I'd love to see a picture of that

[@EweToobUsername]

So a few things I remember from these machines: 1) The Wings card works great in OS 9 and makes for a good audio in/out in OS X, but video in is not supported in OS X. (This should be a captain obvious thing for anyone who may have done OS X on a beige AV Mac before.) 2) There are 3 revisions of the Beige G3 motherboard. The A revision supports only a single IDE drive per channel, where the B and C revisions support two drives per channel (not a huge deal-breaker in a desktop or AIO Beige G3). There are also 3 ROM revisions IIRC, and the one you want is the last revision as it's more stable with faster processors than the other two. 3) That block with the warranty sticker on it? That's what tells that Mac what the speed of the processor is for stock Apple processors, along with bus speeds and some other fun things to play with. On all three versions of the logic board, bus speeds from 60 to 83 MHz are supported and processor multipliers to 8x are available. Previously, I've managed to get B revision logic boards running a native 332 MHz (83x4) stable overclock of a 266 MHz processor, a revision A logic board running a 363 MHz (83x4.5) stable overclock of a 333 MHz processor, and a revision C logic board a 456 MHz stable overclock on a B&W G3 400 processor - all towers. The only differences in those machines from stock were 450ish watt PSUs and replacing the 120mm Delta fan with an Antec or CoolerMaster from the era with twice the air flow. Low-End Mac has some good info on how to do it - lowendmac.com/1997/overclocking-beige-power-mac-g3/ 4) While high-density RAM does work in these machines, it will never be detected at its full size. You have to make sure you're using LOW DENSITY PC66, PC100, or PC133 (and I'd go with the PC133 if the overclocking the bus thing is something you might want to try later on down the line). 5) If you add a faster Radeon video card (I believe you can find 9000 and 9200 PCI cards flashed for PCI PowerMacs on eBay to this day, otherwise you'll want to look up the old StrangeDogs archives - themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2 - for hacked ROMs and how to flash your own), you'll want to add additional cooling in the PCI bay. You may be able to stuff a 60mm or 80mm fan in the PCI slot area, but I've never messed with the PMG3DT (or PM 73/75/76) to try it myself. Nvidia cards don't work well with PCI machines.

[@simonclarkson9249]

If you do a dipping style technique with the plastic in live boiling water, where you dip it for 10 - 15 seconds, let it cool off, and repeat as may times as you feel you need, you should see the plastic come back to life to an extent. some of the old plastics just straight up melt, so sacrificial pieces first.

[@MaxOakland]

So you boil it and it stops being so fragile?

[@simonclarkson9249]

@@MaxOakland Yes, it does rejuvenate the plastic to a degree, the only cons are possible warpage, and half life, meaning it can dry out faster in the next life cycle. So it has its risks.

[@Beige1997]

Just found this series. This is the first computer I ever used and it's very nostalgic for me, glad to see someone putting it in the spotlight!

[@Jpk516]

Man, blast from the past. We had both a Tower G3 and a Beige G3 from new that were used as graphic design workhorses back in the day, and owned them since new. They both got donated over a decade ago to Goodwill, and I still regret that decision and wish I could get those machines back. Great find!

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

Wow It Will Be Great If That G4 Processor Works Hope You Get The Other Issues Sorted out Great Video

[@ActionRetro]

Thanks David!

[@brokenelectronics3665]

Very cool, I'm looking forward to seeing where you take this. I have a G4 upgrade planned on a Blue and White, when I actually get time to work on that machine.

[@ActionRetro]

Nice! Are you going to use the G4 from a Yikes, or something different?

[@brokenelectronics3665]

It’s a Sonnet 450 MHz upgrade card specifically for the Blue and White. Once this is done, it will be basically a Yikes in a Blue and White case., but with a faster processor.

[@JD3Gamer]

I personally prefer the G3 All In One because I grew up with that one. It also had that capture card and I used it as a TV for my PS1 for a while.

[@samuelcolvin4994]

The power Mac or molar Mac?

