Just got my first iMac, a couple questions...

[tamarock]

Hi there, so I held out and waited for the refresh and got my first iMac. I got the 27" iMac i7 with 4gb of ram. I plan on upgrading to 8gb in a few weeks. I'm moving from an old dual core 2gb pc that's been overheating, so a pretty big leap for me. I'm still kinda new to the Mac world. I got my MacBook Pro about 2yrs ago, but I'm still learning.

I'm happy to report that there seems to be no yellow tint in the screen. From what I can tell, the screen seems flawless. I did encounter a slight problem though. I was loading all my software, which seemed to go fine. I tried installing WoW and when I loaded the 5th disc nothing happened. It made a few noises when I first put it in, but nothing happened. There was no way to eject it so I had to restart the computer to get it out. I tried it again, and on the 3rd disc it happened again. So I gave up and finished installing some software I had. All the software installs went fine. Is this a common problem with WoW discs, or is this something I should be worried about? I went ahead and dowloaded the game so no worries there, but just concerned about whether or not this is an issue with my new iMac.

Also, since I will be upgrading the ram myself in a few weeks, any recommendations on what and where to buy? I'm looking to add another 4gb. I'm very familiar with installing ram in PCs but not Macs, is the process the same? Also, any questions you have about the i7 I'll do my best to answer.

 

[Hellhammer]

The SuperDrives are known to be tricky and picky, I recommend you to download them or buy an external DVD drive if you need to use DVDs a lot as SuperDrive tends to scratch them and has issues ejecting them etc

I would buy from OWC, RAM installation video

 

[alust2013]

Hi there, so I held out and waited for the refresh and got my first iMac. I got the 27" iMac i7 with 4gb of ram. I plan on upgrading to 8gb in a few weeks. I'm moving from an old dual core 2gb pc that's been overheating, so a pretty big leap for me. I'm still kinda new to the Mac world. I got my MacBook Pro about 2yrs ago, but I'm still learning.

I'm happy to report that there seems to be no yellow tint in the screen. From what I can tell, the screen seems flawless. I did encounter a slight problem though. I was loading all my software, which seemed to go fine. I tried installing WoW and when I loaded the 5th disc nothing happened. It made a few noises when I first put it in, but nothing happened. There was no way to eject it so I had to restart the computer to get it out. I tried it again, and on the 3rd disc it happened again. So I gave up and finished installing some software I had. All the software installs went fine. Is this a common problem with WoW discs, or is this something I should be worried about? I went ahead and dowloaded the game so no worries there, but just concerned about whether or not this is an issue with my new iMac.

Also, since I will be upgrading the ram myself in a few weeks, any recommendations on what and where to buy? I'm looking to add another 4gb. I'm very familiar with installing ram in PCs but not Macs, is the process the same? Also, any questions you have about the i7 I'll do my best to answer.

Not sure about WoW, but as far as RAM goes, Crucial and OWC both make good stuff. I'd check out newegg and macsales.com to buy it. Installation in an iMac is pretty easy, there is just a cover on the bottom edge and you pop it in just like a PC. I think the iMacs may actually use the notebook form factor memory, so be sure to get a look at exactly what kind it is.

 

[ramallite]

I did encounter a slight problem though. I was loading all my software, which seemed to go fine. I tried installing WoW and when I loaded the 5th disc nothing happened. It made a few noises when I first put it in, but nothing happened. There was no way to eject it so I had to restart the computer to get it out. I tried it again, and on the 3rd disc it happened again. So I gave up and finished installing some software I had. All the software installs went fine. Is this a common problem with WoW discs, or is this something I should be worried about? I went ahead and dowloaded the game so no worries there, but just concerned about whether or not this is an issue with my new iMac.

Also, since I will be upgrading the ram myself in a few weeks, any recommendations on what and where to buy? I'm looking to add another 4gb. I'm very familiar with installing ram in PCs but not Macs, is the process the same? Also, any questions you have about the i7 I'll do my best to answer.

