iMac G4: Thermal compound needed after take upgrade?

[sikkinixx]

Later tonight I hope to put a 1GB RAM stick into my 1.25ghz iMac G4. After looking at some guides online I am pretty sure I can handle it. But one video on youtube said you need to be sure to reapply some thermal paste on the heatsinks before you put it back together. Do you? No where else had mentioned that but it seems like I probably should.

How much? I know for a CPU it's a really small dab that needs to be spread very thin. I'm assuming the same with this if I need it?

Also, I don't have an compressed air to get the dust out. Best way to do that?

Can't wait to upgrade it to Tiger or Leopard.

 

[tom vilsack]

i did same thing a couple months back...

-i used gentle soft brush to lossen dust...

-for paste you first need to clean both areas from heat tube...there on either side and then i used rice size grain and tabed it over area using small plastic bag and finger tip...works well

 

[sikkinixx]

i did same thing a couple months back...

-i used gentle soft brush to lossen dust...

-for paste you first need to clean both areas from heat tube...there on either side and then i used rice size grain and tabed it over area using small plastic bag and finger tip...works well

Thanks for the advice. I think I used rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball to clean the surface before applying. I found another video where the guy advises to apply Thermal paste too. Will do.

Mr Clean Magic Eraser has it sparkling on the outside, want it to be the same on the inside. If only the screen wasn't damaged a bit

And Ladner eh? I won't hold that again you

 

[sikkinixx]

well it all seemed to work. A bit annoying to get it all back together.

Now I can't get Leopard to install. Argh. The internal DVD drive won't read anything so I plugged in an external drive and popped in Leopard. No problem, but when it reboots it goes straight back into Panther like nothing ever happened. I don't think it's recognizing my external dvd drive when it reboots.

Always a darn problem.

 

[tom vilsack]

whats wrong with ladner? moved here years ago...overlooking farmers field towards north shore...we love it

when i took mine apart i never used tape...just cleaned heat tube sides real good (they had some type falling apart black tape crap on them) and applied good thermal paste

as for your leopard install...you partitioned drive? panther and leopard on own partitions? if so when you boot just hold down option key and pick leopard partition...and in future to keep as boot partition just open system pref/startup disk

these are sites i used to take mine apart...i also changed my hd....... if you found good deal on dvd it's not to hard to replace your dead one.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/iMac_g4/imacg4_takeapart.html

http://www.kevinomura.com/macs/imacg4/index.html

 

[sikkinixx]

when i took mine apart i never used tape...just cleaned heat tube sides real good (they had some type falling apart black tape crap on them) and applied good thermal paste

as for your leopard install...you partitioned drive? panther and leopard on own partitions? if so when you boot just hold down option key and pick leopard partition...and in future to keep as boot partition just open system pref/startup disk

these are sites i used to take mine apart...i also changed my hd....... if you found good deal on dvd it's not to hard to replace your dead one.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/iMac_g4/imacg4_takeapart.html

http://www.kevinomura.com/macs/imacg4/index.html

Just teasing. I have family friends in Ladner. Just a long drive from civilization!

Finally got it to work. Had to open the the Open Firmware and fiddle with some stuff. Amazing little guide here:

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20101011105729488

I couldn't boot from the USB drive without doing that. It would let me set the USB drive as the boot drive, but when I reset, it would just boot back into Panther. So I created a Leopard image on an 8GB USB Key and managed to get the computer to boot from it. Ahhh so rewarding.

I'll definitely need to look into a new DVD drive though. And clean out the fan, it smells a little funky, I think the previous owner was a smoker.

 

[tom vilsack]

nice find...saving that link

btw: from ladner/delta to downtown takes me only 40 min...even in traffic.


did you max ram out to full 2 gigs? (1 + 1)

 

[sikkinixx]

nice find...saving that link

btw: from ladner/delta to downtown takes me only 40 min...even in traffic.


did you max ram out to full 2 gigs? (1 + 1)

No, just at 1GB right now. The SODIMM slot had a 512MB stick in it but it was a) no showing up in the system profiler and b)is pc2100 instead of pc2700 so I didn't want to mess around with it anyway. Maybe after xmas I will splurge for an Airport Extreme card (or USB WiFi stick) and another stick of RAM.

 

[tom vilsack]

this was the 1 gig i bought when i had my G4..it worked great

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=13309&vpn=VS1GSDS333&manufacture=Corsair

i took out a 256 sodimm 2700 that also had worked...which you can have if you want it. (maybe your friend could pickup and take to you?)