iMac G3 Upgrade Problems

Christine1234 · Jan 1, 2012

I have a 500 MHz iMac G3 that booted to OS 10.2 when I got it. I put Panther on it, but now it's hard to see any pages at all and it crashes at almost every page. I tried upgrading, thinking that might help, but it spits out the Tiger upgrade disk after a few seconds.

I have the original gray disks that go to this computer. Should I see if it'll take those? Any idea why it's behaving this way? It needs a new battery, but should have enough RAM to handle Tiger. It no longer shows as having OS 9 installed either.

MAC MAN JW · Jan 2, 2012

Christine1234 said:
I have a 500 MHz iMac G3 that booted to OS 10.2 when I got it. I put Panther on it, but now it's hard to see any pages at all and it crashes at almost every page. I tried upgrading, thinking that might help, but it spits out the Tiger upgrade disk after a few seconds.

I have the original gray disks that go to this computer. Should I see if it'll take those? Any idea why it's behaving this way? It needs a new battery, but should have enough RAM to handle Tiger. It no longer shows as having OS 9 installed either.

Does it have the firmware update? it is needed to run OS X 10.2+ if not that may be why your iMac is not working right. The firmware NEEDS to be installed in Mac OS 9 it will not install in OS X. Tiger comes on DVD (or 4 CD's) if you have only a CD Drive the DVD won't work. if you have any other macs with firewire and a dvd drive you can install it with that but the firmware update still needs to be installed

Christine1234 · Jan 4, 2012

It won't boot into OS 9. If I put the original disks in it, will it go back to OS 9 so I can try installing the firmware? Since it came with 10.2, I thought the firmware would have to be there already.

666sheep · Jan 4, 2012

Try to use your other Mac's optical drive in Target Disk Mode.

MAC MAN JW · Jan 5, 2012

Christine1234 said:
It won't boot into OS 9. If I put the original disks in it, will it go back to OS 9 so I can try installing the firmware? Since it came with 10.2, I thought the firmware would have to be there already.

No iMac G3 shipped With OS X 10.2 the imac g3 700mhz (last imac g3 ever made) only shipped with Mac OS 9.1 OS X 10.0.4 so some one most have installed OS X 10.2. Her is how to see if the firmware is already installed, on start up hold down these keys Cmd-Opt-O-F it will say your firmware at the top of the screen the version you need is 4.1.9 if you have any thing less then you need to update. to boot your mac after you cheek the firmware version type mac-boot and press enter

let us know what version you have

and if you put the os 9 disc in and hold the c key at start up it shell boot to the OS 9 installer you will have reformat your Hard Drive so back up your data

Christine1234 · Jan 8, 2012

MAC MAN JW said:
No iMac G3 shipped With OS X 10.2 the imac g3 700mhz (last imac g3 ever made) only shipped with Mac OS 9.1 OS X 10.0.4 so some one most have installed OS X 10.2. Her is how to see if the firmware is already installed, on start up hold down these keys Cmd-Opt-O-F it will say your firmware at the top of the screen the version you need is 4.1.9 if you have any thing less then you need to update. to boot your mac after you cheek the firmware version type mac-boot and press enter let us know what version you have

and if you put the os 9 disc in and hold the c key at start up it shell boot to the OS 9 installer you will have reformat your Hard Drive so back up your data

I just did as you suggested, and it says it has 4.1.9f. That solves the mystery of whether the last person updated the firmware before installing Jaguar, but I still don't know why Panther crashes at almost every page and it spits out the Tiger disks. I have another iMac that's slightly older than this one, and it ran Panther with no trouble and I installed Tiger on it.

MAC MAN JW · Jan 8, 2012

Christine1234 said:
I just did as you suggested, and it says it has 4.1.9f. That solves the mystery of whether the last person updated the firmware before installing Jaguar, but I still don't know why Panther crashes at almost every page and it spits out the Tiger disks. I have another iMac that's slightly older than this one, and it ran Panther with no trouble and I installed Tiger on it.

In your first post you said it "Would Not Load Pages" do you mean it would not load Websites? Are you useing Safari in Panther? if you are that may be your issue as that version of safari is old and will not work with alot of webpages now days. at lest you have the newest Version of firmware

. Do you have the 4 cd's of Tiger or The DVD Version. If Your iMac is the 500MHz Indigo color it does not have a DVD Drive it has a CD-Rom or a CD-R/W Drive that may be way your DVD is not Working. Tiger Has more up to date web browsers as well, and is just as fast as panther if you want to try Firewire target disc mode her is how to do it http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661 You can use your other iMac g3 to install Tiger on this one. Or Hear is the easy way how to do it.

