Just got a 600Mhz iMac G3

[MattZani]

I Just got an iMac G3, here's the specs i have found out so far.

600Mhz PowerPC 750
256Mb Ram
ATi Rage Pro
40Gb Hard Drive
Snow White
Slot Loading (It mentions DVD in the Sys Pref's, but spat out a DVD i put in)
No Airport (Slot next to ram is empty)

The Case is a tad scuffed, and there is a scratch on the screen, and it didnt come with a Keyboard or Mouse, but it was only £1, and the guy dropped it round.

Any idea of what i can do to upgrade it? What came in the box (Puck or Pro mouse etc.)

Oh, also it seems the front feet are broken off, they seem jagged, and im sure the G3 had a joint coloured front foot (Would be white for mine) so if theres a place or person in the Uk, where i could get a replacement, would be good.

Will post some pics of it soon.

[Cassie]

IIRC, you can upgrade the RAM fairly easily in an iMac G3. The hard drive is a different story though.

But for the price you paid, that's a steal!

[MattZani]

yeah, the Ram is covered by a flap, im wondering what else i can do to it.

would be good if i could find someone in the Uk, with a Graphite Case, as it looks soo good :D

[Rodus]

Ebay or freecycle are possibly your best bet for a new front foot, I'd also bump up the RAM to 1 GB. The GPU is not actually a Rage Pro in those iMacs but a Rage 128 Ultra with 16 megs of VRAM. IIRC the optical drive was a CD RW which is why it spat out your DVD, you can upgrade the internal ones but it's a pain to do, probably better to find a cheap external, same with the HD, keep the internal and get and external firewire which you can switch between machines.

[MattZani]

Hmm, i was thinking of opening it up to clean up the inside, so i'll look into swapping in a faster Internal HDD (The Current one makes a not so nice clicking noise)

Also, i will be upgrading to Tiger, which should be fine, whats the name of the software that lets you share a KB/M Between 2 Macs? As i dont really need a second KB/M if the ones in my MBP would work fine.

Any way to get the scratch out of the screen? Or is a completely new screen the only way?

Final Q, whats the value on my iMac? Its around £100 on ebay, but thats with KB/M, and i assume slightly better condition. Just wondering if i could maybe turn this into a money maker and pick up an iMac G4 instead....

[elppa]

Ebay or freecycle are possibly your best bet for a new front foot, I'd also bump up the RAM to 1 GB. The GPU is not actually a Rage Pro in those iMacs but a Rage 128 Ultra with 16 megs of VRAM.

Which is good because there are OS X drivers for it.

Unlike the Rage Pro, where they didn't actually materialise.

[MattZani]

Here's a bad iPhone pic of it booted up, no keyboard atm, so couldnt do all the updates it needs, but i played around with iTunes and thats how i found the specs out.

http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2249/164/96/1306290613/n1306290613_285335_8588.jpg

[Doctor Doom]

dont forget that because its a crt they contain a large static charge. before you can mess around with changing stuff internally (hdds and stuff) you have to be able to remove it.

[MattZani]

I Know, thats why im not sure if im going to mess with it.

My Friend is interested in buying it, so i may just sell it to him, would mean i could afford the 500Gb Drive i wanted for my MBP... But he wont have the money for a month, so im fiddling with it now, getting Tiger to put on it, then i'll see if i can find some cheap ram to upgrade it with.

[coupdetat]

I have the same computer. I upgraded the noisy old HDD to a laptop 80gb hard drive (for silent operation, and it happened to be laying around) and swapped the CD-RW for a DVD-ROM. It's pretty capable in Tiger with 768mb of RAM and the screen is surprisingly good for a 15" CRT!

Getting the case open isn't TOO difficult. Just don't be afraid to really pry the plastic shell open. Once you get the shell separated, the rest is a piece of cake.

[Hrududu]

I've got one of those. My brother is currently using it as his desktop machine. Its surprisingly fast and definitely blows the older 300-450MHz models out of the water. Its running Tiger with 768mb and he'll play games like Red Faction on it sometimes.

