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VanneDC

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 5, 2010
860
92
Dubai, UAE
Hi all, having acquired a used Imac G4 700mhz with 15 inch screen and 512mb ram and 40 gb hd, (though i payed way to much for it) I was wondering what OS would be best for this puppy?

It currently has 10.3.9 Panther on it, but i also have retail Tiger (bought) that i can stick on it.. What will work better?

Its got the crappy 2 MX in it.

Its duties will be internet and music player, with a game of starcraft thrown in for good measure..

so what OS? and anything else i can do to spruse things up a bit?

cheers
 

burnout8488

macrumors 6502a
May 8, 2011
575
79
Endwell, NY
Tiger will suit you well, it should perform admirably while not slowing you down like leopard would. Keeps it about as modern as it should be.
 

cocacolakid

macrumors 65816
Dec 18, 2010
1,108
20
Chicago
I agree, Tiger will run better than Leopard on that iMac, even if you upgraded the ram.

Check out TenFourFox or Camino for your browser, there are specific builds just for your CPU, and both run far better on PPC's than other browsers.
 

VanneDC

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 5, 2010
860
92
Dubai, UAE
yeah, i am not going the leopard way, not enough cpu grunt by a long shot, but what about Panther? will Tiger be faster than Panther on this unit?

Also i know 40 gig is jack, but that will surf-ice for a bit of emailing and itunes. I would imagine its got usb 1.1.. thats going to be the biggest hassle..

what games will run on this baby?

cheers

Vanne
 

alust2013

macrumors 601
Feb 6, 2010
4,779
2
On the fence
I would just use Tiger, as Panther will have far more compatibility issues than Tiger, plus it wouldn't likely be much faster. 40GB would be fine for an internet computer, but I'm not sure what games will still run on a 700MHz G4.
 

stroked

Suspended
May 3, 2010
555
331
what games will run on this baby?

cheers

Vanne

You could play a game of chess. Sorry I couldn't help it. Seriously, you could sell it, and get a better specked Powermac G4. The G4 imacs go for more money than the Powermacs.
 

cocacolakid

macrumors 65816
Dec 18, 2010
1,108
20
Chicago
yeah, i am not going the leopard way, not enough cpu grunt by a long shot, but what about Panther? will Tiger be faster than Panther on this unit?

Also i know 40 gig is jack, but that will surf-ice for a bit of emailing and itunes. I would imagine its got usb 1.1.. thats going to be the biggest hassle..

what games will run on this baby?

cheers

Vanne

40 GB is fine for the internet and iTunes. I had that same model iMac for a couple of months a couple of years ago, mine had Tiger on it, and I think 768mb of ram. Someone had updated it to a larger hard drive, I think 120gb. It was perfectly fine for the internet, although at the time I didn't know about TenFourFox, so I didn't try using Youtube much or streaming any videos, but for normal surfing it was fine.

iTunes opened up slowly but played fine, the speed when selecting a new song was fine as well. I do remember that ripping CD's to iTunes was slow.

After a few months, and it being my first real Mac, I decided I wanted something faster. But I would still enjoy that form factor iMac as a second computer or in the kitchen for music and recipes, etc. I sold mine simply to help subsidize a newer Mac.
 

iDutchman

macrumors 6502a
May 9, 2010
676
32
Amsterdam, NL
I use an iMac G4 15" 700mhz 1GB RAM 500GB HDD in the kitchen. It has music (130GB) stored on it which plays nicely with iTunes. iTunes streams the music to the surround sound in the living room through Airpot Express. The original Harman Kardon speakers are connected to it as well. And it always works. Just fine. Great, great machine. Nine years old and still going strong. So, there are still ways to put it to good use!

It's running MAC OSX Tiger 10.4.11
 

VanneDC

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 5, 2010
860
92
Dubai, UAE
thanks guys for the info,

finally hooked her up to the net and downloaded the updates, 10.4.11 now and its going okay. not a super powerhouse, but will do un till i get my macpro back.

