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Netscape Acting Strangely

Christine1234

Christine1234

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 2, 2011
168
13
Snowflake, AZ
I bought an iMac DV 400 at a yard sale. It kept coming up saying it was preparing to install OS X. It only got as far as the second installation question and then stayed there for 4 hours until I gave up and shut it down. I tried rebooting over and over, but it would stall out right there for hours each time. I could feel a disc in the slot and got it to eject. It was an OS 10.2 installation disk. Once that was out, the computer booted to OS 9.0.4.

It uses Netscape Communicator 4.7, and I would like to browse the web with it, but what shows up is not the pages I’m used to seeing. CNN News comes up as a bunch of links and things are on top of each other. Other pages behave similarly. It also freezes up. How do I deal with this? I tried going to a page to look for updates, but was unable to get enough of the page to download to see if this might work. I’m using another computer to type this.

I know it's an old computer, but I like the style and thought it would be nice to have another Mac.
 
Netscape is very old. Mac OS 9 is very old. I don't think there are any web browsers for Mac OS 9 that are still being worked on. I suggest upgrading to Mac OS 10.4.11 and putting in 1Gb of ram. It'll still be slow, but the Internet will be viewable.
 
Thanks, I'll do that. I'm not about to give up on turning this into a workable computer. It was fun to see OS 9 again, though. :)
 
Once you upgrade that old iMac with 1Gb of ram it should run Tiger/10.4 very nicely. I have it on my old 350Mhz G3 iMac and I was surprised at its speed. Much faster than Panther/10.3. They may be old, but they still have life.
 
Excellent! Thanks again. I'll look around for a copy, but since it choked using a 10.2 disk, it'll probably need more memory first.
 
Christine1234 said:
Excellent! Thanks again. I'll look around for a copy, but since it choked using a 10.2 disk, it'll probably need more memory first.
Click to expand...

You may want to upgrade the firmware first. Here's Apple's support list that tell's you how: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1283?viewlocale=en_US The update is required for your iMac to be able to run Mac OS 10.4. But you may have to first update OS 9 to 9.1. Here's where the updates are: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1387 My advice is to burn everything to a cd and install the updates form that.
 
Many thanks for the links. I'll burn them to a CD. According to what's on the computer, the last time it did anything before I got it was in October of 2005, so it was sitting without updates for quite a while.
 
I'm having a frustrating time trying to download 9.1 to a disk. It doesn't give me an option to place it on a disk, and tries to download it to this computer. I have to shut down to stop it.

Trying to download it directly to the iMac doesn't work either, because netscape keeps crashing and won't stay open long enough to start the download. I did a lot of Google searches to see what might be wrong but didn't have any luck.
 
When you download the 9.1 update, use Firefox. Then, on a modern Mac OS X computer, extract the disk image from the downloaded bin file. Burn that disk image to a cd with the firmware update as well. You'll probably have to extract the disk image from the firmware update bin as well. Then on the iMac, double click the disk image and run the update.
 
Intell said:
When you download the 9.1 update, use Firefox. Then, on a modern Mac OS X computer, extract the disk image from the downloaded bin file. Burn that disk image to a cd with the firmware update as well. You'll probably have to extract the disk image from the firmware update bin as well. Then on the iMac, double click the disk image and run the update.
Click to expand...

That worked! Now it's running OS 9.1 and has firmware update 4.1.9. :D

After the holiday weekend, I'll contact an eBay seller who sells a lot of computer memory and have him help me get the right memory board(s). Right now it says it has 64MB built-in memory and 65MB virtual memory. After that, I should be able to put the new OS on it. Netscape is still crashing an awful lot, but once the new OS in on it, I'll use Safari. :D:D
 
You need two 512Mb sticks. It must be PC100 or PC133. Make sure you get the desktop size, not the smaller laptop size. Also, there isn't any difference between Mac and Windows ram. Other things to make sure it is, non-ECC and SDRAM. If you have any questions about ram compatibility, just post a link to the listing and someone will help you out.

By the way, what size hard drive is in that iMac?
 
Intell said:
You need two 512Mb sticks. It must be PC100 or PC133. Make sure you get the desktop size, not the smaller laptop size. Also, there isn't any difference between Mac and Windows ram. Other things to make sure it is, non-ECC and SDRAM. If you have any questions about ram compatibility, just post a link to the listing and someone will help you out.

By the way, what size hard drive is in that iMac?
Click to expand...

Thanks. Now I'll know what to look for.

It has a 10GB hard drive.
 
Good, 10Gb should be enough for a installation of 10.4.11 and a few extra things. Just remember to keep at least 2Gb free for the system to use.
 
Will do. I don't use a lot of memory for files, anyway.

The computer I'm on now uses 10.4.11, and the OS works great.

There's nothing like a few days of using OS 9 to make a person really appreciate OS X.
 
That would work, but its for two 256 stick for a total of 512. You need two 512 sticks for the maximum of 1Gb. It will still run fairly well with only 512 in it though.
 
The memory is on its way, thanks! I went with the store because even though it's more expensive, they have a lifetime guarantee and the eBay seller has too much poor feedback, IMO, from items being bad when they arrived.

I also got a dongle to use with another Mac and a small tool kit for fixing Macs.
 
OWC is a very reputable company. Have made many purchases from them. Never a problem. Might not be a bad idea to change the PRAM battery while you're in there. It's accessible through the memory door if you have nimble fingers. Though the directions say to remove the shell. Done it many times through the memory door. Carefully observe the polarity of the battery and reinstall the same way. Be careful of high voltage near the CRT. Call them and they can add it to your order.

Battery
 
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The batteries are on the way, too. The iMac defaulted to a date in 1904 the last time it was powered up. :eek: Steve Jobs wasn't even born yet!

I also got a battery for the G5 Power Mac which defaulted to 1967 the last time it was powered up.
 
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