New to forum -many questions.

[millardfillmore]

Hi all! I know little about apple computers but I have recently acquired a G4 emac specifications
Processor Speed 1000 Mhz
Memory 512MB MEMORY
Hard Drive 40GB
Optical Drive*CDROM DRIVE
ATI RADEON 9200 32MB
3 X USB PORTS
2 x FIREWIRE PORTS
17" CRT MONITOR
NON MAC KEYBOARD AND MOUSE
MAC OS 10.5.1 PRE LOADED
What I would like to know is whether I will be able to upgrade the Ram, add an airport and what will be the newest iworks an iLife I could run on this machine. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Regards
millard





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[iLucas]

Hi all! I know little about apple computers but I have recently acquired a G4 emac specifications
Processor Speed 1000 Mhz
Memory 512MB MEMORY
Hard Drive 40GB
Optical Drive*CDROM DRIVE
ATI RADEON 9200 32MB
3 X USB PORTS
2 x FIREWIRE PORTS
17" CRT MONITOR
NON MAC KEYBOARD AND MOUSE
MAC OS 10.5.1 PRE LOADED
What I would like to know is whether I will be able to upgrade the Ram, add an airport and what will be the newest iworks an iLife I could run on this machine. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Regards
millard





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The max ram you can upgrade the machine to would be 1GB and the eMac will run smoother with leopard if you have that 1GB. You can also add an airport card. You can run iWork 09 and iLife 09 but you will not be able to run the GarageBand Learn to play feature.

 

[cocacolakid]

Welcome to the board.

A good resource for looking up specs on Macs is Everymac.com, they'll also show you what the maximum upgrades are on RAM, etc.

You should also dig around this forum for suggestions on how to maximize the performance of your G4 eMac.

The most common suggestions are to use either TenFourFox or Camino as your browser, both have optimized versions for your processor. MacTubes is also excellent for G4 machines, and the G4 optimized MPlayer is a must.

You're right though, max out that RAM. OWC sells 512MB sticks for $24 or so, although there are plenty of other places to buy RAM as well.

 

[millardfillmore]

The max ram you can upgrade the machine to would be 1GB and the eMac will run smoother with leopard if you have that 1GB. You can also add an airport card. You can run iWork 09 and iLife 09 but you will not be able to run the GarageBand Learn to play feature.

Thanks that's just what I wanted to here, I am not at all bothered about the GarageBand application only really interested in office, web and photo applications - thanks for you help iLucas

Welcome to the board.

A good resource for looking up specs on Macs is Everymac.com, they'll also show you what the maximum upgrades are on RAM, etc.

You should also dig around this forum for suggestions on how to maximize the performance of your G4 eMac.

The most common suggestions are to use either TenFourFox or Camino as your browser, both have optimized versions for your processor. MacTubes is also excellent for G4 machines, and the G4 optimized MPlayer is a must.

You're right though, max out that RAM. OWC sells 512MB sticks for $24 or so, although there are plenty of other places to buy RAM as well.

Thanks for these suggestions I will certainly have a look at these. Are the web browsers available online to download or are they a part of some apple software package?

 

[cocacolakid]

Thanks for these suggestions I will certainly have a look at these. Are the web browsers available online to download or are they a part of some apple software package?

You can download them all.

Links:

TenFourFox (you'll want the 7400 version for your PPC CPU)

Camino (again, you want the 7400 version)

MacTubes

G4 Optimized MPlayer thread (follow the OP's suggestions on settings, you'll maximize performance)

And while I'm posting links, Low End Mac is a nice website with a lot of info on using older Macs as daily computers.

 

[cocacolakid]

Upgrading the memory is easy, just flip the eMac on it's screen, unscrew one screw, and you have access to the two RAM slots.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1319

To install an Airport card, you remove two screws from an access panel hidden around the optical drive.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2596

The other option for Airport, if the Airport card is pricey, is to use a USB WiFi adapter, just make sure it is Mac compatible, not all are. Here is one I found on a quick search, but I'm not familiar with the brand or the seller.

 

[stroked]

Here is a post that might be helpful.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/9848667/

 

[millardfillmore]

Upgrading the memory is easy, just flip the eMac on it's screen, unscrew one screw, and you have access to the two RAM slots.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1319

To install an Airport card, you remove two screws from an access panel hidden around the optical drive.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2596

The other option for Airport, if the Airport card is pricey, is to use a USB WiFi adapter, just make sure it is Mac compatible, not all are. Here is one I found on a quick search, but I'm not familiar with the brand or the seller.

Thanks. I mentioned the USB option to a friend but he suggested that the USB ports on this age of eMac will USB 1's so very slow and basically useless for proper data transfer

 

[millardfillmore]

Here is a post that might be helpful.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/9848667/

I have just had a very quick look at this post and it looks really useful, thanks

 

[raysfan81]

You can use this site to search the forums. This will answer many of your questions.

http://mroogle.*************/

 

[cocacolakid]

Thanks. I mentioned the USB option to a friend but he suggested that the USB ports on this age of eMac will USB 1's so very slow and basically useless for proper data transfer

A note about your USB on that eMac. In your original post you said it has a Radeon 9200 GPU. Unless someone updated the video card, your version is actually the harder to find version that they made for a limited time near the end of the eMac line. It was an education only model (not sold to regular customers from what I've read). It has a faster GPU, faster system bus, USB 2.0, and can (unofficially) support 2GB of RAM. It also is a crippled 1.25ghz CPU intentionally slowed to 1 ghz.

Check your level 2 cache to be sure, under System Profiler. If it's 512, it's the later version 1ghz eMac with USB 2.0.

http://lowendmac.com/imacs/emac-2004-1.25-ghz.html

 

[burnout8488]

We really need a Sticky on this forum to help avoid posts like these every day. They seem to be cropping up quite frequently asking the same questions. "Where can I get Ram? How much does it take? Can I use Leopard?" No offense to the OP, just an observation.

I almost want to volunteer myself to make a megathread based on PPC models and what they can take..... almost

 

[VanneDC]

mate, running a usb wifi adaptor through the old 1.1 spec and its just fine, no dramas at all..