Bought a used imac G5 ( a few questions)

[mjarema414]

I recently bought a imac g5 1.8 with 1gb ram. I believe this one came out in 2005. I wanted to buy a used mac to play around on since I've used a pc for most of my life. I'm planning on using it for music recording. A few things:
It came with tiger 10.4.11 and I'd like to upgrade to 10.5. Will Leopard run ok on this system?
Should I upgrade the RAM to 2GB and if so, what memory sticks work the best in an imac?

If there is anything else you think I should know, please fill me in. I really appreciate any advice on this system. I'm excited about diving into the mac world. PC's just have so many issues and I'm getting tired of dealing with them. Thanks!

 

[peskaa]

Leopard will work on the G5, but as you guessed, upgrading to 2GB of RAM would be of great benefit. I can't remember the RAM type for the iMac G5s, but Crucial's website (www.crucial.com) has a system selector that will tell you.

 

[docstens]

I have a 1.8GHz iMac G5, mine with 2 GB RAM. As noted, Leopard runs fine on this machine. I ordered the RAM for it after price shopping at ramseeker.com. Their configurator is confusing, though, so you should probably figure out which RAM stick is appropriate via some place like crucial.com or macsales.com (Other World Computing). I believe the iMac G5's without the iSight camera take PC3200 and the ones with the iSight take PC4200, but my advice is probably worth exactly what you are paying me, so I'd check those configuration sites.

The RAM install is pretty easy, although you have to pop the back off the machine.

A video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEBv_7i9r94

Install manual from Apple is here: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/imacg5_20inch_memory.pdf

Since you bought it used, this will also allow you to check for dust bunnies in the fans, etc. while you're in there.

Good luck with your "new" machine.

 

[Zortrium]

The iSight iMac G5s were all 1.9 or 2.1 GHz, so I'm pretty sure the OP's machine takes PC3200 (400 MHz).

 

[mjarema414]

thanks for useful information. Hopefully I can give back after learning some ins/outs of the mac. Being a PC user all of these years, I have a lot to learn. I'm trying to get the most out of the G5. I'm sure I'll upgrade eventually but this is a good starting point.