PowerMac G3: Hardware Help Please

[clearnew]

Hello evenyone!

I'm a PC user (that is seriously considering going Mac) and I just aquired a PowerMac G3 for a cool $50.00 and I need a little help.

The heat sink is loose (except for the wire attached to it) and I'm unsure what is required to connect it to the processor again.

I'm also wondering about hardware. I've got some OS X 10.3 DVDs but the optical drive in the G3 is a simple CDROM. I do however have an extra DVD drive in an old PC. Are these compatible?

What about RAM? I see it's got just some PC-133 (128MEG) RAM so I'm hoping the RAM out of the old PC is good to go as well.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

[dtravis7]

First off, what does it look like? Is it a Blue and White tower or all beige?

[clearnew]

First off, what does it look like? Is it a Blue and White tower or all beige?

Sorry! Should have added that information...

Its a blue & white unit with a 300MHz processor.

[dtravis7]

Sorry! Should have added that information...

Its a blue & white unit with a 300MHz processor.

I have one of those here. The Heat Sink has a clip that goes down in the fins and has a clip with a hold at each end and snaps onto the tabs on the sides of the CPU socket.

That machine uses PC100 SDRAM DIMMS. The Maximum size if 256 Meg for each slot for a total of 1GB RAM. I have a Sony DVD ROM in mine and it works great but some DVD drives might not work right in the iApplications and some that I have ran into would not even boot from the OSX DVD. Best way it try it.

[clearnew]

Thanks man! I found some info regarding the DVD ROM but it did not mention the possiblility of issues with some hardware. It's also good to know about the RAM so I'm not trying to jam something in there that will not work.

What about the OS? What is the newest one of these bad boys will take? As mentioned above, I've got a disc for 10.3 and also some discs for 10.3.5.

I'm just going to use this computer as something to test websites on, possibly power my iPod (as opposed to Windows) and get used to the Mac OS as I mentioned, I'd like to get a new (more powerful) one some day.

Anyway! I do not have "the clip" you mentioned so I'm going to pop an old iMac I have apart and hope that it has one. I'm assuming that I should apply some thermal paste like I would a PC?

[dtravis7]

10.4 Tiger is as far as you can go on that system but 10.3 would be fine for now.

[clearnew]

Shoot! Nope... I can't find a clip for the heat sink at all...

How hot does that bad boy get? I'm just wondering if I can jig something up for now...

[madstick]

Hey,

I am in exactly the same situation on all counts- did a bit of conductive paste and somehow holding it down, wire or something, work out ok, or do you need an original replacement clip?