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dandeco

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 5, 2008
1,153
965
Brockton, MA
Well, today I received my 2004-generation 1.0 GHz eMac G4. After configuring the Airport Extreme card to recognize my Linksys router, it's been smooth sailing. AND I can finally sell that old iMac G3 of mine! (I don't want to turn this into a "Ooh, you've been ripped off!" or "This costs $30, not $300" sort of thread.)

The specs, aside that G4 processor I mentioned, include...

512 MB of DDR SDRAM
A 40 GB hard drive
CD-ROM drive (might replace this or either get an external DVD burner)
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger (updated it to 10.4.11)
iLife '04 (may replace it with iLife '06)
ATI graphics card with 32MB of dedicated video RAM
3 USB 2.0 ports, two FireWire 400 ports, an Ethernet port, no modem, digital audio in and out ports

I like it a lot so far, and I like the screen size and the performance is an improvement over the old iMac G3 (it's somewhat identical to the PowerMac G4s at my college in terms of performance).

However, I DO want to partition my Maxtor OneTouch USB 2.0 external hard drive (750 GB) into two sections; keep the data for my PCs in one part, then make another partition to use for the Mac. How can I do this?
 

dandeco

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 5, 2008
1,153
965
Brockton, MA
How much did you pay for it? I'd say between $100 - $150.

Including the shipping, yes.

Price for the computer was $70, but shipping was an additional $60. It was a pretty large, heavy package (hey, we know how heavy eMacs are!) But I admit that's a good price for a 2004-era eMac. I say I got a pretty good deal for the Buy it Now thing from eBay.
 

Spanky Deluxe

macrumors demi-god
Mar 17, 2005
5,282
1,745
London, UK
Congratulations on your purchase. I've always really liked the look of eMacs. Now get saving for a mac mini because that G4's going to start feeling really slow really fast.
 

dandeco

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 5, 2008
1,153
965
Brockton, MA
Just use Disk Utility and change the external to have a 2 partition scheme.

Thanks, but, turns out the Mac recognizes the hard drive with the existing contents in it from Windows use without having to do a reformat. How's THAT for convenience?
 

redking31591

macrumors 6502
Jul 10, 2008
393
62
I have an imac g3 that I just got that feels faster than a windows computer I bought a year ago. Some older apple computers you just can kill. My old band director still uses a Tibook g4 from 2001 as his day to day laptop and he has no plans on replacing it!!!
 

brop52

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2007
1,620
3
Michigan
I'm finally going to set up a brand new 2.93GHz iMac for my Mom's business. She's been using her iMac G3 Indigo 500MHz since 2001. At least this one should last her a good amount of time and be usable.

My brother uses an eMac. They are good machines. If you really want it to run well upgrade to 1GB or more. Is that 512MB you have in there one chip or two 256? Also, depending on the HDD, you may want to upgrade at some point to a faster drive with more capacity. (And to stave off the inevitable death of the HDD while you are still using it).


1X512MB is $12.99 after $10 rebate or $18.99 if you don't want to bother with the rebate and want free shipping.
2X512MB is $37.99
1X1GB is ok at $34.99 and free shipping
2X1GB is costly: $70.99 at Newegg.

An 80GB WD ATA HDD is $37.99 or 160GB WD for $44.99. Then there are also some 250GB and up options.
 

dandeco

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 5, 2008
1,153
965
Brockton, MA
My brother uses an eMac. They are good machines. If you really want it to run well upgrade to 1GB or more. Is that 512MB you have in there one chip or two 256?


1X512MB is $12.99 after $10 rebate or $18.99 if you don't want to bother with the rebate and want free shipping.
2X512MB is $37.99
1X1GB is ok at $34.99 and free shipping
2X1GB is costly: $70.99 at Newegg.

I might go for 1 GB at first. It uses two 256MB slots right now.
 

brop52

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2007
1,620
3
Michigan
I might go for 1 GB at first. It uses two 256MB slots right now.

Why not keep one of the 256MB chips and buy a 1GB chip then? That's a pretty respectable number and keeps what you have now. The eMacs don't support dual channel so you don't have to worry about a 1 and 256 together.
 

dandeco

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 5, 2008
1,153
965
Brockton, MA
Why not keep one of the 256MB chips and buy a 1GB chip then? That's a pretty respectable number and keeps what you have now. The eMacs don't support dual channel so you don't have to worry about a 1 and 256 together.

That's not a bad idea
 

brop52

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2007
1,620
3
Michigan
FYI: If you do plan on upgrading your HDD use the Newegg Promo code EMCHDD10A and you'll get 10% off (up to $10) for any HDD. If you want $5 cash back plus 2% cash back go through this link.
 

Mycatisbigfoot

macrumors regular
Jun 22, 2009
130
0
WOW, Get 10.5 after 10.6 comes out and get 10.5 rom ebay as it should be very cheap but WOW $100 including shipping WOW,
 

dandeco

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 5, 2008
1,153
965
Brockton, MA
Update on my eMac...

I apologize for the thread bump, but lately my 2004-generation eMac has made some pretty good progress since I got it!

Back when I first got it, you may recall the eMac had a 1.0 GHz G4 processor, 512 MB of DDR-SDRAM, a 40 GB hard drive, an ATI Radeon 9200 graphics card (32 MB of dedicated VRAM), 3 USB 2.0 ports, two FireWire 400 ports and a CD-ROM drive, and that it also came with an Airport Extreme card included. It didn't come with a keyboard or mouse, but I used the old black Apple Pro Keyboard from my iMac G3 (that I'm still trying to get rid of without throwing it away) and my Microsoft wireless mouse (until I get a new Apple mouse). It was also preloaded with Mac OS X Tiger and iLife '04.

Now, after a couple weeks of having the Mac, I found an old HP dvd940 Lightscribe DVD-/+R DL drive. I looked things up online and found the Patchburn utility would work just fine with it, and I was like "I think I found a Superdrive!" So I followed the instructions from here...
http://www.macworld.com/article/45205/2005/06/julyhandson.html
...opened the eMac, replaced the Hitachi CD-ROM drive with the HP DVD burner, put the case back on, plugged it in and turned it back on, applied the Patchburn utility, and eureka! It worked!
Now that it had a working DVD drive, I decided to upgrade. I backed up my data to my external USB 2.0 drive, reformatted the hard drive and installed Mac OS X Leopard! Then I installed iLife '09, iMovie HD 6 (as iMovie '09 won't work with G4 graphic cards) and Microsoft Office 2004 (saving iWork for an Intel Mac) and a few other essential programs (such as Firefox, Audacity, VLC Media Player, etc.) and I was good to go!

Eventually in September, I burned my first DVD with the eMac, and it came out just fine, thanks to iDVD 7.

Recently I found a Mac OS X-compatible driver for my Creative Live webcam, and tired that out. It works just fine, and is even compatible with some iSight-related programs.

Today, the 1 GB RAM module I ordered came in, and I installed it. I replaced one of the 256 MB modules but left the other one intact, so now this eMac has 1.25 GB of RAM! So far I noticed some differences, particularly when I have both iPhoto and iMovie open at the same time. Soon I'll save up for another 1 GB module to max it out!

Well, that's my eMac experience so far. Any comments?
 
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