Old iMac upgrade? Need advice

You can look up your iMac at a site like iFixit or EveryMac.com and see if upgrading is worth it for you.

If the upgrades don't get you the performance you want at the price you want to spend, how about donation?

leeapeng said:

Hi guys
I had my old iMac from 2007, the white one, not the sliver one. So, its quite old. It only have 1GB memory, not even sure about the graphic card size

Is it a way for me to upgrade the computer nowadays? Did look into to put into recycle program but won't get anything for it, even have to pay the postage myself.

thanks

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Below 3 screenshots of specs for your machine, it's the 2006 model I think, the one in silver is 2007.
You can install Max. 4 GB but only 3 GB will be addressed, still much better than you have now.
You can officially go up to 10.7.4 but you might be able to go higher, mountain Lion:
[GUIDE] SUCCESS! Install 10.8 on OLD unsupported Mac

Be careful, don't know it will work for your iMac.

What works what doesn't (to avoid confusion)
- Mac Minis with X3100 > Perfect
- Mac Pros with upgraded graphics > Perfect (RAM limitation = 8GB)
- Xserve with graphics card upgrade > Perfect (RAM limitation = 8GB)
- MacBooks with X3100 > Works, display brightness & sleep issue
- MacBookAir with X3100 > Works, display brightness & sleep issue
- MacBookPros with X1600 > Graphics Issue (Frame buffer mode with Core Image lacks Quartz Extreme)
- iMacs with X1900 > Graphics Issue (Frame buffer mode with Core Image lacks Quartz Extreme)
- MacBooks with GMA 950 > Works, no QE/CI
- iMacs with GMA 950 >Works, no QE/CI
- Mac Minis with GMA 950 > Works, no QE/CI
- Mac Pros with 7300GT and X1900XT >Doesn't work at all, no plans to fix it
- iMacs with 7600GT > Didn't work on it yet, don't have such a system to test on.

Click to expand...

leeapeng said:

Hi guys
I had my old iMac from 2007, the white one, not the sliver one. So, its quite old. It only have 1GB memory, not even sure about the graphic card size

Is it a way for me to upgrade the computer nowadays? Did look into to put into recycle program but won't get anything for it, even have to pay the postage myself.

thanks

Click to expand...

Just upgrade your RAM to 4gb and at least upgrade to snow leopard. Two family members still run white 24" intel core 2 duo iMacs. For basic stuff you are good. Also, you can probably sell on Craigslist for 500-600 bucks if condition is good.

Grubster said:

Just upgrade your RAM to 4gb and at least upgrade to snow leopard. Two family members still run white 24" intel core 2 duo iMacs. For basic stuff you are good. Also, you can probably sell on Craigslist for 500-600 bucks if condition is good.

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I'm surprised anyone would spend that much on such an old machine, although it probably hinges on the current condition of the display. I wouldn't go any further than Snow Leopard with such a machine. Lion eats way more ram. Mountain Lion is the same. Snow Leopard would run far better on a machine limited to 3GB while alleviating some compatibility issues.

I have a 2007 white Intel iMac 24" myself (bought just after the aluminum models were introduced), it still runs quite well.

If you'd like to keep using it, I'd suggest upgrading the RAM to at least 2gb, perhaps 4gb if you can find it at a good price.

You might also consider an upgrade to 10.6 Snow Leopard if you don't already have that. Or, 10.7 Lion -- it runs well on mine. WARNING: Lion will not run older PowerPC-based software, but Snow Leopard will. Be forewarned!

So long as it performs and doesn't break internally (hard drive failure comes to mind), there's no reason you can't get 2-3 more years out of it, even as a "second machine" if you choose to buy something new or newer.

My parents have the white 2006 Core Duo (not the Core 2 Duo you have) with 2GB RAM and Snow Leopard which runs just great on it. Very stable. Definitely consider maxing out your RAM & going to Snow Leopard.

Note re an earlier poster: Leopard is the last upgrade for a PPC iMac, not Snow Leopard.

CrickettGrrrl said:

Note re an earlier poster: Leopard is the last upgrade for a PPC iMac, not Snow Leopard.

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Yes, that is why my in-laws were living in the past, they had a PPC version of Quicken because it took them years to come out with any kind of an update to that software.

Anyway, upgrading depends on usage. A bit of RAM and an OS update are fine for a computer surfing the web and doing email.

Re bflowers, definitely! Until I got a 2011 iMac just over a year ago I used my 2005 PPC G5 iMac to crank out work with Leopard & PPC software. Actually, I'm still using some of that on a Snow Leopard partition on the 2011 iMac. My G5 iMac <3 was a work horse, or at least it was treated like one.

A $20 OS X upgrade & extra RAM (so cheap now) is pretty inexpensive & still worthwhile IMHO.

I have an iMac model A1174. Can it be upgraded and is it worth it? Is this the model that you are talking about when you talk about adding RAM and upgrading to Snow Leopard? I really know very little about this subject. Is this something I can do myself? Thank you for any advice!