1. Connect Your FireWire cable

2. Turn on Both of your imac G3's But hold down the "T" Key on the one you want Tiger on.

3. When your other imac is booted to Tiger you will see The other imacs hard drive on the desk top Put your Tiger DVD in the imac that has tiger on it and restart holding down the 'C' Key.

4. when the Tiger install Asks Wear to install tiger Click your other imacs Hard drive (It will have the FireWire Logo on it) And then click erase and install or Upgrade.

5. Let it install and when done turn off both macs and remove your firewire cable then restart Your 500Mhz imac and it shell have Tiger

Let us know if this works

and is your other iMac g3 That worked with Tiger a 400Mhz iMac G3 DV?

Christine1234 · Jan 8, 2012

MAC MAN JW said:
In your first post you said it "Would Not Load Pages" do you mean it would not load Websites? Are you useing Safari in Panther? if you are that may be your issue as that version of safari is old and will not work with alot of webpages now days. at lest you have the newest Version of firmware. Do you have the 4 cd's of Tiger or The DVD Version. If Your iMac is the 500MHz Indigo color it does not have a DVD Drive it has a CD-Rom or a CD-R/W Drive that may be way your DVD is not Working. Tiger Has more up to date web browsers as well, and is just as fast as panther if you want to try Firewire target disc mode her is how to do it http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661 You can use your other iMac g3 to install Tiger on this one. Or Hear is the easy way how to do it.

1. Connect Your FireWire cable

2. Turn on Both of your imac G3's But hold down the "T" Key on the one you want Tiger on.

3. When your other imac is booted to Tiger you will see The other imacs hard drive on the desk top Put your Tiger DVD in the imac that has tiger on it and restart holding down the 'C' Key.

4. when the Tiger install Asks Wear to install tiger Click your other imacs Hard drive (It will have the FireWire Logo on it) And then click erase and install or Upgrade.

5. Let it install and when done turn off both macs and remove your firewire cable then restart Your 500Mhz imac and it shell have Tiger

Let us know if this works and is your other iMac g3 That worked with Tiger a 400Mhz iMac G3 DV?

Yes, it’s a grape 400MHz iMac G3 DV. When I bought it, it was running 9.0.4, and I updated the OS to 9.2.2 and updated the firmware, then installed Panther. I also maxed out the RAM and put in a new battery. It surfed the internet using Panther just fine, except for You Tube, where Safari would crash a lot. I installed Tiger and now it works just fine on You Tube too, but it won’t work with the printer even though the printer says it’s compatible with Tiger.

Anyway, the other iMac is a 500MHz iMac G3, Summer 2000. It came with Jaguar installed, and wouldn’t do much of anything on the net. I put Panther on it, thinking that would let me see more of the internet. It installed Panther, but crashes at almost every internet page. It’s really frustrating. Then I tried the upgrade to Tiger, but it holds the disk, whirrs, then spits it back out. The Panther disks are CDs and the Tiger disk is a DVD. Yes, it's the Indigo one. I never checked that, and just figured that if the older (by a year or so) computer would take the DVD, the newer one would, too.

I’ll need to get a FireWire cable but will print out your instructions to follow. In #3, do I hold down the C key in the iMac that already has Tiger, or the one that will be taking Tiger?

Why would the 500MHz iMac keep crashing pages in Safari using Panther when the 400MHz one did OK? Both were using the same version of Safari in Panther.

MAC MAN JW · Jan 9, 2012

Christine1234 said:
I’ll need to get a FireWire cable but will print out your instructions to follow. In #3, do I hold down the C key in the iMac that already has Tiger, or the one that will be taking Tiger?

Yes,Hold the "C" key down on the one with Tiger.

Christine1234 said:
Why would the 500MHz iMac keep crashing pages in Safari using Panther when the 400MHz one did OK? Both were using the same version of Safari in Panther.

It's not just Your iMac i have a iMac g3 Blue Dalmation With OS X 10.3.9 on it and it won't load pages good as well. I will be putting Tiger on that one Soon

Christine1234 · Jan 9, 2012

Thanks, Mac Man JW! Those iMac G3's are fun little computers. I wish Apple had continued that design, but like everybody else, they had to keep up with the times.

Now that Steve Jobs is gone, there's no telling if Apple will keep coming out with the great designs it's produced in the past.

MAC MAN JW · Jan 9, 2012

Christine1234 said:
Thanks, Mac Man JW! Those iMac G3's are fun little computers. I wish Apple had continued that design, but like everybody else, they had to keep up with the times.

Your Welcome

Let us know how the install goes

.

Christine1234 said:
Now that Steve Jobs is gone, there's no telling if Apple will keep coming out with the great designs it's produced in the past.

I Hope they keep makeing macs That Look cool

Sadly when they made the move to intel i think macs now look more like pc's then they use to

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