Hi All,
On december 25th this year my faithful old iMac G3 'Bondi Blue' turned 13 years of age. Since i opened this computer as a gift at the age of 8, i basically grew up with this computer and its been used all the time up until my grandad died 3 years back. When my family were going to dispose of the iMac i made sure that i took it, but its sat there in the corner ever since. Now the screen is starting to flicker, sometimes it wont show the boot screen and its very noisy. Not being much use it has sat there in the corner looking sorry for its self.
Now... where the fun began
About 5 month ago, when i moved into my new home with my other half, bondi came with me and i booted her up for the 1st time in 2 years. My other half sat down beside me and it was the 1st time she had actually seen it running so she had a little play on Warcraft 2 and Escape Velocity that were installed from when i played on it as a child! When i seen it going, i thought... i want this computer back in my life!
I stumbled onto the iMacquariums and thought WOW! thats a way to keep it in my life! but then i thought no i cant do it to her... so i bought another and spent a few weeks turning a 333mhz aqua imac into a fantastic imacquarium! this made me want my old bondi even more!
So i purchased 512mb of RAM and a new fan to try cool it better, i also installed a 20GB hard drive i had lying about and upgraded it to Panther. Unfortunatly the CPU Daughter Card would only read 256mb (2x 128mb modules even though they were 256mb modules), so i made the iMac even less usable than it was previously.
I then stumbled across the overclocking guide for this iMac, and sucessfully overclocked it to 266mhz, not much of a gain but i thought why not get a 333mhz card and clock it to 400, then add a fan cooler to the cpu! after looking around, i realised it was almost impossible so i put the iMac aside for a little longer.
Then the other day i was on ebay and a 333mhz processor was for sale for £8 including delivery, so i ordered that along with a new battery as the clock was constantly wrong. they turned up the other day but i have stripped the CRT down and removed the flyback transformer that i managed to source for £18. This will get the CRT back in tip top spec again! I also thought, this computer still isnt really going to have a use, but if it had a DVD drive it would be in the spare bedroom as both a computer and tv.
Soooooo the hunt began for an ATAPI DVD drive, which had a button in the middle, with an eject button just to the right. unbelievably i found one on ebay for £5 and tonight i have managed to modify the front facure to fit it exactly... although i have not yet tested it inside the imac, i can hear the button clicking when pressing the eject, the force eject definatly works as i can test that.
So by having this 333mhz processor, it will accept upto 384mb or the 512 hopefully. then if its overclocked to 400mhz with the CPU cooler it should have gained almost 80% increase in CPU power.
The fan that i have is an Arctic cooling F9, which i have fitted a new 12v instead of the 9v apple supplies to keep it quiet. this increases the air flow but the arctic cooling fans are silent so i havent made it any noisier.
For now i will have to wait until the flyback transformer arives, once this is fitted i shall rebuild the screen and computer with the original components to calibrate the screen, then i will try the all new DVD/ CD-RW drive which im quite exited about!
Life story so far, im hoping that this can be used with Tiger to allow more funtionality... but one will have to see how it goes.
And here she is!
On december 25th this year my faithful old iMac G3 'Bondi Blue' turned 13 years of age. Since i opened this computer as a gift at the age of 8, i basically grew up with this computer and its been used all the time up until my grandad died 3 years back. When my family were going to dispose of the iMac i made sure that i took it, but its sat there in the corner ever since. Now the screen is starting to flicker, sometimes it wont show the boot screen and its very noisy. Not being much use it has sat there in the corner looking sorry for its self.
Now... where the fun began
About 5 month ago, when i moved into my new home with my other half, bondi came with me and i booted her up for the 1st time in 2 years. My other half sat down beside me and it was the 1st time she had actually seen it running so she had a little play on Warcraft 2 and Escape Velocity that were installed from when i played on it as a child! When i seen it going, i thought... i want this computer back in my life!
I stumbled onto the iMacquariums and thought WOW! thats a way to keep it in my life! but then i thought no i cant do it to her... so i bought another and spent a few weeks turning a 333mhz aqua imac into a fantastic imacquarium! this made me want my old bondi even more!
So i purchased 512mb of RAM and a new fan to try cool it better, i also installed a 20GB hard drive i had lying about and upgraded it to Panther. Unfortunatly the CPU Daughter Card would only read 256mb (2x 128mb modules even though they were 256mb modules), so i made the iMac even less usable than it was previously.
I then stumbled across the overclocking guide for this iMac, and sucessfully overclocked it to 266mhz, not much of a gain but i thought why not get a 333mhz card and clock it to 400, then add a fan cooler to the cpu! after looking around, i realised it was almost impossible so i put the iMac aside for a little longer.
Then the other day i was on ebay and a 333mhz processor was for sale for £8 including delivery, so i ordered that along with a new battery as the clock was constantly wrong. they turned up the other day but i have stripped the CRT down and removed the flyback transformer that i managed to source for £18. This will get the CRT back in tip top spec again! I also thought, this computer still isnt really going to have a use, but if it had a DVD drive it would be in the spare bedroom as both a computer and tv.
Soooooo the hunt began for an ATAPI DVD drive, which had a button in the middle, with an eject button just to the right. unbelievably i found one on ebay for £5 and tonight i have managed to modify the front facure to fit it exactly... although i have not yet tested it inside the imac, i can hear the button clicking when pressing the eject, the force eject definatly works as i can test that.
So by having this 333mhz processor, it will accept upto 384mb or the 512 hopefully. then if its overclocked to 400mhz with the CPU cooler it should have gained almost 80% increase in CPU power.
The fan that i have is an Arctic cooling F9, which i have fitted a new 12v instead of the 9v apple supplies to keep it quiet. this increases the air flow but the arctic cooling fans are silent so i havent made it any noisier.
For now i will have to wait until the flyback transformer arives, once this is fitted i shall rebuild the screen and computer with the original components to calibrate the screen, then i will try the all new DVD/ CD-RW drive which im quite exited about!
Life story so far, im hoping that this can be used with Tiger to allow more funtionality... but one will have to see how it goes.
And here she is!
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