gnatsum

i have a B&W 448 ram, i want to upgrade

i have a 350MHZ processor, i want to upgrade

it's a revision B. machine

any things i might need to know?

i'm planning on getting a 128MB pc100 SDRAM stick form tigerdirect.ca it's 33.95...

BUT! somebody told my dad i can only use sticks with 16 chips, as opposed to 8 on them. HOWEVER only one of my sticks has 16 chips on it! the rest have 8 or 9...i ponder...anything ??

p.s. where would a processor upgrade go on this machine? i'm used to the daughter card on my old 9500/110

simon

Your Dad is right - 16 chip SDRAM PC100 (or double-sided) sticks are what you need for your RAM upgrade. Single side will work but be seen as half the size - there are some 128MB sticks that will work single-sided as full value but for the 256MB they have to be double-sided. 1GB is the Maximum RAM too.

As for upgrading the CPU the daughter card from your 9500 cannot be used. The B/W uses a ZIF which is one of the easiest to upgrade. You can upgrade this system to a G4/900+ if you got the cash. Go to http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G3-ZONE/cpu.html for easy to follow instructions. You'll find instructions for speed settings, ZIF chips, firmware upgrades and more ...

Good Luck

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gnatsum

thanks a bunch

RobTheGob

Keep in mind that *some* DIMMs with 16 chips may still not work. If they have been built with chips that have a nibble sized width, they cause problems with the early ram controllers (at least in Rev. A B&W's).

This is mostly only an issue with 256MB DIMMs and for most people - the easiest way to verify if a particular DIMM will work is to try it! Or buy a DIMM that is known to be compatible. I've found that most DIMMs that are compatible with Intel BX chipsets work fine.

gnatsum

cool


another quesiton about my B&W, or just any macs, is it safe to try and overclock them?

all m PC friends used to talk about over clocking a lot in the late 90's, is that still a done thing?

simon

You can overclock your B/W - if you check out the link I gave, there is an Overclocking section. The nice part of overclocking a ZIF on a Mac is that if the chip isn't going to work at the speed you select, rather than smoking the chip, it just doesn't work - although if it does there may be other issues ... check out the link for the pros and cons

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zigzagry

I used to use the same B&W as you myself.

You will be able to overclock it to 400mhz without problems I am sure. But thats probably about it. 450 was semi-stable for me and anything above that, it just wouldn't boot.

All you need is some spare jumpers and you re good to go.

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