[MattZani]

Got Some Tiger CD's, but i cant seem to get the iMac to boot from them, they appear on the desktop, and i can install that way, but the previous owner forgot the Admin Password, so i need to boot off the Tiger CD to start the install, and bypass the admin password, any idea's? I Tried holding C on boot, but nothing, it may be my Wireless USB Keyboard, my dad is bringing one back from work tonight, so hopefully....

[Rodus]

Have you tried booting as normal, inserting the Tiger disc, going to startup disc, selecting Tiger and rebooting?

[Airforcekid]

:apple:I have 3 they are great just becoming a pain to maintain! Tiger will run great on it.:apple:

[MattZani]

Have you tried booting as normal, inserting the Tiger disc, going to startup disc, selecting Tiger and rebooting?

That requires me to know the Admin Password.

My Dad brought home a wired USB Keyboard, and i have started installing, Disc 1 checked itself and found faults, but i clicked ignore, hope it works!

[MattZani]

The install failed!

So i reburned the .dmg in Disk Util at 10x, and it found no faults, and is checking now, redoing the other 3 CD's aswell, thats 4 CD's Wasted!

Quite scary as i got the grey and black screen telling me to restart, as the HDD OS was Corrupt, had to use Open Firmware to eject the bad disc, but its all going fine now.

[MattZani]

T-T-T-Triple Post!

Well, finally installed 10.4 onto my iMac, and im now sat here typing on it ^^

Took a while, installing from CD is s-l-o-w, and then i had to download and install the 10.4.11 Combo Update, but everything seems to be fine now.

Think i will upgrade the ram to 1Gb though, as it can start to slow down.... And maybe the HDD if i can get a cheap one, the current one is slow and noisy >.<

Overall, good machine, i've had fun tinkering with it for a few days, still need to clean it up, see if i can get rid of the smokey smell (Any idea's? Im a huge anti-smoker, and its driving me nuts :P)

I Will leave you with the 'About this Mac' Pane.

[MacTech68]

I use the 700Mhz version of one of these to run my blog site and proxy. It does an incredible job and is quite snappy. I've just ordered a double-sided 512MB to bring it from 768MB to 1GB.

Certainly putting a 7200RPM 8MB cache HD into it would help but these only go as fast as 100Mbs on the IDE interface IIRC.

Be careful taking the case apart. Two reasons. I saw many attempts to pull these slot-loaders apart that left screw driver marks all over the place. This is not necessary at all if you know the correct procedure. I'd write it here but it's difficult to explain in words. The file to look for is "imac_summer01.pdf" :D

The second reason is that some of the plastic especially the light grey plastic around the CRT becomes very brittle with age (although you don't need to go that far to replace the HD or CD/DVD drive.

Just a tip, when you tilt the bottom housing to remove it, be prepared to hear a very nasty sounding crack. There are two tabs along the front edge of the bottom case. You may need to 'pivot' the bottom case along it's front edge with a considerable jerk to release them. Don't panic if the two tabs on the grey plastic break. The two screws on the bottom case near the front hold the case together quite well. Good Luck!

:)

EDIT: Oh, you might want to test for poor RAM connectivity. Boot into a CD (rather than the HD). once settled, move your mouse, and rock each RAM chip from side to side. If the mouse freezes, you'll need to clean the RAM module edge fingers and the sockets. Medi-wipes are great for this.
Also, the best RAM test I can recommend is still Memtest (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17156) (no longer free) or it's free GUI cousin Rember (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/52452).

[BornAgainMac]

I have the old 450 DV Mhz model and it is still good for playing Starcraft, Diablo II, Warcraft III, Star Trek Voyager, Age of Empires, and Nuke Dukem. I installed only OS 9. OSX is too slow. Oh, and it runs Microsoft Word 2001 faster than an Intel based Mac running Word 2008.

[MattZani]

Seems RAM is still very expensive (Similar to Upgrading my MBP to 4Gb!) So i may leave it unless i find a good deal, i will do the HDD Soon as thats around £40 for a Quieter, Faster, Bigger Drive, but i cant justify £40 on 1Gb RAM.