I have been stuffing around a bit with browsers and have found both camino and 104fox okay. Opera is not fast enough.

I also want to disable the spotlight and the dashboard as i dont use them anyways and id like to free up some cpu cycles for the stuff that i do do. any utills that will let me do that on 10.4? i know iceclean does it on leopard, but iam running tiger.

anyways, thanks so much for the help already :)

cheerio.
 

Bloodstar

macrumors regular
Mar 19, 2011
137
0
Philadelphia, PA, USA
To disable Dashboard: At a terminal, run:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
killall Dock

To disable Spotlight: At a terminal, run:
cd /etc
sudo nano hostconfig
Then, change the SPOTLIGHT= option from -YES- to -NO-

I'm not as sure about the last one, but it seems like it should work fine.
 

VanneDC

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 5, 2010
860
92
Dubai, UAE
Thanks, that did the trick...

My iMac is lacking a wifi card, buti have at my other place (overseas) and old 1.25ghz emac, with wifi card installed. Will the emac wifi card fit in the base of the 700mhz iMac?

Cheers
 

AdrianK

macrumors 68020
Feb 19, 2011
2,230
2
You could also disable icon previews for files in Finder, should help a bit:

Finder > View > Show View Options
 

VanneDC

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 5, 2010
860
92
Dubai, UAE
just wanted to write a quick review on my Ilamp 700Mhz with the above mentioned 512mb.. I just bought a wifi usb stick for it as it was lacking the wifi extreme card. anyhows, bought a crappy non brand usb wificard (ralink chipset) and sourced a driver for osx 10.4 and it kicks ass.

Granted its not as fast as the rig in my sig, but man, its quite good to use. Also running Max Payne on it is a hoot. at any rate, the system is quite good and responsive to use, as long as you dont bog it down too much.

was going to update to a dual 1.25ghz MDD, but i dont think ill bother.. and this thing is nice and quiet. running net radio on it 24 7 and it hasnt missed a tick.

anyways, yeah so its not bad this puppy. quite happy and impressed with the 700mhz... ive also started using terminal quite a bit more than i used to.

Plus plus bonus.. :D

cheers and thanks for the help gang.
 

VanneDC

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 5, 2010
860
92
Dubai, UAE
Hi, just wondering if anyone here could tell me why my ralink usb wifi adapatot sucks cpu power from anywhere from 50% to 60 % load at all times...

this is ofcourse under "top"

anyone?

would the airport extreme do this aswell?

cheers
 

AmazingHenry

macrumors 65816
Jul 6, 2015
1,285
534
Central Michigan
Hi all, having acquired a used Imac G4 700mhz with 15 inch screen and 512mb ram and 40 gb hd, (though i payed way to much for it) I was wondering what OS would be best for this puppy?

It currently has 10.3.9 Panther on it, but i also have retail Tiger (bought) that i can stick on it.. What will work better?

Its got the crappy 2 MX in it.

Its duties will be internet and music player, with a game of starcraft thrown in for good measure..

so what OS? and anything else i can do to spruse things up a bit?

cheers

If you need Internet, you should get Tiger. I don't think Panther can even connect to modern Wi-Fi networks. But Panther is just fine for a music player. For your needs, you should get Tiger. But if you want better speed and no Internet, stick with Panther.
 

MultiFinder17

macrumors 68030
Jan 8, 2008
2,719
2,037
Tampa, Florida
I use an 800MHz machine in my own kitchen, and it runs Leopard and iTunes like a champ. It's perfect for listening to music while I cook, and for viewing recipes.
 

val1984

macrumors member
Jan 26, 2015
60
11
Hi, just wondering if anyone here could tell me why my ralink usb wifi adapatot sucks cpu power from anywhere from 50% to 60 % load at all times...
USB adapters are known to offload some of the processing to the CPU, that's probably why.

would the airport extreme do this aswell?
To the best of my knowledge, an AirPort Extreme card wouldn't do this.
 
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