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Gentlemen, a G3 iMac was saved today.

Jschultz

Jschultz

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 14, 2005
880
13
Chicago, IL
By me :D

Clif notes, because I hate wasting the time of others.

-Perusing craigslist, I see an ad for a FREE iMac
- Calling seller reveals that he was going to toss it out, but didn't want to illegally dispose of it.
- Supposedly screen doesn't come on; no video.
-Has an upgraded 80GB HDD, no OS on it.
- I take iMac home, connecting it to my external monitor. To my surprise, iMac monitor fires up. Functions 100%?
- I frantically scour the area for OSX disc, and eventually find Jaguar.
-Hours later, here I am.

First of all, I'm amused by how useable the computer is with a paltry 256mb of RAM. iTunes, Safari seem to function fine with just this amount. I'm going to head over to the computer outlet store to buy 2 512 sticks and max this thing out. Sweet!

I've been dying to get back into a mac, at all costs. I sold my 20" 2.4ghz iMac back in January to raise cash for my apartments security deposit and rent. I had a place to live, no mac :(

Picked this up for free to just screw around with an do basic tasks (word processing, iTunes, internet) and I'm finding it's capable. I'm hoping it will tide me over until I've saved up for a new unibody macbook.

BTW, it's a Summer 2001 Graphite I'm typing from. 600mhz G3, 256mb RAM. Ohhhhh yeah. This thing seems to be a trooper. The fact that it is remotely useable after 8 years of use astounds and delights me to no end. Gotta love OSX and Apple hardware.

Anyways, I wanted to let people know that I too may be turning into one of those Low-End-Mac wackos! :D
 
that was a very good deal. congrats...

you can find a lot of use on that iMac. I believe that if you are not intending to do design work or play some complex games then the iMac G3 is as capable as anything else
 
Still have a Graphite G3 myself. It does the basics well enough, makes a nice luggable DVD player too.
Last time I moved it was the 'set-up' computer that was plugged in at the new place while the walls were still bare and the other desktops were being packed up.
Not using it much now though.
 
Nice one, the dead screen means the inverter board has blown, fairly common on the teardrop iMacs but as you've found, an external screen works fine. Taking the RAM up to 1 GB is a good move and if you can you should install a copy of Tiger (10.4) as it's faster and far more compatible and up to date then Jaguar. A G3 600 will do all the day to day tasks that you've mentioned, although flash may hurt a bit, my mum still has a G3 400 as her day to day machine. Enjoy it :)
 
Got the same model (although my CRT still works!) Mine's running OS X Tiger 10.4.11 / 640MB / 40GB. I donated to a local kid's community centre that only operates in the summertime; it runs their office email and even a live webcam (EvoCam). Classic Mac's still rock! :apple:
 
Since it is not my primary Mac, I just have OS9 on it and have old programs like Word 2001, Diablo II, Corel Draw, playing DVDs, Hypercard, Warcraft III, Starcraft, iMovie 2, iTunes 2, etc. A maxed out iMac with a few good apps is very usable with OS9. I have sold newer Macs when I replace them with faster machines but I'll keep this one.
 
Ah, I think my wording was confusing- the seller had said the screen didn't work. However, it does! No need for an external monitor! :D

Is it possible to use flash on here at all? If so, where do I get an older version?

Also, how do I know if my firmware is up to date? I really want to upgrade to Panther at least. I've read that I may need to partition a 9.2.2 install to do the firmware if it isn't upgraded.

Thanks!
 
sweet save. i just love the older imac systems, and still have a graphite here as well.

apple support is a good place to find older support documents, in this case Firmware update before 10.2 or higher has most of the info and links you should need.

it has to be booted from 9.1 or higher, not running from cd, and needs a small bit of free space to complete without errors.

since you have it up and running, you could check the current rev by going to system profiler, click on the system profile, and look under product information.

best of luck.
 
Ok, so bootROM info says I am running firmware 4.1.9f1, which is I believe is current?

If so, that means I'm clear to buy a copy of panther, yes?
 
