Speed up a slowing iMac G4

[R0ck1t]

Does anyone have any tips to speed up an old iMac G4, 1ghz processor, 512mb of Ram and a hell of alot of applications and video files? (Running Tiger)

The main problem is when i open video files and i have multiple numbers of programs open at once.
Thanks for any help or advice you can give.

 

[Allotriophagy]

Obvious solution is to add more RAM.

 

[R0ck1t]

Obvious solution is to add more RAM.

I was thinking of that but I've already tried 128mb in the Laptop style slot, and it doesnt seem to be working.
This is sort of a last resort before I have to spend money on RAM, Thanks anyway.

 

[SuperCompu2]

I believe the iMac G4 1GHz takes PC2100 sticks, so a 512 for that SoDIMM slot shoudnt be hard to find. Try something higher than 128, thats pretty much nothing in terms of Tiger's RAM hungry processes.

My Friend (PlymouthBreezer MR tag) has an iMac G4 1GHz 17" that runs well on 768. Give that a shot. He runs CS1 and Adobe Lightroom, so that should give you a good feel for how you will perform.


If not ram, get a speedier Hard Drive. That will have a good effect too.

 

[R0ck1t]

I believe the iMac G4 1GHz takes PC2100 sticks, so a 512 for that SoDIMM slot shoudnt be hard to find. Try something higher than 128, thats pretty much nothing in terms of Tiger's RAM hungry processes.

My Friend (PlymouthBreezer MR tag) has an iMac G4 1GHz 17" that runs well on 768. Give that a shot. He runs CS1 and Adobe Lightroom, so that should give you a good feel for how you will perform.


If not ram, get a speedier Hard Drive. That will have a good effect too.

I did upgrade something to 512mb but i've forgotten the Lingo now, Heres what the system profiler thinks:

DIMM0/J22:
Size: Empty
Type: Empty
Speed: Empty
Status: Empty

DIMM1/J20:

Size: 512 MB
Type: DDR SDRAM
Speed: PC2700U-25330
Status: OK

The 128 is in the first slott but its not being recognized.

 

[SuperCompu2]

The 128 is in the first slott but its not being recognized.

make sure its seated correctly, and that it's PC2700 (I thought it was 2100, sry for the mixup) If not the same Bus speed or size it'll just collect dust.

Like I said, pretty much only 256 and up is worth your while, but then again the reason you saw no difference before is probably because the system isnt recognizing the RAM.

 

[inkswamp]

Does anyone have any tips to speed up an old iMac G4

One thing to keep in mind is that under a certain threshold, free space on your hard drive is going to impact your computer's apparent speed. It's very geeky to explain, but it has to do with virtual memory and stuff being paged out to the hard drive. If space gets cramped, things can slow down.

There's a formula for doing this and it relates to the amount of RAM you have. (I don't have a URL handy but you can probably find the way to calculate it with a few Google searches.) For my iMac G4, I have 640MB of RAM. Optimally, I need 3.5GB of hard drive space free at all times. When I fall under that amount, my computer speed seems to drop off noticeably.

For you, it's probably somewhere around 3GB of free space. Make sure you have at least that much free at all times and see if your machine doesn't perk up. (And for whatever reason, it may take a few hours of usage and a reboot or two before the speed picks up, if you do have to clear some space. Not sure why, but that seems to be how it works.)

Also, make sure you run disk repair and permissions repair once in a blue moon. The issues that those address aren't as problematic as they once were, but it's worth doing.

 

[R0ck1t]

One thing to keep in mind is that under a certain threshold, free space on your hard drive is going to impact your computer's apparent speed. It's very geeky to explain, but it has to do with virtual memory and stuff being paged out to the hard drive. If space gets cramped, things can slow down.

There's a formula for doing this and it relates to the amount of RAM you have. (I don't have a URL handy but you can probably find the way to calculate it with a few Google searches.) For my iMac G4, I have 640MB of RAM. Optimally, I need 3.5GB of hard drive space free at all times. When I fall under that amount, my computer speed seems to drop off noticeably.

For you, it's probably somewhere around 3GB of free space. Make sure you have at least that much free at all times and see if your machine doesn't perk up. (And for whatever reason, it may take a few hours of usage and a reboot or two before the speed picks up, if you do have to clear some space. Not sure why, but that seems to be how it works.)

Also, make sure you run disk repair and permissions repair once in a blue moon. The issues that those address aren't as problematic as they once were, but it's worth doing.

Thanks for the advice but I keep most of my files on an external 800GB HD so i have plenty of space.