PCI wireless possible? RAM location for 233MHz Power Mac G3?

Question

Hello All!
I just added a free Power Mac G3 233MHz to my collection! For fun, I want to install 10.2.8, add 768 MB RAM, 40GB HD, PCI USB 2.0, PCI ATI 9200 and a PCI Macwireless or Aria wireless card. I want to keep the 233MHz CPU! My first question is, how do I install RAM? I pulled the cover and thought it would be in plain sight like the PCI area. Also, I found two PCI wireless cards online that will work with the 233MHz G3 under 10.2.8 using Airport software. Has anyone had luck using wireless? I searched the forum and found no results.
Thanks in advance! I'm glad to be part of the Beige G3 community!
-Craig

Answer 1

Craig303 wrote:
Hello All!
I just added a free Power Mac G3 233MHz to my collection! For fun, I want to install 10.2.8, add 768 MB RAM, 40GB HD, PCI USB 2.0, PCI ATI 9200 and a PCI Macwireless or Aria wireless card. I want to keep the 233MHz CPU!
Since you have a good collection of Macs already, maybe think about what you want to use this machine for, and what upgrades you really need. The ATI 9200 may be overkill, since the stock 233MHz CPU will not really be fast enough to run any of the real-time 3D graphics apps that would require the 9200, however, you would be able drive multiple monitors, one-DVI & one-VGA, from the 9200, in addition to the built-in Macintosh video output. What specific apps do you want to run on it?
To use the built-in Macintosh video output with a standard VGA monitor you need a Macintosh to VGA adapter. There is an on-board VRAM slot that you can fill with a 4MB module to increase the color depth and resolution options to use a larger monitor on the built-in video card, if you decide you want to use the built-in video rather than a PCI video.
It might be hard to find, but maybe you could get a used ATI Radeon Mac Edition for a little less money, but if you want to buy a new PCI video with warranty, I think the 9200 is the only option.
One thing that is abysmally slow in the G3's is the on-board ATA33 which actually runs at about half-speed of what is expected. You are lucky to get 16 MB/sec throughput max. A good alternative, if you have the spare PCI slot, would be to add an ATA66 PCI card or better, which will also add Master/Slave support, but requires some creative ATA-cable origami to reach from the PCI card to the hard drives in the expansion bays, but it is possible. You could get roughyl 40 MB/sec from an ATA66 PCII drive. Booting and launching apps would be not quite twice as fast, but definitely noticeable.
The extra RAM you plan to get will definitely help, but if you lack enough RAM both OS 9 and OS X will use virtual memory swap space on the hard drive, so having that faster through put will also help improve general performance.
But, if it's just for fun and messing around this may not be an important issue for you anyway. Just something to consider.
You might be able to use an external wireless USB device (not sure if drivers are available for 10.2 for any on the market today) or wireless Ethernet adapter (no drivers needed, but still limited to slower 10BaseT speed on the G3), to free up one of the PCI slots for the ATA66 card. If the built-in Ethernet is still functional, can you just run a wire?
If you can get 10.3 I'd recommend that, 10.2 just seems to have been not quite as stable, but I really can't remember if that may have been due to Norton Utilities that I was also using at the time.
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/ has some old do-it-yourself upgrade articles on the G3's.
http://www.otherworldcomputing.com/ also has good Mac-customer support and knowledge of compatible products.