I have what i believe to be a 300mhz g3 from a beige box in my Yikes mobo with a jumper block from a 350 B&W. in system profiler it says 100mhz bus @ 400mhz. is this real? did it really go up 100mhz just from being used in a different machine? im trying to figure out what would work best for me and what i do with my computer. the cpu ive had for a year now is a sonnet 500mhz g4. works just fine but still not the speed demon i was looking for. so i wondered if overclocking an older cpu would get me up to or faster then my sonnet. according to system profiler the sonnet runs at 100mhz bus which i thought for sure someone told me it runs at 66 so it can be compatible with the older beige boxes. maybe it does both? either way i do want more speed and im starting to consider either mini or an agp g4 of some type. my main goal is to use as much of what i have already in the new computer. obviously with an AGP i would need new ram and video card, but nothing more. i really like having a tower i can put stuff in and a nice fast HD unlike the laptop hd thats in the mini. basically though the most i do with this is browse the web and use itunes. ripping cd performance is just fine for this, i dont need that to be fast beacuse im usually not in a hurry to do that. but when im on the web i want it speedy. this ol girl just doesnt do it like even my old 700mhz celeron 
ive got a ton of ram and plenty of empty space on my main drive for the swap file too. i suppoes panther is just that hungry on this machine to slow it down alot... maybe i should part this and my lombard out and get an AGP mac.... im really considering parting the lombard too because it also is just too slow, it has no battery and those are way more then the machine is worth to me....
66mhz bus cpu in 100mhz bus B&W
December 2, 2006 - 5:59pm
#1
66mhz bus cpu in 100mhz bus B&W
it's the multipliers. THe apple-shipped CPUs don't have built in multipliers afaik. The reason it might have worked at 400, might be the reason mine worked at 412Mhz in my Beige. It might be more tolerant of the speeds. The other thing I can think of is, you might have put the block on wrong. I thought my G3 was a 350, and i took the block off to do something, and when I put it on, it was a 400Mhz (then i clocked it to up to 450 :D) so, i dunno what happened, but I would say get yourself an older G4 CPU, and throw it in it, and clock that up.
I would say the G4 is faster, especially under OS X, is that OS X makes use of the Altivec at ALL times. That makes it faster than the G3.
If you definately want more speed, go with the AGP. it's not too expensive to get the lower one, and throw the sonet in it. In fact, it will make it faster since it takes the Video off of the PCI Bus. If you get a high enough AGP for that CPU, you can get an ATA/66 onboard. That will help too.
All-in-all, i would either go the way of the Mini or the Early AGP Systems.
If you have a look at what the jumper block jumps on www.xlr8yourmac.com - there is a link to a reference table there- you'll see that some of the jumpers are for changing the CPU multiplier and some are for the bus multiplier. So it's quite possible to run CPUs and busses in various combinations.
There is no 'right' answer for overclocking, it depends on the idiosyncracies of each person's hardware. One suggestion I have for stability- even though it may be spurious- is if you are overclocking then use RAM from the same manufacturer. This is anecdotal, I have no evidence of this.
I'm also of the opinion that almost any G4 is better than a G3, even if it's overclocked. This is not due to raw number-crunching power, but ability to handle multiple threads, and of course it's running cooler, therefore it's more stable, and a lot of software is getting ported from other platforms and compiled for G4s only, for example MPlayer does not run really well on G4s. You could download the source code and compile a G3 version if you are so inclined (make sure you let me know so I can get a copy of the binary from you).
As for the Lombard, I'm typing this on one now, running Tiger and for anything besides heavy duty graphics, it's fine. Runs solid as a rock. I only reboot if there's a system update.
i made a mistake. the CPU that booted at 400mhz was infact a 350 and i went and looked up the jumper settings that proved to be 400mhz. the beige cpu i have doesnt boot with that jumperblock. oh we lol we can all be a little careless sometimes... just hope that its nothing that causes damage
I was under the impression that Sonnet's firmware update is required first, in order to remove Apple's limitations.
The other thing to remember is the CPUs socket changes from the original PCI G4 to the AGP model. The original is a ZIF socket with easily breakable pins, the AGP and later models use a different connector that isn't backwards compatible.
forgot about that.
Well, if you can't go much higher, just go for a mini, and use the G3 as a server
This article covers many of the reasons why I would get an AGP G4 instead of a Mac Mini:
http://www.lowendmac.com/fishkin/06/1031.html
And the really great thing is, I got one yesterday! Picked it up really really cheap on the local Craigslist. The friendly seller didn't even know which G4 it was, so I was expecting a Yikes!, and when I got to his place to buy it, I thought it was a Sawtooth, but when I got it home and looked at it closer I found out it's a Digital Audio! Yahoo! After studying all about the AGP G4's last night, I'm so glad I've got one of the 4x AGP's rather than the 2x. There are so many more powerful upgrade options with the 4x, so my advice now is to spend the extra for a 4x AGP Mac. It should give you a much longer and more satisfying life with the machine. They've got a 133mhz bus, so if the RAM in your B&W is PC133 I think it should work, and according to the specs, even PC100 will work--although why would you want to underpower your bus? My very long beloved B&W's must be looking quite askance at me tonight. Sorry my old friends.