Don't bother with Panther. Apple has quickly dropped support and things like Safari 3 won't work on it. I've got a 600MHz Snow iMac with 576Mb of RAM and it runs Tiger like a champ. Very smooth and quite usable. Go ahead and pick up a copy of Tiger instead of Panther.
 
Thanks for the advice sir! I'll go right ahead and get a copy of Tiger. I'll probably need Xpostfacto to install though, right?
 
Jschultz said:
Thanks for the advice sir! I'll go right ahead and get a copy of Tiger. I'll probably need Xpostfacto to install though, right?
Click to expand...
Nope, no need for Xpostfacto. It'll run 10.4 natively without any hacking required. Finding install CD's may be an issue, and like was mentioned above I would recommend finding another Mac with a DVD drive to do a firewire install.
 
The Graphite G3 iMac is a thing of beauty... These were still "Made in California". Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!
 
Well, I used the advice found in this thread, and am now running Tiger. It is soooooo much better than Jaguar, even on this old iMac. Expose and Dashboard are a bit choppy with only 256mb of memory, but they work. I'm currently scouring craigslist for a couple of 512mb sticks to max this thing out.

The only thing I wish this iMac could do was some video. Those QT videos on Apple's site produce audio, but it's like a slide show because I'm only getting like 1 fps. :D
 
Hrududu said:
I don't know, I liked the graphite and all, but the snow was definitely my favorite of the G3's. It looked so classy.
Click to expand...

I agree. The snow was beautiful (even the eMac looked elegant), and I think it was the prototype for the iMac G4 and G5-- it's too bad Ives and company decided to go with the current aluminum for the iMac, and not evolve the snow plastic aesthetic.
 
nice, 10.4 is the way to go no doubt. next as you are already doing, is max out the ram. makes a world of difference. after that, you said 80gb drive, but any idea if it's a 5400rpm or 7200rpm drive? the difference between running on a slower or fast drive is really noticeable on the g3 systems, and is an easy upgrade if you have the slower one.

for video, you may have already tried it, but i would get a copy of VLC and see how that works. just make sure to get the PPC version, not the intel one.
 
4JNA said:
nice, 10.4 is the way to go no doubt. next as you are already doing, is max out the ram. makes a world of difference. after that, you said 80gb drive, but any idea if it's a 5400rpm or 7200rpm drive? the difference between running on a slower or fast drive is really noticeable on the g3 systems, and is an easy upgrade if you have the slower one.
Click to expand...

Yes, max the ram, 256 is not enough.
I would suggest maybe augmenting the convective cooling as HDDs in these models get really hot, especially the larger faster ones.
 
jodelli said:
...I would suggest maybe augmenting the convective cooling as HDDs in these models get really hot, especially the larger faster ones.
Click to expand...


i used to agree. and then i decided to test it. i put the hottest running POS 7200rpm maxtor drive i could find in a graphite 400 slot loader with no case/fan changes. it's running 10.4, has an external USB key for wifi, and has been used every day for more than 3 years by a (now) high school student who is mad into chat and ponies and pink blinky myspace pages and stuff. no idea on why it is still alive, but really, this would be the one that would die if it were true. it smells hot, it feels hot, and it still keeps working every single day. strange but true.

perhaps the temp difference between 400 and 600 would be enough to require additional cooling... that is to say, your mileage may vary. :eek:
 
My dad works for American Airlines, and they used to use Macs exclusively in the offices where he works. He had a blue G3 iMac on his desk, but there were also orange ones, purple ones, red ones, etc. He said they never, ever had issues with any of them.

Then American Airlines became evil and greedy, so they tossed out the poor Macs, switched to barely-usable PCs and the corporate suits pocketed the savings. Bonuses? Nope. ;)
 
I love my Snow iMac! Mine is also a 600mhz model. I have 768mb and Tiger on it and it runs beautifully. It's not just a useless piece of crap that I have for nostalgia, either. I use it all the time to write papers, put together spreadsheets and graphs, etc.

I've switched my main computer over to a Vista based Sony Vaio, and I'm always amazed at how nicely implemented things like Spotlight, Grapher, Dashboard, TextEdit, etc. are compared to Windows' crappy substitutes.
 
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