I May also upgrade to a DVD/CDRW Drive, but im not sure if there is a real point.

[MacTech68]

Seems RAM is still very expensive (Similar to Upgrading my MBP to 4Gb!) So i may leave it unless i find a good deal, i will do the HDD Soon as thats around ?40 for a Quieter, Faster, Bigger Drive, but i cant justify ?40 on 1Gb RAM.

I May also upgrade to a DVD/CDRW Drive, but im not sure if there is a real point.

I took a risk and bought a 512MB PC133 double sided (advertised as new) from a Hong Kong eBay seller for AU$13.20 with free postage. ($8.65 US Dollar) (GBP 5.96)

Still waiting for it to arrive. The Double sided (16 chip) is usually more expensive but allows older machines like the G3 Blue&White, PCI G4 and others to see the full 512MB. Single sided 512MB RAM in those older machines only shows up as 256MB.

I'm not sure if the 600 & 700Mhz slot loaders work with single sided 512MB or not. IIRC they should.

[MattZani]

I took a risk and bought a 512MB PC133 double sided (advertised as new) from a Hong Kong eBay seller for AU$13.20 with free postage. ($8.65 US Dollar) (GBP 5.96)

Still waiting for it to arrive. The Double sided (16 chip) is usually more expensive but allows older machines like the G3 Blue&White, PCI G4 and others to see the full 512MB. Single sided 512MB RAM in those older machines only shows up as 256MB.

I'm not sure if the 600 & 700Mhz slot loaders work with single sided 512MB or not. IIRC they should.

Link? If it works i'll jump on that deal!

Im also considering a small overclock, maybe to 1Ghz, as i've heard people reaching 1.3Ghz and it being stable!

Might see if i can find a Faster Slot Loading CDRW or even DVD/CDRW, as this one is 2x when ripping a CD.... >.>

[MacTech68]

Link? If it works i'll jump on that deal!

Im also considering a small overclock, maybe to 1Ghz, as i've heard people reaching 1.3Ghz and it being stable!

Might see if i can find a Faster Slot Loading CDRW or even DVD/CDRW, as this one is 2x when ripping a CD.... >.>

Sure:

http://myworld.ebay.com/memory_superman/

Like I said though, it hasn't arrived yet and in my 20 years buying memory wholesale, you do get the occasional DOA module.

Regarding overclocking, I'd never expect to take a CPU much more than 10% higher. Though you might want to look at the CPU chip itself since I recall some of the 600Mhz machines made AFTER they discontinued the 700Mhz (when they introduced the Flat panel iMac G4) used a 700Mhz CPU clocked at 600Mhz. Heat is a real killer in these machines since there is no fan. If you add a 7200 RPM drive, that's more heat. Try checking how warm a CD is after it's been in the machine for a while.

However, YMMV. Good luck!

[MattZani]

I'll look into it, as i have to go into the main case to reach the CPU :S And if i did it, i would place atleast one 120mm Fan inside, to atleast circulate air.

I Was also thinking of some Cold Cathodes, as mine is white, and see if i could hook them upto the Power Button, so when asleep the lights would pulse, not sure if Cathodes like Pulsing though, as theyre a gas....

[MacTech68]

I'll look into it, as i have to go into the main case to reach the CPU :S And if i did it, i would place atleast one 120mm Fan inside, to atleast circulate air.

I Was also thinking of some Cold Cathodes, as mine is white, and see if i could hook them upto the Power Button, so when asleep the lights would pulse, not sure if Cathodes like Pulsing though, as theyre a gas....

You only need to remove the bottom case and shield to get at the motherboard. The CPU is soldered to the top-side (with the machine upright). and is held against the aluminium chassis to act as a heatsink.

The only "mod" I've done is to replace the white power LED with a blue one, just because it was there. ;)

EDIT: best place for a fan is underneath the carry handle blowing air out the top of the machine.

[MacTech68]

RAM just arrived today. :)

Looks well manufactured, edge connectors are like new.

The chips used are a Micron brand (also used on Crucial RAM modules).

