2. pc-audio
  3. 1224170937

Power PC G3 as music source?

Is it possible to use an old blue and white G3 (running at 400MHz) as a music server? What minimal ram would be required? It seems to run ok with aac files but I'd like to slap an external hard drive on it and whistle the apple lossless tunes wirelessly upstairs to the main rig (either using a sqeezebox device or a separate dac). Anyone have experience using these old macs this way?
djh
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,225 posts
 
It should work, but a more powerful machine will make for faster, and potentially better sounding, lossless translations.
elevick
2,636 posts
 
If you are only using a PC for music, an older G3 won't have the memory/hard drive anyway. Go spend $400 on a new pc with a nice big hard drive and newer more compatible software.
lalisingh's avatar
lalisingh
3 posts
 
I am using a powermac g4 for this purpose and it works great.

Suggest this site
http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Models.cfm?TI=4033
for possible upgrades for your G3 Mac. I am not associated in any way with OWC.

I suggest upgrading the hard drive controller using a PCI to SATA card and install a 1TB drive. That way you do not have more wires for an external drive. If you want to install Leopard upgrade the processor. Leopard has a great feature called screen sharing which will allow you to run the G3 'headless' by remoting in from another PC/MAC in the house. You would use this to control itunes for example from a remote site.

USB/Firewire sound out to an external DAC - Apogee, Benchmark - would give excellent CD sound quality.
4est
507 posts
 
I've used g3's, but you will appreciate a newer cpu if you can afford it. The one that I used would hang occasionally, forcing me to pull the plug ( may have been spotty ram). If you do not want to afford a new machine, at least buy some new/larger ram to help access the library...
More to discover