I picked up a B&W today at university auction. It is branded "Macintosh Server G3" as you can see. Before the auction, I looked at the mobo, and I thought it had the "402" chip, but the lighting in there wasn't the best... and I must have misread the chip, which the last 4 characters on the chip actually read ...46U2, not 402. Doh!
Ah, well... It has the Ultra2 LVD card in it, with cable, which I originally thought was a ATA card, because it looked at first like it was connected to the fast ATA bus on the mobo... I thought it was a RAID card or something... because there was a second fast scsi PCI card in there... which must be what confused me. I can't believe I made 2 (2!!) mistakes when I assessed the machine.
There is one RAM stick, 128MB, and I assume its OEM because of the specs listed on the back. 350MHz proc, blue jumper block. It has the more modern style independant HD brackets, with the last one that holds 2 HDs, not that PITA big single bracket that has to be entirely removed every time you add/remove a HD. Has a single IBM 20GB IDE drive (? orig... should have been a 9GB? or was 20GB an option?).
The box is in very good shape, hardly any dust/dirt inside or out or under the translucent outer plastic.
The take? $30. Not too bad, but makes more sense now that I know its a rev.1 board. (I also picked up a couple Beige G3s for $25 for both. They are very clean compared to the other beige's I've been into at the University... no idea what rev. they are.) Here's a link to some other stuff I was considering.
Here's some shots of the Server G3:
Here's some shots of one of the beige's (the other appeared to be identical):
I'd appreciate it if someone could educate me on how to determine what Rev it is, how to tell the difference between the roms, whether there is any difference in the mobos, etc.
SO....
What I don't understand here... and this is totally open to discussion/interpretation, whatever... is why Apple bothers to brand the Servers different from the stock machines... EVEN giving it a distinct code name ("Wasp," as opposed to "Yosemite"). I guess I could understand that, for marketing purposes, they may call it the Server version... but... why waste money on having a different badge? And a distinct code name almost gives the impression like it had its own seperate development team... (what a cake walk being on THAT team would have been). The specs between it and the regular B&W are nearly identical (AFAIK, in all ways except for the optional SCSI card). They didn't even bother juicing the PSU (its 200W), which seems absurd, because the scsi cable has room for 4 drives, and I really doubt this PSU could run 4 drives, plus the IDE drive, zip and optical drives. I think it will need to be replaced if I want to max this out... if someone knows different, please let me know.
But anyways... at least I get to brag about it (as in, "My B&W can beat up your B&W! Its a Server G3!")
Did you see how much they wanted for the iMac G4's?
some background first:
iantm put in an order for one if they went for under $100. He let me know they were rev 1, 700MHz. On Thursday, people are allowed to check out the stuff... open it, look inside, plug it in, etc. I didn't have time Thurs, when I took the pics, but I found out today that a few of them didn't have HDs (and I'm thinking... so what?). But I also found out no one bothered to plug them in to see if the LCD backlights still worked. University machines see a LOT of up time. It was suspicious to me because Surplus will often set up a wall full of machines and leave them on to showcase them. These... just stuffed on a shelf. I checked eBay, just for giggles, and these have been selling between $300-$500. What the heck has happened to eBay? Used to be able to find deals there. Anyway, the last 10 auctions at Surplus have had inflated prices on Macs from the Rev2 B&W up the line because of a single Mac buyer that always wins, and 2 or three other buyers that always jack up the price. The main buyer wasn't there today, so these prices are the lowest they could have been.
The lampshade Tessera's all went for between $290 - $350. (sorry, iantm)
/edit/
there was one superior deal today... AGP Graphics G4 (sans PSU, memory, HDs, & Rage) for $40.
I saw you were looking for one on another thread. Personally, I prefer the Rev2 B&W. Much easier to upgrade... overclock. I have a feeling that they will take up to 2GB of RAM if you use the right RAM (128 Mbit technology), but I haven't had the extra $ to get one and find out.
anyone know if the B&W will work truely headless... that is, after set up, pull the Rage card, and actually put something else there... like a usb 2 card (and use the machine remotely via vnc)?
In this case, does Rev 1 make much difference? The G3 has the LVD SCSI card and LVD disks can often be picked up cheaply (because so few people have LVD SCSI cards). The B&W should run alternative operating systems and you can add a more modern graphics card to improve things. Are there problems with ZIF upgrades that I'm not taking into account?
Phil
AFAIK the rev 1 boards have serious problems with the ATA bus; not a big deal if you don't mind massive data corruption.
Also... I'm not sure why Apple abandoned ZIF, but the fastest upgrade available is only a 1GHz G4 (and a 1.1GHz G3). If there any knows of faster, please let me know.
I guess I should add this little tid bit to the thread. I am reasonably sure this G3 Server came from the Poly Sci department where I worked last year. I'd forgotten that I had run into it before, and that I knew it was a rev 1, but the guy I worked for said that this machine was superior to the regular B&W, and at the time it was bought, it was a $10,000 machine. I'm pretty sure he was mistaken in both cases.