[@_..-.._..-.._]

When it comes to desktops, the desktops that sit on your desktop are the best desktops. 😂 I’ve never referred to tower pc’s or Macs by anything other than desktop 🤷

[@brendanhoffmann8402]

I just ordered my first modern Mac! 2011 Mac mini! I'm going to run sheep shaver on it so I can play retro games on it hopefully! It's my first mac since I bought a broken down power mac 7200/166 in the mid 2000s. Prior to that my last mac was a mac IIsi from 1990!

[@samsquid65]

Great video. Brings back memories. Thanks❤

[@MixerVM]

Can you use the G4 chips from a Yikes in here though? I was under the impression that the Yikes chips expected a 100 MHz bus and thus wouldn't work in these G3's, with their 66 MHz bus. Also, as for the RAM, do the sticks you bought have 8 chips or 16 chips (high-density vs low-density)? I seem to recall the beige G3 only takes low-density 16 chip modules. That might allow it to see all 768 MB.

[@ActionRetro]

Haha well, spoilers 😅

[@stuartcastle2814]

We've still got a Beige Power Mac G3 somewhere in storage at work. It's not been plugged in since 2004 (AFAIK), and that was only by me to check if it worked. It did then, but I suspect it's been damaged since. Apple didn't necessarily use the best capacitors. I still do Mac support (primarily iMacs, but a few Mac Pro cylinders and laptops as well), but I spent so many hours over the years changing things in that Desktop G3, and much of that was fighting with the metal shield.

[@icantgivecredit871]

Would love to see a video where you upgrade this system with a quieter ATX power supply & a Noctua case fan!

[@SilverJackLeg]

I must admit, this triggered my OCD - I couldn't replace one screw there without vacuuming the whole thing. Especially PCI and memory slots before plugging anything into them. That brittle plastic is another reason - I'd use the opportunity while the case is wide open.

[@danamurray735]

Mac-In-Stein (Frankenstein 🖥️ computer). Building the ultimate computer by switching out various parts and putting in better parts. I LOVE IT

[@thebaldconvict]

I actually did exactly this back in about 2003(ish) :)

[@ActionRetro]

Nice!

[@TheBasementChannel]

Just picked up one of these. Loving the case design. Had to watch this to confirm the cpu is supposed to look like that with the weird bit sticking out the side of the heat sink 😅

[@LAHegarty]

Try putting a hairdryer on the zip drive for 10 minutes or so, it might start working again. (No cat! 😱)

[@ActionRetro]

Woah I hadn't heard of that trick before!

[@something2sea]

This usually works for dry solder joints, so I can imagine it'd work for certain Zip drives too. I had a G4 Cube power supply that would only work if it had been heated up with a hairdryer, once warm it'd work perfectly until it was turned off again.

[@DerekWitt]

0:27 - Two! Two beige G3 Desktops! Ah ah ah! :)

[@Uzedrname]

As someone who has been recently getting into the world of PowerPC macs, I must annoy you with the question: Where exactly can one get a SoNNeT processor?

[@jamesbromley5820]

The difference in production quality 2 years makes!

[@martinnyberg9295]

I think I remember from the nineties - you know, when they had that commercial with the tanks around a Mac - that people (at universities) made “supercomputing” clusters of G3 (G4?) Macs by just hooking them up with Ethernet cables or something? 🤔 Am I remembering correctly?

[@mattcox1465]

These g3 contain the same surface mount capacitors as vintage macs (IE lc/se/30)... give it 5-10 yrs and all these boards will be destroyed from them leaking. highly recommend recapping them...I recapped all my units with tantalum...

[@julianovasconcellos6215]

I love your channel! Please increase quality with a second camera assistant for close up details!

[@ActionRetro]

Thank you!

[@realitypoet]

I had one of these as a kid I think it was 233 or 266Mhz, but compared to the 25Mhz Performa we had upgraded from, it was super fast. I put whatever the best graphics card it could handle was and played so much unreal tournament (at some ludicrously low resolution like 320x240) good times.

[@dabombinablemi6188]

Initially I thought it was going to be similar to some older systems, where you add another box for additional features/performance.

[@koztech]

Wait, you're NOT supposed to just brute-force the plastic parts? Oh man, which someone had told me...ha ha, ha ha ha...sigh...

[@ActionRetro]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@minty_Joe]

A common side effect of those old models. Even the iMac G3 from 2000/2001 are all plagued by it. (The outside plastic case is tougher than the plastic used further inside the computer, such as surrounding the CRT.)

