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Mid 2007 24" iMac

N

norcalmacwatchr

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 26, 2011
2
0
OK here we go,

I have a mid 2007 iMac 2.4 Core Duo with a whopping 4 gig of RAM with a Stock 500gig 7200 RPM Seagate drive.

I am experiencing slow launch on apps, some do not launch and have to Force Quit. The spinning Beach ball is killing me. Out of 500 gig I have 166 available. If I replace the HD with a SSD that will be awesome. But with only 4 gig of RAM is is worth the $400 from Crucial or invest in a new 27" iMac for about $2100 with SSD and 8 and or up to 32 gigs.

Any body running a 2007 iMac with a SSD and 4 gig of RAM?

dave
 
If you're having performance issues, this may help:
To determine if you can benefit from more RAM, launch Activity Monitor and click the System Memory tab at the bottom to check your page outs. Page outs are cumulative since your last restart, so the best way to check is to restart your computer and track page outs under your normal workload (the apps, browser pages and documents you normally would have open). If your page outs are significant (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you may benefit from more RAM. If your page outs are zero or very low during normal use, you probably won't see any performance improvement from adding RAM.

Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory and determine how much RAM is being used
 
Even if it supports 6GB RAM it's still a significantly slower DDR2 sticks, it won't help much with performance either. If you have the money, just get the new iMac to replace yours? It's been a 6 years good riddance. Make complete backup and time to say goodbye?
 
I have an SSD in such a machine and it breathed new life into the system! I had exactly the problem you describe and was ready to buy a new computer but was reticent as the new iMacs hadn't been released.

I put in a Crucial SSD and haven't worried about the long shipping times of the new iMacs because I'm still happy with my 2007 beast.

Now my big concerns are the yellowing of the screen and the ever present smudge.

I think the SSD was worth every penny and was much easier to install than I anticipated!
 
GGJstudios said:
Not true. The Mid 2007 iMac supports up to 6GB of RAM.
Click to expand...

Technically it can support 8GB, but it gets very slow and unstable after 6GB because it runs out of memory access registers. But yes, a SSD would do wonders for that machine. Probably extend its life another few years if Apple doesn't kill it off with 10.9. (Which they probably will seeing as they are "Vintage" machines as of June 2013.)
 
iSayuSay said:
Even if it supports 6GB RAM it's still a significantly slower DDR2 sticks, it won't help much with performance either.
Click to expand...

You obviously don't speak from experience.

2008 24" iMac here, maxed out at 6GB RAM. Dropped in a 240GB SSD, later Fused it with an external 2TB FW800 drive, and it's like having a new machine. Easily extended the life another 1-2 years. And I don't just surf the web - I do lots of Aperture work as well as iMovie.

To the OP - when is the last time you repaired permissions? That can sometimes help with systems that seem inordinately slow. You have something else going on besides an old system. In addition to my 24" iMac, my kids use a 20" 2008 iMac as well, still with 4GB RAM and stock 320GB HDD. While the machine boots up slowly compared to one with an SSD, it's not so slow that they get beachballing when just launching apps, unless it's something like CS4 or another huge app. Things like Safari, Mail, iPhoto, etc. all work fine.
 
Mike in Kansas said:
To the OP - when is the last time you repaired permissions? That can sometimes help with systems that seem inordinately slow. You have something else going on besides an old system. In addition to my 24" iMac, my kids use a 20" 2008 iMac as well, still with 4GB RAM and stock 320GB HDD. While the machine boots up slowly compared to one with an SSD, it's not so slow that they get beachballing when just launching apps, unless it's something like CS4 or another huge app. Things like Safari, Mail, iPhoto, etc. all work fine.
Click to expand...

Seconded. Repair permissions, empty browser caches and histories, etc. Maybe run MacJanitor or another housecleaning app to see if it helps.
 
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