all of these things now are at least 10 years old and most have never been gone into before. i'm not talking about upgrades however one would be foolish not to max out the internal ram. what i've come up with is to clean all the dust out of it, replace the thermal paste and pram battery. anything else? i'd rather not fool with the hard drive until they go bad as i've got several of these g4's. any maintenance needed on the optical drive or anything else inside?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
how to maintain a g4 imac
- Thread starter gooser
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Essentially just ensure the fans are clean and in good working order, the PRAM battery is good, and the thermal paste is fresh and properly installed.
When I bought my g4 iMac the wifi and bluetooth were functional but did not have any range.
After opening it I noticed both antenna cables had been smashed when it was previously opened. I replaced the wifi cable for $20 but wasn't able to find a bluetooth antenna lead. I put it back together and smashed it myself. It looked to be routed properly but I guess it was right next to the screw holes.
Just something to be aware of.
After opening it I noticed both antenna cables had been smashed when it was previously opened. I replaced the wifi cable for $20 but wasn't able to find a bluetooth antenna lead. I put it back together and smashed it myself. It looked to be routed properly but I guess it was right next to the screw holes.
Just something to be aware of.
Mine doesn't have Bluetooth, but I did the same with the Airport antenna the first time I opened mine to replace the hard drive. It did not have an Airport card installed at the time.
Replacing the antenna was a bit of a pain as the whole logic board has to come out. I was also very careful with the antenna routing when putting it back together.
I took the opportunity to give everything in mine a good cleaning while I had it apart. The interfaces between the top and bottom half of the dome should be cleaned and repasted every time the computer is opened, but while the computer is apart I'd suggest removing the heatsink completely from the processor and doing a clean and repaste here also.
I think aside from this, there's not anything else to do. Just do as much as you can while the computer is apart as they are-as I'm sure you know-a bit of a pain to work on.
The whole base of these things acts as a cooling pad so don't be alarmed at the heat they generate. Keep the dust off the top air vents, etc. There's no real need to open it up unless the hard drive or disk drive goes bad, or you want to add more additional internal RAM.
The one external RAM slot and airport card can be accessed from the slot on the bottom of the machine underneath the cover plate, the internal RAM is a bit harder to get at and requires disassembly, hopefully someone else has done that for you at some point, but if not you can get in there to max the RAM out.
These machines are fine, reliable and don't really require any internal maintenance, I never touched mine once I upgraded the internal RAM after I bought it new.
The one external RAM slot and airport card can be accessed from the slot on the bottom of the machine underneath the cover plate, the internal RAM is a bit harder to get at and requires disassembly, hopefully someone else has done that for you at some point, but if not you can get in there to max the RAM out.
These machines are fine, reliable and don't really require any internal maintenance, I never touched mine once I upgraded the internal RAM after I bought it new.