Power Macintosh

Power Mac G3 All-in-One

Power Macintosh G3 All-in-One

The G3 All-in-One succeeded the Power Mac 5000 series for the educationmarket. Key features include the G3 processor and a 15" multiscandisplay (13.8" viewable). The All-in-One was specifically designedfor the education market, where less wires and parts to remove area big plus.

The motherboard is on a slide-out tray for easier upgrade andservice. A 4 GB EIDE hard drive, 24x CD-ROM player, and10Base-T ethernet are standard. An internal Zip drive isoptional.

Unfortunately, this machine was discontinued to make room forthe iMac. A lot of users,especially educators, missed having an integrated Power Mac withPCI slots.

If you have a hard drive larger than 8 GB, you should partition isso that the first partition is under 8 GB in size (for simplicity,we suggest 7 GB). Failure to do this could eventually result in anunbootable computer, as all System files must be within the first8 GB of drive space. These Macs can work successfully with largerdrives for some time, but once a System files goes outside of the first8 GB of space, you'll have nothing but problems.

Mac OS X

If you have an IDE hard drive over 8 GB in size, you mustpartition it or you will not be able to install Mac OS X. If youare creating the partition within OS X, it must be smallerthan 7.45 as reported by Disk Utility (because sometimes a GB isbillion bytes and sometimes it's 1,073,741,824 bytes); we suggestsimply setting it at 7 GB to avoid having to redo the wholeinstallation if the partition ends up bigger than specified (ithappens). Mac OS X must be completely within the first8 GB of space on your hard drive or you will not be able torun 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 setto slave, you will not be able to install OS X. If the harddrive is set to slave, you will not be able to boot from it.

Non-Apple upgrades and peripherals (such as unsupported USBdevices, replacement drives, and third-party memory) may causeproblems 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 Xinstalled 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 beinstalled using XPostFacto 3,although built-in video is not currently supported.

Cautions

Data on the RAM Disk is lost during a restart, unlike earlierMacs. Apple also notes that the 100 MHz Pentium PC Compatibilitycard is incompatible, although this seems to be due to an audiocable problem. There are also reports that the G3 will not stayasleep.

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 autosensinghubs
  • LocalTalk printing slow on busy networks
  • Apple TokenRing card not supported

Some of these issues were addressed by later versions of the MacOS.

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

The beige G3 supports 256 MB DIMMs, but they must be built using128 Mb chips. DIMMs built with 256 Mb chips will work, but thememory controller will only see the first 128 Mb of each chip.Compatible 256 MB DIMMs will have 16 memory chips, 8 on eachside.

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