This is the chip's technical data page (http://www.micron.com/products/partdetail?part=MT48LC64M4A2TG-75).

I'll be testing it in the next few hours.
________
homemade vaporizers (http://homemadevaporizers.info/)

[MattZani]

You only need to remove the bottom case and shield to get at the motherboard. The CPU is soldered to the top-side (with the machine upright). and is held against the aluminium chassis to act as a heatsink.

The only "mod" I've done is to replace the white power LED with a blue one, just because it was there. ;)

EDIT: best place for a fan is underneath the carry handle blowing air out the top of the machine.

Ok, i thought the Mobo was inside with the CRT, but i guess not, but if i want to put a cooling fan in there, i'll have to go into the CRT area, and same for the Cathode.

Once you confirm the RAM works, i'll definitely order 1Gb.

This the one you ordered?

http://cgi.ebay.com/MICRON-1GB-2x512MB-PC133-133MHZ-SDRAM-DIMM-168PIN_W0QQitemZ320337770852QQihZ011QQcategoryZ14913QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1713.m153.l1262
and other than price, this seems identical...?
http://cgi.ebay.com/1GB-2x512MB-PC133-133MHZ-SDRAM-DIMM-168PIN-NEW-RAM_W0QQitemZ220356757692QQihZ012QQcategoryZ166898QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1713.m153.l1262

Will also be buying a new CMOS Battery, as thats dead, and will need to head over to a Custom PC forum to find out about Lighting this thing up.

[MacTech68]

Forgot to add something VERY important.

When looking at that eBay seller's RAM, make sure you get this one:

Under "Technical Specifications"

"Module Size:512MB SDRAM DIMM Double Sided 16Chips 32X8 Low Density"

As I've just discovered (doh!) the 64x8 will not work. :(

If you want 2 512MB modules, then Item number: 220357793070 is your best bet. (GBP 20.44)

There are others there. Go into his "store" and search "32x8" in titles & descriptions.

Sorry for the bad advice. :(

I shall now go and kick myself very hard. :(

Ahh well, I have an older Windoze XP machine here I can use it in.

The price is still pretty good. Here in Australia (http://zytech.com.au/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=MEID507012) this RAM retails for AU$108 EACH (GBP 48.74 each) plus shipping
________
Ranch Wagon (http://www.ford-wiki.com/wiki/Ford_Ranch_Wagon)

[MattZani]

This seems to be the right stuff, even says "APPLE MAC" Compatible, so will order if i got enough in my PayPal.

http://cgi.ebay.com/MICRON-1GB-2x-512MB-PC133-SDRAM-DIMM-168PIN-Low-Density_W0QQitemZ220357793070QQihZ012QQcategoryZ1480QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1713.m153.l1262

Edit: Nope :(

[MacTech68]

This seems to be the right stuff, even says "APPLE MAC" Compatible, so will order if i got enough in my PayPal.

http://cgi.ebay.com/MICRON-1GB-2x-512MB-PC133-SDRAM-DIMM-168PIN-Low-Density_W0QQitemZ220357793070QQihZ012QQcategoryZ1480QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1713.m153.l1262

Edit: Nope :(

Yes, that's the one... 32x8 double sided.
________
cloudy trichomes (http://trichomes.org)

[MattZani]

Yes, that's the one... 32x8 double sided.

okay thanks, i need to magic £4 into my paypal now :L

[Mac SK]

I put a cooling fan in mine,right above the power supply. Hooked it up to the extra HD 12 volt lead. To get in side the Crt you have to take the bottom off and then the front around the tube off and its a :eek: to do it, then the back half unscrews and comes off.

[MacTech68]

I put a cooling fan in mine,right above the power supply. Hooked it up to the extra HD 12 volt lead. To get in side the Crt you have to take the bottom off and then the front around the tube off and its a :eek: to do it, then the back half unscrews and comes off.

