My New iMac G3

[sheppy1]

Hi guys, just picked up an iMac G3 today for a very small amount of money, it had an issue with the Hard rive so I just swapped it out for a new one, reinstalled OSX Panther and Voila! It works Now this is the oldest Mac that I have ever used and I'm seriously impressed with it so fa, it runs like a champ, I actually can't believe just how fast it is, programs like iTunes and Mail take literally about 2 seconds to open, not bad for a 10 year old computer. I'm just having 1 problem with it though, there is a black border all the way around the screen, now this border is always there, even when the Mac is booting up and it's just showing the Apple logo screen, which leads me to believe it's a hardware fault Can anyone actually shed any light on the problem? Cheers

I've also included a photo of the problem

http://img248.imageshack.us/f/img0176av.jpg/

ad to post a link to the image on Imageshack as it was to big to upload to the forum

 

[drewdle]

Most iMacs have this issue, yours is just a little more pronounced. I've never seen a CRT iMac where the image spanned the size of the screen. That being said, I cannot find any mention of adjustments you could make on the internet. You'd be looking for horizontal and vertical size adjustments (newer CRT monitors had buttons for this, older ones had dials). I've always chalked it up to limitations of the CRT based design.

Glad to see you got it running though! I love the Indigo color.

 

[sheppy1]

Most iMacs have this issue, yours is just a little more pronounced. I've never seen a CRT iMac where the image spanned the size of the screen. That being said, I cannot find any mention of adjustments you could make on the internet. You'd be looking for horizontal and vertical size adjustments (newer CRT monitors had buttons for this, older ones had dials). I've always chalked it up to limitations of the CRT based design.

Glad to see you got it running though! I love the Indigo color.

I actually found an option in the settings menu for changig the height and width of the image, managed to adjust it now so it's a lot better than it was

Gorgeous isn't it, it looks great in this colour. I've just installed all the updates and it's actually running beatifully now, I still can't belive just how fast this thing is, straight after booting it up it's actually quicker at opening apps than my Macbook Air lol. Can't believe how cheap it was either, got it with the original keyboard and mouse for only £10! Now that's a bargain if I ever did see one, everything is in fantastic condition too. Think the only things I have found wrong with it is that it's missing the bottom compartment which covers the RAM slots and that it didn't come with a wireless card but you can't really expect it too as they were optional at the time of release, shame the wireless cards are quite expensive as this thing would replace my desktop PC if it had that lol

 

[drewdle]

I actually found an option in the settings menu for changig the height and width of the image, managed to adjust it now so it's a lot better than it was

Gorgeous isn't it, it looks great in this colour. I've just installed all the updates and it's actually running beatifully now, I still can't belive just how fast this thing is, straight after booting it up it's actually quicker at opening apps than my Macbook Air lol. Can't believe how cheap it was either, got it with the original keyboard and mouse for only £10! Now that's a bargain if I ever did see one, everything is in fantastic condition too. Think the only things I have found wrong with it is that it's missing the bottom compartment which covers the RAM slots and that it didn't come with a wireless card but you can't really expect it too as they were optional at the time of release, shame the wireless cards are quite expensive as this thing would replace my desktop PC if it had that lol

Sounds like we've got another convert. I still can't come to terms with how quickly my iMac G4 goes about it's business. I'd love to have a G3 because they have a cuteness about them that disappeared about the same time as the color options did. Indigo makes all of these machines look good. I really wish I could have gotten my iBook in Indigo, but they never made any 466Mhz machines in that color, just Lime Green and Graphite, and Lime Green machines were about a hundred dollars more than what I paid for mine, on average.

And it's pretty fast too. Enjoy your purchase! I wish I could find deals like that around here.

 

[sheppy1]

Sounds like we've got another convert. I still can't come to terms with how quickly my iMac G4 goes about it's business. I'd love to have a G3 because they have a cuteness about them that disappeared about the same time as the color options did. Indigo makes all of these machines look good. I really wish I could have gotten my iBook in Indigo, but they never made any 466Mhz machines in that color, just Lime Green and Graphite, and Lime Green machines were about a hundred dollars more than what I paid for mine, on average.

And it's pretty fast too. Enjoy your purchase! I wish I could find deals like that around here.

Definately, I had no idea these old Macs were so damn fast, I mean when you look at the specs you wouldn't think they could be as fast as they are but damn do they fly and mine is only the 500Mhz model and only has 300 something MB of RAM, I've upgraded the HD already from the 40GB one that was in there to a new 80GB HD, looking at RAM prices now as I'd like to stick the full 1GB in here, I'm also looking at getting a wireless airport card for it too then this thing will be complete. I do agree with you, these G3s do have a certain charm about them. I wish I could afford to buy a G4 though as those things look imense, they are still fetching quite a lot online though and I don't have the cash to buy one at the moment, maybe one day though...

 

[blunderboy]

Those iMac G3s are awesome. I've never had one—every Mac I've owned has been a laptop—but I first learned Photoshop, Illustrator and iMovie on a graphite one that I worked on at school, and I have a particular fondness for them. If I were to get a retro Mac, I would definitely pick one up just for old times' sake. They're fairly easy to find where I live (but then again, I'm in SF, which is crawling with Mac people.)

