Liam,
Years ago, I posted about grief with my unsupported Mac on this list -
Later, a friend gave me a pensioned-off Beige G3 - 300MHz, 768MB RAM, 40GB drive, Voodoo 5 PCI graphics. It now has the Acard and 2 40GB drives, plus Firewire and USB, and runs Panther quite well with XPF - rock solid but not exactly blisteringly quickly.
But I don't know whether it's worth trying to coax any more performance out of it. It's usable but too slow to be my main machine. Its RAM is maxed out and I have more disk space than I know what to do with, but it's sluggish.
So should I spent another couple of hundred pounds on this old machine, or should I sell it for whatever I can get and buy a Mac Mini instead, which would only be slightly more and would be a far more powerful computer? All I'd really lose is my dual-head capability, although I do really like that...
Thoughts from the panel?
I *definitely* wouldn't sink any significant amount of cash into that old box....
And you won't get much for it - Beige G3's are a dime a dozen now. So unless you already have most of the funds available needed to buy a Mini, you're more or less in No Man's Land.
BUT a judicious upgrade or two might make it much more usable:
1) A 400 MHz+ G3 ZIF could pep up performance more than you may think. Don't know how much they go for on your side of the Pond, but they're temptingly inexpensive on ebay (to me, at least).
2) The no-cost alternative is overclocking your current processor. Many 300's will run stably at 333 or 366 MHz, and some folks have successfully upped then to 400 (although I'd add a fan to the heatsink when pushing the processor that hard). You'd need a few motherboard jumpers, but someone on this list or the Swaplist is bound to have some handy for next to nothing. Jumper settings chart can be found on xlr8yourmac.com.
3) You may be fortunate enough to have a mobo that will tolerate upclocking the system bus to 83.3 MHz. Not all beige mobos can do it, but I've been successful with two AIO's lately. A faster processor running on a faster system bus can make your box feel much less sluggish. I can send you the jumper settings if you're brave enough to try it. It's actually not very hard or dangerous; if it doesn't work just put the original jumper block back in.
4) Maybe a cheaper vid card than the 7000? I'd shop around (on the Swap List, or ebay if necessary) for a Rage 128. I'd talk trade on the List first - you're almost sure to get a nibble if you have anything to offer. With the onboard video, you'd have dual monitor capabilities for next to nothing.
Oh, and it seems to me that Jaguar is a bit more nimble than Panther on older Macs.
-- Gene, a.k.a. G-Man Friends don't let friends do Windows
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