[@mg86_]

@@minty_Joe I have the imac g3 and this is true

[@minty_Joe]

@@mg86_ Me too. A 2000-ish DV SE. I want to say it's the Graphite model, but the top and bottom case are from a Blueberry model. I've pretty much "frankensteined" many of my Macs and surprisingly they work without much trouble. :-)

[@captainkeyboard1007]

That was a good show!

[@ajmoo]

Would using a heat gun on the plastic before touching it help with cracking at all? Obviously not too long to melt the plastic, but just enough to make it less brittle?

[@ethannn475]

If you look for the right “untested for parts” then normally it’s working. Looking for eBay stores that don’t sell any computers. Then it will most likely be actually untested

[@greggv8]

The Beige G3 motherboards do matter for a couple of reasons. The first revision has a bug where it can't use two IDE drives and the onboard video chip is an older, wimpier model. A revison 2 or 3 ROM fixes the IDE bug but you're still stuck with the Rage II+ video instead of the Rage Pro used in the newer boards. The G3 all in one (AKA The Molar) never shipped with the first revision motherboard. www.maccetera.com/news/beigeg3.html

[@IanC14]

I miss the desktop form factor

[@samuelcolvin4994]

There are still desktop cases for sale, or buy an old POS unit, I've got a 1151 z370 windows machine in an absolutely miniscule gateway flexatxstc-Bro case up for sale if you're interested

[@Yesac_80guy]

I just got one through a old rummage sale and any tips and tricks???

[@danielrhodes7594]

Hi, I have a question. Do you think there will be any benefit if you changed out the 1MB video ram chips for 2MB video ram chips (K4G163222A-PC70 )?

[@martinnyberg71]

Back in the day, I heard that some university departments built “supercomputers” by simply making clusters of G3s (G4s?) share computationally heavy tasks. Am I remembering correctly, and is it possible still today? 🤔

[@Astinsan]

A lot of sellers say for parts on machines they just want to liquidate

[@keithwhisman]

I’m wondering if a mold can be made from all the plastic parts and then with the brittle plastic parts in the mold they be heated up to melting point and then allowed to cool to see if that rejuvenates the plastic.

[@umby9]

Seeing OS 9 crash with a blank box and then a bus error was interesting, because I have a Sawtooth G4 with a dead audio chip (I believe it’s the same chip, called Screamer, as what’s on your Wings AV card) that does the same thing. It’s completely stable with OS X, but OS 9 crashes during boot just like that. Unfortunately, turning extensions off doesn’t help mine.

[@brianterrill9587]

Stackability!!!

[@transitengineer]

This was another excellent video! When the Beige G3's were new, you know my favorite was the All-in-One G3 with its lovely built-in Sony 15 inch CRT, floppy drive, zip drive, CD-ROM, and video card. Hope using your PCI expansion slots, you add a USB card and a Fire-wire 400 card. On the question of your zip drive, have you installed the zip drive controller software? Just upgraded the Hard Drive in my Black and White G3 Powerbook from 2000, and before using my expansion bay super-drive and expansion bay Zip drive needed to reload the software for each.

[@ActionRetro]

Thank you! Yes FireWire/USB card is definitely going in here.

[@transitengineer]

When you locate either a PCI slot USB card or a PCI slot Fire-wire 400 card with the required software drivers, please pass along to me where you were able to find them. Because, I have only been able to locate a 2.0 USB card but, it will only work inside of a "Blue and White" G3 tower. With these, I would definitely add a Beige G3 system to my collection.

[@madmax2069]

Yeah I really like my Beige G3 AIO (I own 2 of them).

[@transitengineer]

Wow, you own two All-in-One G3 desktops that is great because they have become kind of rare. When these were new, I wanted to replace my older All-in-One 5400 but my wife could not understand getting a new computer when your current system is still working properly. Of course a few years later it completely stopped working. However, by then Steve Jobs had killed off the All-in-One G3 line of desktops because they were competing for sells in the education market (since they would work with all the IT equipment primary, elementary, and middle schools had already) with his colorful CRT iMac systems that did not even have an internal floppy drive. So, I never liked the CRT iMac because they always appeared to be a down grade from prior Apple Computer All-in-One desktops. Currently, I have an All-in-One 5500 desktop with an installed Apple video card, Apple TV/FM Radio card along with its matching apple black remote control, and Sonnet G3 upgrade card. If in the future you would like to sell one of your working All-in-One G3 desktops, please let me know. Because, I would still like to add one of these systems to my collection.

