iMac g4 1.0ghz MAX RAM?

[brendu]

So my dad has the 17" iMac g4 1ghz (64mbVRAM) model... and wants to throw leopard on it. I reccomended he buy ram and found a 1GB DIMM he can add... I am wondering what the MAX ram supported by that machine is, and if it is like the older iBooks where it has some built in RAM that will add to that 1GB.

I found on a page of otherworldcomputing that the machine technically supports up to 2GB of ram, though one gig is "non user servicable" anad one is... im pretty confused... so what is the MAX ram I can get into this iMac?


...lookin at you here goldenmac... got anything?

 

[CubeHacker]

If OWC says you can use 2gb of RAM, that means 1GB in the user accessible slot, and 1GB in the internal slot (which you have to take the mac apart to reach).

 

[brendu]

If OWC says you can use 2gb of RAM, that means 1GB in the user accessible slot, and 1GB in the internal slot (which you have to take the mac apart to reach).

thanks, after a bit of research I found you are exactly correct. Im going to order both, the "factory serviceable" RAM seems easy enough to get to so I am going to do it myself. We will see how the old iMac performs with 2 gigs of ram under the hood.

 

[diamond3]

2gb should work. I have the same model and when I replaced the dvd drive, I put 1gb of ram inside and just have the 256mb sodimm in the user upgradeable slot. Works fine and recognizes it as 1.25. Its not too terrible to get in there, some of the connections can be tough to get apart. Just take your time, maybe have someone hold it while you try to stick your hands inside to work on it.

I'll be interested to hear back from you on how it performs with leopard. I've been thinking about reinstalling, reformatting the hd with leopard but have read that it can really slow the computer down.

 

[CubeHacker]

And don't forget once you take it apart you have to reapply the thermal paste to the base otherwise the system might overheat!

 

[brendu]

And don't forget once you take it apart you have to reapply the thermal paste to the base otherwise the system might overheat!

yeah i read that in a few places, where can I buy some thermal paste? would microcenter sell it?

EDIT: yes it looks like microcenter does sell it

 

[Badger^2]

Is there some reason for Leopard?

No G4 I have tried Leo on has been better for it... 10.4.11 has always run best.

 

[brendu]

Is there some reason for Leopard?

No G4 I have tried Leo on has been better for it... 10.4.11 has always run best.

leopard is wanted for time machine. And I had leopard running perfectly well on both a 1ghz eMac with 1 gig of ram, and a 1ghz iBook with 1.25 gigs of ram so im not worried about it running alright, I know it will.

 

[MacHamster68]

Is there some reason for Leopard?

No G4 I have tried Leo on has been better for it... 10.4.11 has always run best.

i have to agree there i installed leopard on my eMac G4/ 1.42 which has full 2 gig ram and has double the level 2 cache (512) compared to the iMac (256)
but leopard was disappointing in terms of speed it did boot slower to be polite , surfing www was something i needed to be patient with and watching youtube was near impossible as no flash would run proper ...it was like leopard had converted the G4 into a pre G3 processor
i can always do a backup by hand with carboncopycloner , so not realy a need for timemachine ,so i went back to tiger and have my G4 performance back ,its a real joy

 

[Badger^2]

There is other backup software out there for free.

True, they dont have the "multi-version" history like TM, but they backup just fine.

Carbon Copy Cloner and silverkeeper are both free.

 

[MacHamster68]

There is other backup software out there for free.

True, they dont have the "multi-version" history like TM, but they backup just fine.

Carbon Copy Cloner and silverkeeper are both free.

agreed , i use carboncopycloner and its doing a good job in backing up even the complete harddrive , making my external backup harddrive fully bootable too.