Yup. If you've not pulled one apart before, as I said in a previous post, doing a google search for ""imac_summer01.pdf" can be a HUGE advantage. :D

I used to hate pulling these apart just to re-solder dry joints on the Analog board's FlyBack Transformer for intermittent screen issues. Mind you, once you've done it 20 times, you get pretty quick at it.
________
Concord (http://www.dodge-wiki.com/wiki/Plymouth_Concord)

[MattZani]

Took it apart last night, only the bottom part, gave it a clean out, removed the broken feet, and had a look at the HDD, its a Seagate 7200Rpm Drive.... So im not sure i would see a speed increase upgrading to a new Drive, but i will for more space, and quieter operation.

It Also has 2 128Mb Aftermarket Ram, not Paired, one is Generic, another is Kingston (I Think) I Also checked to see the battery type, and will need some money for that aswell!

I'll be fitting a Quiet 120mm Fan to the Heatsink CRT kind of area in the top of the case, so i can get the air moving, and will be adding a string of LED's as Cathodes Cannot Pulse, still not sure how to make them react with the Power LED, as that wont have enough Amperage to power all the LED's...

[California]

Hey great machine. I've taken them apart a million times and they are work horses. The 600 and 700mhz are the best of the bunch.

Sounds like you do need a new hard drive if it was clicking. And if you can find a cd/dvd optical drive it should help, too. I have a kingston 256mb chip that came out of an iMac G3 I'd sell to you cheap but the price to UK is probably too much. Personally, I'd add the full ram and get a 120gb 7200 hard drive (there is a 128gb limit on hd space on that iMac -- not a great idea imho to get a bigger hard drive) and a dvd/cd player (the G4 Cubes use the same optical drive, fyi). Because these machines have firewire and because they usually just sat on someone's desk for years, they will out live us all and be useful with the firewire...

Try to get another 512 chip. You can always pull the hard drive and ram if you decide you don't want to go with your cheap iMac G3. P.S. Daystar use to make a G4 upgrade for these machines... see if you can find that CPU upgrade somewhere.

Another P.S. disable dashboard on Tiger and it will run even faster. I find it incredible that, as a previous poster here noted, that Word 2001 runs faster on our old PPC machines than it does on our new intel Macs... but its true. I'm using Word 2001 on my G5 and my new Macbook. Try to find an older copy.

[MacTech68]

Hey great machine. I've taken them apart a million times and they are work horses. The 600 and 700mhz are the best of the bunch.

Sounds like you do need a new hard drive if it was clicking. And if you can find a cd/dvd optical drive it should help, too. I have a kingston 256mb chip that came out of an iMac G3 I'd sell to you cheap but the price to UK is probably too much. Personally, I'd add the full ram and get a 120gb 7200 hard drive (there is a 128gb limit on hd space on that iMac -- not a great idea imho to get a bigger hard drive) and a dvd/cd player (the G4 Cubes use the same optical drive, fyi). Because these machines have firewire and because they usually just sat on someone's desk for years, they will out live us all and be useful with the firewire...

Try to get another 512 chip. You can always pull the hard drive and ram if you decide you don't want to go with your cheap iMac G3. P.S. Daystar use to make a G4 upgrade for these machines... see if you can find that CPU upgrade somewhere.

Another P.S. disable dashboard on Tiger and it will run even faster. I find it incredible that, as a previous poster here noted, that Word 2001 runs faster on our old PPC machines than it does on our new intel Macs... but its true. I'm using Word 2001 on my G5 and my new Macbook. Try to find an older copy.

Wasn't the G4 Upgrade card for a Tray Loading iMac (which also added FireWire) ?

If the slot loader had a G4 Upgrade that would be a "send in the motherboard" upgrade, wouldn't it?

Some of the Seagates that shipped in the later 400 -500Mhz machines had odd-ball firmware that had the drive clocked back to UDMA 33 and I could never switch it. Check the Seagate drive's average access time.

I agree that these never supported 48bit LBA mode (volumes larger than 127GB), but I believe Disk Utility from 10.4 works around this but I wouldn't let OS9 anywhere near it after that. I always tried to fit these with 120GBs, no larger.

