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help me fix up my old iMac please

M

musiclover137

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 23, 2005
104
0
hello, i am looking to fix up my iMac DV 400. what can i do to help it run os x (any version) and overall, boost the performance? any advice would be appreciated.
respond here, or here

THANKS!
Dan
 
Last edited:
musiclover137 said:
hello, i am looking to fix up my iMac DV 400. what can i do to help it run os x (any version) and overall, boost the performance? any advice would be appreciated. respond here, or here
altrock74@aol.com
THANKS!
Dan
Click to expand...
Basically, you can up it to 1 Gb RAM $172 here:
http://www.datamem.com/viewcat.asp?C=1080
That's about it.
Implanting a 7200 RPM, 8 Mb cache hard drive is possible, a wee pain in the neck to install. Would get you a bit of speed improvement.
I don't believe that there's any cost-effective CPU upgrade available for this machine.
Remember that it doesn't take much upgrading cost to justify a Mini and a 17" LCD instead -- which will blow the doors off the iMac.

Some folks like running OSX on an iMac G3, maybe just for the challenge of making the oldest possible machine work, but the iMac is probably better put to use as an OS9 Kids/email workstation, and put the upgrade cash toward a machine that will perform better.
 
I am running OSX (me thinks 10.2.8) on my Indigo iMac DV400 w/ 320mb RAM. It runs freakin' awesome! NO PROBLEMS AT ALL. My old, yet still upright iMac is a peecee killer and will burn a hole in the windoze peecee's at my day job. Jaguar rocks the hut, but Panther is da bomb. No doubt I will be getting Tiger soon. Prolly will wait for the first revision and get some further reactions from our bretheren and sisters here at MR. My new iMac G5 has been a wonderful experience so far, and I am folding like a fiend with it. Soon to be folding with "Blue Devil also. Yer old iMac will do just fine. I know mine does! I will happily help with any specific questions about getting on the OSX wagon.
 
...

My iMac DV (400mhz, 320 ram, blah blah) has been upgraded regularly. Currently running 10.3.8 with an external CD burner, this thing has been a champ. Only real limitation is the 10 gig internal hard drive.
It runs quiet, it always works and it has never given me a problem.
 
Just recently did a fresh install on my DV iMac and it was like I had a brand new computer! Jaguar runs perfect on it. So even a fresh new install might give you the boost your look'n for

good luck.
 
I was running an iMac DV 400 MHz as my main machine up till two years ago. My mom now uses it. I have a 7200 RPM HD, 768 MB RAM, and Panther on it. It is very usable for normal web browsing, email, chat, and word processing.

In fact, when I switch between my 1 GHz G4 PB and the iMac, I don't notice much of a slowdown in the above stated activities (my PB also has 768 MB RAM).

Old Apples are still very much useful, and with enough RAM, OS X can run very smoothly on them.
 
My primary machine is an iMac G3 500Mhz and it still plods along ok. The ram stands at 384Mb, more would be advisable. I've upgraded my HD from 20gb 5200RPM to a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 with 120Gb, 8Mb cache and 7200 RPM. This helped speed things up and I thoroughly recommend this drive as it's a) Quiet b) Reliable.

It's still worth upgrading the RAM on these things, and I would go to at least 512Mb or max it out at 1Gb.

Mac OS X Panther (10.3.8) runs just fine, although can get bogged down sometimes, it's still worth using over OS 9 for its stability and multitasking.
 
My little old G3 iMac runs Panther with no problems at all (500mhz with 384MB RAM runing 10.3.8) – certainly it's nowhere near as fast as my G5 but for general day to day usage it's still a fine little machine. It can even handle light Photoshop work.

The easiest upgrade is the RAM – put in as much as you can afford and you'll see the benefit. 256MB is the official minimum, ideally 512MB at least.
 
musiclover137 said:
hello, i am looking to fix up my iMac DV 400. what can i do to help it run os x (any version) and overall, boost the performance? any advice would be appreciated.
respond here, or here
altrock74@aol.com
THANKS!
Dan
Click to expand...

I am running 10.3 on a iMac G3 500 DV SE, all i can say is to be sure that you run the firmware update on your iMac BEFORE you attempt to install any version of OS X. here is the link to the apple firmware you will need. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75430

Good luck, and so far my iMac with 512mb of ram is doing just fine under OS X :)
 
I have a G3 slot loading iMac - I think its the DV, but not sure.
400mhz with 576mb ram, running 10.3.8 no problem.
Is it as fast as a Dual G5 - well, no, obviously.
Does it surf the web, handle iPhoto, iTunes, mail, etc? Way better than my Winblows XP laptop that is 3 years old does. :cool:
 
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