iMac questions

[maradong]

Howdy all,

I got some questions concerning the iMac 17'' with the 1 Ghz G4, i got myself back in july.

My money stack *g* has risen again, and that s why I am thinking about investing it for a bit into that machine.

Well, first of all, I thought of a new Hard Disc, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus link.

Model Number:ST3160023A
Capacity:160 GB
Speed:7200 rpm
Seek time:8.5 ms avg
Interface:Ultra ATA/100

Best-in-class non-operating shock for excellent reliability
Best combination of performance, acoustics and robustness
Idle acoustics of 2.5 bels- the industry's best

Now, I am not sure wether my chipset will support 160 GB. Anybody got some information on this ?

Next, I thought of finally getting the gig of ram, which should be fairly enough for some time to come. At the moment I got 768 MB which is certainly not bad, but well, more can not really harm.

There are 2 memory slots. One on the bottom, and one more like in the top of the iMac. The one in the bottom has 512MB. The top one, which is I think notebook ram, is a 256 MB module.

Is there anybody who got some recommandations on which ram to get for the "top slot" ?

 

[bpd115]

It will support the Hard drive no problem.

The internal dimm is a standard 168 Pin stick of DDR (get it from crucial.com)

The 2nd 'user' memory bay is a notebook SODIMM.

 

[mklos]

You do realize that once you crack open your iMac beyond the bottom cover will void the original 1 year warranty on your iMac. So replacing the hard drive yourself would void the warranty. To avoid this, you may want to look at an external FW Hard Drive. You can buy the whole thing, or your can buy a FW external drive enclosure and then buy the hard drive of your choice.

Yes your iMac should handle a 160 GB hard drive. If they can handle an external 200 GB hard drive then they should handle a 160GB internal drive.

As far as RAM goes....

The "Apple Slot" is the slot inside the case that only Apple is able to get to. That uses regular PC2100 DDR DIMMS. The "User" slot is the slot that the user can get under the iMac. That uses 200 Pin PC2100 DDR SODIMMS.

As far as whats best, well Crucial makes good quality RAM and its not really that expensive. Any PC2100 DDR RAM DIMM should work without any problems. And again, replacing the RAM in the Apple slot would void the warranty because you would have to open up the iMac.

If you do open your iMac up be sure to take your time, be nice and easy with it. And be sure you apply some thermal paste back on the cooling mechanism or else your iMac will not cool properly.

You can go here to learn how to take apart your iMac:

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

 

[maradong]

thank you,
but I still got a question.

17-inch model includes 256MB of PC2100 (266Mhz) DDR SDRAM expandable to 1GB

That is what the tech-specs say of this machine. pdf.
Does that mean that the iMac will under no circumstances support more than 1 Gb of ram ?

Second question:

internal bluetoothe module available as a build-to-order option

Does that mean I will not be able to get a bluetooth chip, so that I can use a bluetooth keyboard/mouse?

 

[mklos]

I don't remember that name of the company (Transatlantic I think), but they make a 1 GB SODIMM which does work in an iMac and takes the max RAM beyond 1 GB. This is extremely expensive though.

Unless you preordered Bluetooth with your iMac you cannot get it internal, however you can still get a USB Bluetooth module (D-LINK makes a good one!) which still works great with the Apple Wireless keyboard and mouse as well as other bluetooth devices.