Power Macintosh

Power Macintosh G3/233, G3/266

Code Name: Gossamer

A Limited Mac (Rev. 1 only)

Overview

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The beige G3 is a third-generation Power Mac. It had a new motherboard with a faster system bus than earlier models, a third-generation PowerPC CPU, used a completely different type of memory, had a different way of upgrading the CPU, and included a personality card slot. The G3 replaced the 7300, 8600, and 9600.

The PowerPC 750 (G3) CPU was the first processor designed specifically for the way Macintosh works. Code compatible with the 603e, the G3 was tweaked based on the software Macintosh users ran. This moved the "entry level" chip past the previous powerhouse, the 604e, even at lower clock speeds. Macworld's SpeedMark showed the 233 MHz is 22% faster than the 233 MHz 604e in the 9600/233.

The 233 MHz model usually comes in the same desktop case as the 7200-7600. Because of the smaller motherboard, it has room for one more drive - mounted on the bottom of the desktop case itself. (The G3/233 was also available in a tower configuration, but only from the Apple Store.)

The 266 MHz version was available in either a desktop or tower configuration. The tower is a new design, essentially a shorter version of the well-received 8600 case. The G3 tower typically comes with a Zi 100 drive, leaving one free 5.25" expansion bay for a removable media drive.

For the first time, Apple shipped a Power Mac with a top notch EIDE hard drive that held its own against SCSI-2 drives. It was a bit of a paradigm shift, but one the Mac OS community eventually embraced, since it made buying bigger, faster hard drives much more affordable. (Although 16.7 MB/sec. IDE was fast in 1997, it's a real bottleneck with newer drives. To really unleash their performance, consider a faster IDE/UltraATA controller that fits in one of the G3's PCI slots.)

The CPU with backside cache plugs into a ZIF socket on the motherboard. Curious users have already found ways to boost performance by changing jumper settings.

Considering the cost of an upgrade daughter card plus a 6 MB SCSI hard drive on an older Power Mac or clone, buying a new the G3/233 was a viable alternative to upgrading an older computer. On top of that, it has a faster CD-ROM, handles more VRAM, provides an extra drive bay (vs. 7200-7600), has a faster system bus, uses less costly IDE/UltraATA drives, and supports less expensive G3 and G4 upgrades.

Oddities

Early beige G3s could not support slave drives, as these machines (generally) utilized Rev. 1 motherboards and Rev. A ROMs. Later beige G3s with Rev. 2 motherboards and Rev. B or C ROMs do support slave drives. Although the inability to support slaves under the classic Mac OS is inherent in the Rev. A ROM, OS X has a mechanism for supplementing the beige ROM code and allowing the use of slave drives.

You can use the Apple System Profiler to identify which ROM version you have:

  • Rev. 1: $77D.40F2
  • Rev. 2: $77D.45F1
  • Rev. 3: $77D.45F2

If you have an IDE hard drive larger than 8 GB, you should partition is so that the first partition is under 8 GB in size (for simplicity, we suggest 7 GB). Failure to do this could eventually result in an unbootable computer, as all System files must be within the first 8 GB of drive space. These Macs can work successfully with larger drives for some time, but once a System files goes outside of the first 8 GB of space, you'll have nothing but problems.

Mac OS X

If you have a hard drive over 8 GB in size, you must partition it or you will not be able to install Mac OS X. If you are creating the partition within OS X, it must be smaller than 7.4 GB as reported by Disk Utility (because sometimes a GB is billion bytes and sometimes it's 1,073,741,824 bytes); we suggest simply setting it at 7 GB to avoid having to redo the whole installation if the partition ends up bigger than specified (it happens). Mac OS X must be completely within the first 8 GB of space on your hard drive or you will not be able to run OS X.

You can only boot OS X from a "master" drive in the beige G3. This applies to hard drives and CD-ROM drives. If the CD-ROM is set to slave, you will not be able to install OS X. If the hard drive is set to slave, you will not be able to boot from it.

Non-Apple upgrades and peripherals (such as unsupported USB devices, replacement drives, and third-party memory) may cause problems when installing or booting into Mac OS X.

Be sure to read and follow Apple's "Read Before You Install" instructions to increase the likelihood of getting OS X installed and running on the first try.

The beige G3 is not officially supported under OS X 10.3 (Panther), but it does work with 10.2.8 and earlier. Panther can be installed using XPostFacto 3, although built-in video is not currently supported.

Cautions

New on this model, data on the RAM Disk is lost during a restart. Apple also notes that the 100 MHz Pentium PC Compatibility card is incompatible, although this seems to be due to an audio cable problem. There are also reports that the G3 will not stay asleep.

Other compatibility issues:

  • GeoPort Modem not supported
  • QTC and AMC not supported
  • Must disconnect LocalTalk if using ethernet
  • Needs updated drivers for StyleWriter 4100 & 4500
  • Needs new ethernet driver for use on 10/100 autosensing hubs
  • LocalTalk printing slow on busy networks
  • Apple TokenRing card not supported

Some of these issues were addressed by later versions of the Mac OS.

When buying a G4 upgrade for the beige G3, make sure it is compatible with this model's 66 MHz bus. Pulled G4s from Apple's "Yikes!" G4 and some OEM G4s are specifically designed for a 100 MHz bus and will not work properly in the beige G3.

Because of the case design, be sure to specify low profile (1.15" maximum height) DIMMs when purchasing memory for the desktop version.

The beige G3 supports 256 MB DIMMs, but they must be built using 128 Mb chips. DIMMs built with 256 Mb chips will work, but the memory controller will only see the first 128 Mb of each chip. Compatible 256 MB DIMMs will have 16 memory chips, eight on each side.

The Upgrade Box

Details

Accelerators & Upgrades

Online Resources

Cautions

<go to Power Mac index or LEM home page>

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