It's all cool. No worries man.
I'm assuming it's gone?
Its an auction. Auction's over.
is the pic of the ATI chip on the Beige G3. is it a MT or DT??? the pic is a bit blury but it looks to say Rage Pro Turbo. if that's the case it is the rev 3 or 4 logic board the last rev in a Beige G3 and the more rare one. most of the Beige G3's have the rage II for a Rev 1 a Rage Pro for a rev 2 and posably a rev 3 also i think i could be wrong about the rev 3 having the rage Pro it could be the rage pro turbo.
What OS is it running if its OS 9.2.2 you can look under ASP "apple system profiler" in the apple menu and scroll down to the bottom in the system profile tab and look for product info and click the little arrow and look to where it say's rom information that will be the rom version number
They are both desktops.
I thought the revisions in these were by letter, not number, i.e. Rev. A, Rev. B, etc. Also, I thought there were only 3 revisions, so that Rev. C was the last one.
Thanks for the tip... but all the auction machines get wiped before auction. I'd have to install an OS before doing that. Obviously, for future auctions, I can't do this before purchase, so I'm looking to be able to definitively identify the boxes from looking at the hardware alone.
there is a 4th rev of logic board out there i think cause in the apple disscusions there was a guy that reported his Beige G3 with a logic board info not like the rev A,B,C logic board's. You can look on the mobo at the ATI chip onboard to tell the rev of the logic board .
a rav 1 or A logic board will have the ATI Rage II GFX chip on it the rev 2 or B logic board will have a Rage Pro GFX chip. the rev 3 or C will have a Rage Pro GFX chip and there is a 4 or D rev of logic board i think "well that is what ive herd and read on forum's wich has the RAGE Pro Turbo i could be mistaken on this it could be a rev 3 also.
there is a web site showing what each of the 3 rom chips look like i cant remember i think it is OWC.
well any way here is the toppic on the apple boards with the rev D
rev D logic board Beige G3 topic
im looking for the site that show's what the 3 diffrent rom chips look like but here are the numbers of the roms
* Rev. 1: $77D.40F2
* Rev. 2: $77D.45F1
* Rev. 3: $77D.45F2
ok here is the site with what each rom looks like
there is a drop down box so you can select wich rom to look at and each will show you the numbers
http://eshop.macsales.com/Tech/Load_Page.cfm?page=zifrommainpage.html
and here is the site showing a diffrent version of rom than the standard 3 rev's of rom's
http://www.maccetera.com/news/beigeg3.html
"WRAITH ROM"
One reads "RAGE PRO TURBO PCI" on the graphics chip, one reads "RAGE II + DVD"
man, blow the dust out of that thing, pronto.
actually... those pics are from the 2 I didn't get... but when I checked the ones I have, they were the same... so I didn't bother taking new pics...
I didn't bid on those because they were so dirty... but got the ones I did because they were so clean.
catmistake
did you see the link to the site that shows what the diffrent ROM version look like and the number's and markings it took me a bit to find the site but now you should be able to tell what rom version it is without looking at ASP
man the one in your pic is a rev 1 or A rom. the rev A rom had problems with 2 drives on the same IDE cable so master/slave configs wasnt posable. you can buy a rev B rom they are the best in my opinion. and there is the rev c rom is almost identicle with the B rom but the C rom is incompatable with some firewire and USB/firewire combo cards. yea some Beige G3 had a mpeg2 decoder built in the personality card or was it built in the GFX chip but any way it will play dvd's without much problem if you have all the proper parts with it.
yea you can tell what rev the logic board is by looking to see what GFX chip it has onboard Rage II it rev 1 mobo, Rage Pro is rev 2 or can be 3 mobo, Rage Pro turbo can be rev 3 or 4 mobo.
and now you can tell what rom version it has be looking at the rom chip thanks to that site
I had only glanced at the ROMs, and thought they were identical to the pic I had of the other machine at the auction (the dirty one)... I pulled them out today and took a pic (seemed strange that a mobo with a turbo would be rev 1...)
so... I think the top one is the Rev3 (as thats from the rage pro turbo mobo)
but the second one doesn't match the link you sent... its somewhere between rev 1 & rev 2 ??? It has the Rage II + DVD mobo... can you confirm?
flip the rom chip over and tell me what the numbers are cause there are numbers on the side that dont have the chips on it the way it looks its a rev 2 but i need to know the numbers on the reverse side
(almost) same numbers on back as on front, see for yourself
also, by the tag on the back, the one corresponding to the chip on top is a 266, the other a 233.
the numbers om the upper right side of the chip in your pic say its a rev B or 2 rom the numbers say LROG434-o2 was the number i needed that means it is a rev b rom
I appreciate the help!
no problem man
You should have gone for the Molar Mac...if they're still available, let me know.
i think it is over. yea the AIO is a rare Beige i see more DT and MT than i see of the AIO