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Revamping original imac for os x usage

A

Angelus

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 19, 2002
414
36
New Zealand
hey maybe some one out there can give me some advise. i was talking to my computer teacher 2day and he said that he was selling the original green models of the original imac for 250 euro. seems like a good deal to me as my sister wants a computer of her own.i dont know the processor speed but it has 32mb of ram.if i bump dat up to 256mb would this mac run os x 10.1.3 comfortably? also is the graphics chip on the motherboard or wud i b able to open it up and install a radeon so that it might run jaguar(os x10.2)?id only want her 2 use os x cos i have no xperience of os 9.

any help would be very much appreciated
Angelus
 
topicolo

topicolo

macrumors 68000
Jun 4, 2002
1,672
0
Ottawa, ON
sorry to say that the original bondi blue imac is only 233Mhz. While I've never run OS X on an original imac, I would imagine that 233Mhz will be a little too slow for you. The imac doesn't have AGP or PCI slots so there's no way you can add a radeon card to it, but I did remember some company offering a Voodoo2 for a special slot in the imac a while back, not that that's gonna help. The graphics chip on the mobo is an ATi Rage II+ 4mb or Rage pro 8mb I believe--not good enough since it's not a GPU.

Sorry:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
Sun Baked

Sun Baked

macrumors G5
May 19, 2002
14,937
157
You'll want to ask a few more questions to find out exactly which version of iMac you're looking at to see if you're getting a good deal.

As you can see from the following link - the term CRT iMac covers a lot of computers from the original Rev A version all the way through the current CRT iMac 600.

Saying it's green narrows it down a bit, but there were still a few different green iMacs.

There is also a little bit of OS X info on the site.

http://www.lowendmac.com/imacs/index.shtml
 
B

benjaminpg

macrumors regular
Apr 21, 2002
113
0
Salt Lake City, UT
I am using an iMac 350 with 320 mb of ram on 10.1.4. It runs pretty well. There are some things that are slow though. The biggest nuisance is iPhoto. It runs super slooow. Unless you are planning to do a lot of processor intensive work, most notable graphics, it's probably fine. In addition you won't be able to use Quartz Extreme, when Jaguar comes out.
 
AlphaTech

AlphaTech

macrumors 601
Oct 4, 2001
4,556
0
Natick, MA
You can upgrade to either 500MHz or 600MHz by getting the processor upgrade from Sonnet (see it here). That will also give you FireWire ports and allow you to jack the memory up to 512MB. Considering how the product sells for $300 or $400 (for the 500MHz or 600MHz models) it's not a bad deal.
 
strider42

strider42

macrumors 65816
Feb 1, 2002
1,461
7
Originally posted by benjaminpg
I am using an iMac 350 with 320 mb of ram on 10.1.4. It runs pretty well. There are some things that are slow though. The biggest nuisance is iPhoto. It runs super slooow. Unless you are planning to do a lot of processor intensive work, most notable graphics, it's probably fine. In addition you won't be able to use Quartz Extreme, when Jaguar comes out.
Click to expand...

There's a huge difference between the performance of OS X on a 350 mhz iMac and a 233. apart from the processor speed, the graphics card in a 233 is unsupported, and the system bus is slower. I have OS X, and I have a 233 mhz iMac. I haven't used OS X for more thna few hours, and hane't touched it in months because its worthless. OS 9 is just so much faster its unreal. I wouldn't recommend anyone with a tray loading iMac use OS X, and certinly not a 233.

Just my opinion though.
 
A

Angelus

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 19, 2002
414
36
New Zealand
ok thanks very much.
just to let ye know its the very first version that was released so i assume that its the 233mhz one.it will only be used for web and word processing emailing etc.that upgrade card sounds like a good idea though.is it possible to get an upgrade card that has a pci/agp slot so that u cud add a graphics card?

thanks for the help,very much appreciated
Angelus
 
AlphaTech

AlphaTech

macrumors 601
Oct 4, 2001
4,556
0
Natick, MA
Originally posted by Angelus
is it possible to get an upgrade card that has a pci/agp slot so that u cud add a graphics card?
Click to expand...

ROTFLMAO!!! IF you want to upgrade the video, don't get an iMac, get a PowerMac tower (at least the G4 Sawtooth/AGP model).

Both PCI and AGP slots are the realm of the towers (where they can be upgraded).
 
Sun Baked

Sun Baked

macrumors G5
May 19, 2002
14,937
157
It's a Green iMac not a Bondi blue iMac.

Get the part number, ie (M6709LL/B) or more specifics to pinpoint exactly which iMac you're looking at.

Don't buy until you know what you're getting and what your upgrade options are, and what you'll need it for.

Remember such things as - it won't help to buy an iMac without Airport capabilities if you're thinking of using a wireless network.
 
B

bidge

macrumors 6502
Jul 16, 2002
286
0
New Zealand
I have the original iBook with 288MB of ram and a G3 processor running @ 300Mhz.
If I remember right the original Bondi iMacs have a 6GB hard drive. OS X.1.5 runs sweet on the iBook, granted it takes a minute to even open Photoshop 7 but for email, web etc. it is only really noticeably slower in opening applications compared with my 700Mhz G4 iMac.
 
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