 

[max¥¥]

Those iMac G3s are awesome. I've never had one—every Mac I've owned has been a laptop—but I first learned Photoshop, Illustrator and iMovie on a graphite one that I worked on at school, and I have a particular fondness for them. If I were to get a retro Mac, I would definitely pick one up just for old times' sake. They're fairly easy to find where I live (but then again, I'm in SF, which is crawling with Mac people.)

i agree,the imac g3's are awesome, i first learned to love mac on my dad's rev b 233 imac g3 i must have been 4 when we last had that imac but i now have 2 imacs a 333mhz rev c and a 350mhz first gen slotloader

 

[MacHamster68]

welcome to the iMac g3 fan club , they are fantastic little computers and considering their age they are indeed surprisingly fast , and if you stick to panther and keep flashplayer 8 or 9 as maximum on them they manage most webfeatures , ok before someone cries out " youtube is losing a frame every 4 seconds ", watching youtube is not really what i would call the most important thing you have to do an a computer , i have converted various VHS holiday videos to cd with mine and ok it might take a bit longer then a new iMac with a i7 processor , but that is absolute not important , important is the iMac g3 still does what you ask him to do , might take a bit longer but who cares important is the iMac g3 gets things done without complains and with a quiet harddrive even nearly in total silence , and even more important its a gorgeous little computer


and here a little link to a website dedicated to the iMac g3
http://imacworld.110mb.com/index.html

 

[iThinkergoiMac]

on my dad's rev b 233 imac g3

The Rev Bs are 266 MHz and the Rev As are 233 MHz. Small technicality, I know, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

The black border has to do with the fact that the screen is a CRT and you'll never get it to go entirely away. For whatever reason, the page you linked to isn't loading so I can't see it, but that's my guess. Glad to see you got it figured out!

If you max out the RAM on it (the real max of 512 MB, not Apple's quoted max of 256) and install Mac OS 9, it'll go so fast it'll probably just float off your desk...

 

[sheppy1]

welcome to the iMac g3 fan club , they are fantastic little computers and considering their age they are indeed surprisingly fast , and if you stick to panther and keep flashplayer 8 or 9 as maximum on them they manage most webfeatures , ok before someone cries out " youtube is losing a frame every 4 seconds ", watching youtube is not really what i would call the most important thing you have to do an a computer , i have converted various VHS holiday videos to cd with mine and ok it might take a bit longer then a new iMac with a i7 processor , but that is absolute not important , important is the iMac g3 still does what you ask him to do , might take a bit longer but who cares important is the iMac g3 gets things done without complains and with a quiet harddrive even nearly in total silence , and even more important its a gorgeous little computer


and here a little link to a website dedicated to the iMac g3
http://imacworld.110mb.com/index.html

It so good to see the amount of people who appear to really like this computer, and yea it seems to be a good little workhorse, sits there silently running and just seems to do whatever you throw at it without crashing or slowing down, obviously it has it's limitations but for day to day usage it's great.

I'm just gonna point out another few things I've found about it that I thing are good. First up is the speakers, these speakers are fantastic! They go very loud and sound fantastic considering the age. Next is the little flip out stand on the bottom, that thing is genius, I really like the way they have implemented this, no stupid swiveling base stands like with old CRT monitors. Thirdly is the handle on the top, that thing is great and has come in handy so many time since I bought it, it was always such a pain having to pick up and move old CRT monitors as there was no easy way to do it, but with the handle on the G3 it's so simple, I just unplug the 2 cables that are in the unit and then off we go . There are a bunch of cool features on the Apple Pro mouse and keyboard set that I got with it too but I won't go into them, lets just say there are pure awesome too.

Cheers for the site too, I have been looking for somewhere like that

 

[sheppy1]

The Rev Bs are 266 MHz and the Rev As are 233 MHz. Small technicality, I know, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

The black border has to do with the fact that the screen is a CRT and you'll never get it to go entirely away. For whatever reason, the page you linked to isn't loading so I can't see it, but that's my guess. Glad to see you got it figured out!

If you max out the RAM on it (the real max of 512 MB, not Apple's quoted max of 256) and install Mac OS 9, it'll go so fast it'll probably just float off your desk...

I read that that max amount of RAM that can go into my model is actually 1GB? If that's true then I can only imagine how fast it would actually go with that in it, I mean I only have 320Mb and it's already very fast, faster than a 10 year old Windows PC would be if it had 320MB RAM in it and a 500Mhz processor anyway

 

[crazyrog17]

The G3 processor can't be directly compared to other processors such as those used on old windows machines.

The G3 processors use higher throughput than it's counterparts. That means it does more calculations in fewer clock cycles.

Imagine a four lane freeway going 25 mph (the G3) next to a two lane highway going 50 mph (windows machines)... Both roads will get the same number of cars through, but the speed limit throws off your expectations.

 

[MacinDan]

The Rev Bs are 266 MHz and the Rev As are 233 MHz. Small technicality, I know, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Small correction in case anyone searches this thread years from now looking for vital information, but at least some if not all Rev. Bs were 233 MHz. The difference between the As and Bs was a redesigned motherboard.

 

[applefan1997]

Small correction in case anyone searches this thread years from now looking for vital information, but at least some if not all Rev. Bs were 233 MHz. The difference between the As and Bs was a redesigned motherboard.

Correct. The Rev. B was a revised 233MHz model, the main difference being 6MB of standard VRAM (the original had 2MB upgradeable to 4MB or 6MB), as well as "several hardware bug fixes."

The Rev. C were the 266MHz, and the Rev. D was 333MHz.