[@madmax2069]

@@transitengineer yeah, got one for free, and paid $5 for the other one.

[@Jaxermd]

Where did you get the PC100 RAM, it looked wrapped and new?

[@ActionRetro]

On ebay, they were used but the seller nicely heat sealed them in the antistatic bags, which I appreciate because no moisture!

[@c_t5_]

I found it, on E-BAY

[@minty_Joe]

@@c_t5_ Weird Al. Nice!

[@lifetimesofamultiplemediam1003]

If I remember correctly there's a Zip drive extension or something that you have to install…

[@steves009]

Have you got a Powermac 7220 to do some insane retro upgrades?

[@LAHegarty]

I hope there's a cat in this video.

[@ActionRetro]

My cats seem to think they can set their own hours now

[@phillipstearns7258]

I know this is an old video, but I hope you write the date on all your pram batteries.

[@onometre]

whats that slot next to the ram that looks like a laptop ram slot?

[@santospoland]

you gotta start recapping these beats soon or one day … you know.

[@masterkamen371]

Nah, who cares. I'd just keep using them until one goes bang, then bother with finding the right caps and replacing them all.

[@nickwallette6201]

😧😔

[@TheDreadGazeebo]

How on earth does the top case come off?

[@adamtheman17]

i remember that the g3 has a memory limit on it, i think 300 and whatever is the max you can do if i remember it right

[@blaskkaffe]

I don’t know about this computer but I had a PowerMac G5, those could only use single sided Ram sticks, so was incredibly disappointed on only getting 2gigs out of my 4gb

[@stpworld]

I have a 7200 workgroup server and its in this same kind of case but the processor has a bigger heat sync I got real apple server os restore discs to.

[@beardedgaming1337]

i cant move past the Performa 630 style forum factor. the G3 is just too large and it was after my time. so i picked up a 6360 to build. by the time this G3 came out i was into PC's. btw, that top one is 'off beige'

[@JessicaFEREM]

I don't like it when all PCs that aren't portable are called "Desktop" computers, towers don't go on too of the desk, at least not like true desktops are, on top of the desks. I also theorize that LCD monitors stifled the creation of more true desktop cases, since they're thinner than CRTs

[@lumpython5351]

Most powerful PowerPC G3 processor today: Tri-Core 1.24Ghz in the Wii U.

[@ericjenks9596]

Probably figured this out, but your ram might be high density instead of low density. Ran into the same issue with my g3 lombard. 16 chip instead of 8 chip ram.

[@2048Megabytes.]

What computer did you record your intro on

[@knghtbrd]

Fuuuuu-sion HA! I bought a machine "untested, for parts" and it was shipped to me with no padding inside a flat rate USPS box. Guess how the LC II arrived? Yeeeahhhh. The electronics worked. The drive I didn't even attempt. The machine's plastics were basically shattered though.

[@DanielMonteiroNit]

Joke is on you. Used to use the Monitor on top of my Mini :)

[@ast3663]

why not clean it..dust balls everywhere haha

[@BushidoBrownSama]

Weird seing a mac with clip on heatsinks

[@andrewdupuis1151]

I use to have Power pc 7500

[@rartolak]

Thats a g4 on a g3? Yikes x3

[@darthrevan2063]

You think having to remove a power supply is annoying then you have never worked on iMacs. You legit have to gut about the entire thing just to change the cpu or gpu.

[@andrewdupuis1151]

my power bottom broke

[@rawstarmusic]

OS 9.2 better stuff more cool.

[@nikitazaycev8636]

SteelSeries is more innovative than Apple tho.

[@BGTech1]

That lip smack tho

[@meansquaretech]

Say "beige G3 desktop" again.

[@douglab222]

I mean apple made some shit back in the day, they just have gotten worse as time went on.