I am still waiting for (or as they inexplicably say here in the south, waiting on) my i7 iMac to arrive. But I have had the same problem with certain disks with my tray-loading Power-Mac. Basically there are certain discs (and they are always the same discs) which tend to "wobble" or get misread inside the drive, causing them to either be really noisy, not recognized by the computer, or both. One that pops into mind is my Civilization IV Warlords disk. I often have to remove and reinsert for it to be recognized. With a tray-loading system, this is not a problem, but a slot-loading iMac might not eject a disk it doesn't even know is there. So bottom line, in my experience it's the disk, not the drive, although it does allude to the fact that some drives are a bit too sensitive to uneven discs. As to the reason for what I'm calling "unevenness", it could be the sticker label on the disk itself, or just bad quality discs, or whatever...

As for RAM, as mentioned above, it's a very straightforward process, just need to be careful to lay the iMac face-down on a clean surface, and a regular Phillips screwdriver is all you need. I get my RAM from Newegg - the last I bought was the Corsair Valueselect; I believe you can buy two sticks of 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM for your new iMac for under $50 each. Sometimes Amazon matches those prices but with free shipping (Newegg charges something like $2.99 for shipping).

 

[tamarock]

I am still waiting for (or as they inexplicably say here in the south, waiting on) my i7 iMac to arrive. But I have had the same problem with certain disks with my tray-loading Power-Mac. Basically there are certain discs (and they are always the same discs) which tend to "wobble" or get misread inside the drive, causing them to either be really noisy, not recognized by the computer, or both. One that pops into mind is my Civilization IV Warlords disk. I often have to remove and reinsert for it to be recognized. With a tray-loading system, this is not a problem, but a slot-loading iMac might not eject a disk it doesn't even know is there. So bottom line, in my experience it's the disk, not the drive, although it does allude to the fact that some drives are a bit too sensitive to uneven discs. As to the reason for what I'm calling "unevenness", it could be the sticker label on the disk itself, or just bad quality discs, or whatever...

Thanks, that's a little comforting to know. That sucks about your wait. I called the Apple store all week waiting to see if they had any of the new i7s, they had everything but that one. One guy told me that it could take a month to get them in. So I was getting ready to just order it online yesterday, and right before I submitted my order I thought I should try them one last time. Viola! They had them in and I was there within the hour.

 

[Thermonuclear]

Idea: Get an external USB DVD-ROM drive (approx. US$45) and use it to read funky disks.

Better idea: Use the internal DVD drive to burn copies of funky disks read by the external drive; the burned disks should be easily read by the drive that burned them.

 

[ramallite]

That sucks about your wait. I called the Apple store all week waiting to see if they had any of the new i7s, they had everything but that one. One guy told me that it could take a month to get them in. So I was getting ready to just order it online yesterday, and right before I submitted my order I thought I should try them one last time. Viola! They had them in and I was there within the hour.

I'm okay with the wait - I'm actually half-dreading the arrival of my new iMac - and the reason is I love my old Power Mac G5. It even felt a little adulterous of me to order my new iMac from this G5. In fact, I still haven't convinced myself that I really needed the new one; except for how more and more software (including Snow Leopard) won't run on PowerPC machines anymore plus the fact that my G5 is slowing down. We actually have our annual tax-free weekend here in NC right now, but I ordered online (tax-free also) because I wanted a full-sized keyboard instead of the amputated wireless one. The guy at the Apple Store told me last night that they had the i7 in stock after a little "ummmm" so I don't know if they really did or not, but I had already placed my online order.

 

[Eastend]

I'm okay with the wait - I'm actually half-dreading the arrival of my new iMac - and the reason is I love my old Power Mac G5. It even felt a little adulterous of me to order my new iMac from this G5. In fact, I still haven't convinced myself that I really needed the new one; except for how more and more software (including Snow Leopard) won't run on PowerPC machines anymore plus the fact that my G5 is slowing down.

I know exactly what you mean, have the G5 Dual 2.5 GHz model, did lot's of work for me, replaced with Quad Mac Pro 2009, the Mac Pro has the same Geekbench score as 2009 i7 iMac. That should help ease your pain of giving up your old love, the new iMac i7 is around 4 times faster than your old G5 (probably more), have fun when it arrives.

 

[ramallite]

Thanks - I'll keep my G5 around, probably give it to my 5-year old to play with. The Apple recycle program would only pay me $188 for it (including display) had I given it to them. It'll get some more life out of it yet Heck, I'm still using my 2001 iBook G3 as my only laptop !!