Beige G3... approaching Panther; XPF Q's ? ? ?

[Buzz]

Hybrid Rev A/B 300MHz G3 minitower is up and running OK in Jaguar, but exhibiting some angst in using XPF to get into Panther. Since it is early 300MHz MT, it's stuck w/ Rage II+ video and Rev A ROM on otherwise Rev B mobo, but after getting through disc one of Panther, the video crapped out and the process stopped most of the way through disc two. There are several suggestions regarding similar situations in the XPF cyberworld, starting w/ the "Use old NDRVs" option, as well as enabling/disabling L2 cache options, then on to totally disabling onboard video and using a PCI video card, using XPF 3.1 instead of 4.0, trying the "Use PatchedRagePro" option (though w/ the Rage II+ card, I'm not sure if this is applicable). It takes a big chunk of time to grind through an XPF uprgade/install, and then even more to recover if/when it's botched, so any pointers to avoid add'l botches for this situation are much appreciated. Thanks,

Buzz
==

Stock 300MHz proc, 256MB RAM X 1, 30GB IDE drive patitioned 7.87GB & 20GB w/ OSX on small partition on IDE bus one, 2GB SCSI and 100MB zip on SCSI bus terminated on zip, 52X CDRW on IDE bus two, both IDE devices "Master" on respective busses, 2 port USB PCI card that has not seemed problematic, Rage II+ has OEM 6MB VRAM

[prof]

Tell us what really happened with CompUSA and that MDD and MAYBE we'll assist you... (sorry couldn't resist )

Prof

[silvarios]

I cannot understand how one can install Panther (or Tiger) on a Power Mac 7500, 7600, 7300, 8500, 8600, 9500, 9600 and related clones, but Beige G3s, which were actually supported by OS X up to 10.2.8, are so darn troublesome. Weird.

I've had three G3s and it never occurred to me to make the OS X installation attempt. Never tried with or without XPostfacto, I simply stuck with OS 9. Mostly on account of not having enough RAM, but now I'm itching to try. I wonder what the hold up is, I can even get my G3 upgraded Power Mac 7600 and IXMicro Twin Turbo to work with Panther. Go figure, since the IXMicro's are particularly troublesome.


Nathan

[Dick Moore]

You will need a PCI video card.

You will need to terminate the external SCSI bus, and if possible, not use any SCSI devices at all -- I completely removed the inside SCSI cable.

I used and recommend XPF 4, based on an old beige that runs Panther perfectly.

The serial ports will work for a modem, and I recommend an OWC firewire/USB card (talk to them about this) for USB printer and FW external drives. I actually had three old generic USB 1.1 cards lying around, and two of the three worked and one didn't.

That old beige is dandy for what most users need -- runs 9 if necessary, and under X, does email and browses, runs Quicken and Word, and/or AppleWorks 6.3.