Oh, and to the OP, matching RAM really doesn't matter in these machines. There's no interleaving capability on these logic boards. (See Developer Technote (http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/Developer_Notes/Macintosh_CPUs-G3/iMac24Oct01/4Expansion/DIMM_Configurations.html)).
________
Turbo (http://www.bmw-tech.org/wiki/BMW_Turbo)

[Mac SK]

For the tray load, NewerTechnology made a iMaxpower G4 433mhz and
Powerlogix made a iForce G3 400 and G3 500.

[coupdetat]

Another way to improve performance significantly is by disabling font smoothing. I forget how to do it, but I'm sure it's not hard to find the command on Google. Unsmoothed font looks quite good on the iMac's CRT, and scrolling becomes VERY smooth.

[paddyhazard]

I've just got one of these as well. My mum's partner is a school technician and they were chucking them away so I was going to do one up and have a play.

Will this ram work does anyone know?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290417297410&ssPageName=ADME:B:BCA:GB:1123

Was planing on putting 1GB in.

What is there to do with these machines in terms of upgrading and using. I'm thinking of running MAMP on it and have it set up as a server to test websites. Any other ideas?

[MacHamster68]

don't worry about overheating , i fitted a 7200rpm 16mb cache harddrive from western digital in mine and no sign of overheating , istat pro says 46celsius for the harddrive , no cpu temp possible as there is no sensor , but it will get hot on the top and that is good as long the bottom stays cool it means the convection cooling works ,had so far no problems with running my 700ghz one for 24/7 they are great little buggers these iMacs
upgrading the harddrive and changing cd/dvd drive is fairly easy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Lt7VX6aWs

[MacTech68]

I've just got one of these as well. My mum's partner is a school technician and they were chucking them away so I was going to do one up and have a play.

Will this ram work does anyone know?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290417297410&ssPageName=ADME:B:BCA:GB:1123

Was planing on putting 1GB in.

What is there to do with these machines in terms of upgrading and using. I'm thinking of running MAMP on it and have it set up as a server to test websites. Any other ideas?

I can't find enough info on that RAM module to say. Being older, it probably would work, but if the picture is correct, it might be too tall to physically fit.

I used to run mine (700Mhz) as a proxy server, Apache and it performed very well.

Sadly after running 24x7 for 3 years, it's died an odd death. It's probably a bad capacitor on the Analog Board, but I swapped out the HD and RAM into my G4 733Mhz Digital Audio tower, so I'm not sure yet.

:(

EDIT: I also always try to get 512MB PC133 modules rather than PC100. Whilst all the slot loaders take PC100, by purchasing PC133, I've been able to fit my two PC133 512MB modules into the G4 733Mhz which only takes PC133.
________
iolite vaporizer (http://iolitevaporizer.net/)

[paddyhazard]

Well i won one of the 512 sticks so hopefully that will work when it comes. If not it's only a couple of quid wasted.

What did you do to run it as a proxy server and what are the benefits of that? I'm just looking for other, more practical uses for it instead of a vintage style jukebox and a torrent downloader. If i can run it as a server, one with a very small hardddrive, it might not feel so unappreciated!

[MacTech68]

Well i won one of the 512 sticks so hopefully that will work when it comes. If not it's only a couple of quid wasted.

What did you do to run it as a proxy server and what are the benefits of that? I'm just looking for other, more practical uses for it instead of a vintage style jukebox and a torrent downloader. If i can run it as a server, one with a very small hardddrive, it might not feel so unappreciated!

I built Squid from source. But you can use SquidMan (http://web.me.com/adg/squidman/) which is much easier to install for the non-terminal user (and freeware). The current version requires MacOS 10.4 as a minimum but there are earlier versions available that will install on MacOS 10.3.9.
________
AMC and Jeep transmissions specifications (http://www.dodge-wiki.com/wiki/AMC_and_Jeep_transmissions)

[Yaboze]

I'm looking for a 700 Graphite or Snow. They are hard to find. I keep scouring Ebay to see if one pops. There's one up there now, but it doesn't have a matching KB and mouse, plus I'd have to upgrade the ram.