Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

born2win413

macrumors member
Original poster
May 17, 2008
51
0
My uncle bought a iMac PowerPC G3 for my mom for $5 at a garage sales. Now I would like to format it so it would be brand new again but I don't have the disks. What do I do? Thanks.
 

likemyorbs

macrumors 68000
Jul 20, 2008
1,956
5
NJ
My uncle bought a iMac G4 for my mom for $5 at a garage sales. Now I would like to format it so it would be brand new again but I don't have the disks. What do I do? Thanks.

well first of all congrats on the purchase, thats an amazing deal. are you sure its a g4 and not a g3? also are you sure its functional?? cuz $5 is pretty much free. anyway, you gotta have the disks to reformat, sorry. but you can get some tiger disks for pretty cheap on ebay. hope this helped.
 

born2win413

macrumors member
Original poster
May 17, 2008
51
0
Yea, I looked at the about my Mac button and it says its a iMac PowerPC G3 500mhz and 256 mb of rams and a 76.3gb hard drive. (i'm pretty sure the previous owner upgraded everything), and yes it's fully functional right now.

Dammit I sold my Tiger disks from my sister's iBook G4 for $100 and forgot to make a copy of it....plus the iMac doesn't have a dvd drive anyways...

I might just have to find a way to download Tiger again...

All this just for iPhoto for mom, lol. Perhaps there are some alternatives to iPhoto that can run on this machine.

Also do you know of a good webcam alternative to iSight for this? Also should i take out the Dashboard on the dock to make it run faster? Thanks, ironically enough you have the same machine. LOL
 

likemyorbs

macrumors 68000
Jul 20, 2008
1,956
5
NJ
Yea, I looked at the about my Mac button and it says its a iMac PowerPC G3 500mhz and 256 mb of rams and a 76.3gb hard drive. (i'm pretty sure the previous owner upgraded everything)

Dammit I sold my Tiger disks from my sister's iBook G4 for $100 and forgot to make a copy of it....plus the iMac doesn't have a dvd drive anyways...

I might just have to find a way to download Tiger again...

All this just for iPhoto for mom, lol. Perhaps there are some alternatives to iPhoto that can run on this machine.

yeah, i have the same exact model imac as that and i have tiger running on it. its a really great computer for 7 years old. just get those tiger disks somehow and youre good to go. also wouldnt hurt to upgrade the ram to 640MB, its really easy to do, there's a little door that opens in the back and the ram is cheap.
 

born2win413

macrumors member
Original poster
May 17, 2008
51
0
Thanks a lot, you're like a G3 savior, lol.

Where did you buy the rams at?

Also what kind of browsers do you use to watch videos? My mom watches a lot of chinese movies on the internet and Firefox on the Dell P4 makes it stream smooth while as this seems glitchy on Safari..
 

likemyorbs

macrumors 68000
Jul 20, 2008
1,956
5
NJ
Thanks a lot, you're like a G3 savior, lol.

Where did you buy the rams at?

Also what kind of browsers do you use to watch videos? My mom watches a lot of chinese movies on the internet and Firefox on the Dell P4 makes it stream smooth while as this seems glitchy on Safari..

It's not safari, im pretty sure its the ram, im waiting for my new ram chip to come in to test if the video streams better, i have 256 now as well. i just ordered the 512 today on ebay.
 

sickmacdoc

macrumors 68020
Jun 14, 2008
2,035
1
New Hampshire
so the new ram is in...and it doesnt work!! trying to return it now, im so disappointed! i was really looking forward to it

Just a suggestion but you really might want to check one the normally recommended dealers for guaranteed RAM compatibility- my personal favorite is Other World Computing for reasonable prices and flawless customer service.

Hope the refund goes ok!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.