Things about my G3 iMac that bug me to death!

[Man In Black]

Neighbor gave me her old iMac yesterday. Im loving it, but I have a few things that are really bugging me.

Its a 350Mhz G3 iMac. According to "About this Mac", it says:
Built In Memory: 192MB

Couple things that annoy me.

800x600. Damn thats annoying. Its unusable at 1024x768 because at 75Khz it kills my eyes.

When im surfing the internet (the only thing ive used it for right now), using Opera 6, it seems quite slower than my 266Mhz Gateway laptop with 32Mb of RAM. This iMac is 350Mhz, 192MB RAM, it just seems WRONG that it doesnt seem faster.

I cant make the mouse pointer move fast enough! Ive got it set at MAX, but its still not fast enough. Im going to need a bigger mouse pad!

If I start scrolling down a webpage before it has completly loaded, and I click on the scroll bar and hold down and drag, the page stops loading until I release the mouse button. Thats rather annoying!

When I load website pages, portions appear all "smeared" looking, until I scroll over that section and past, and then scroll back up to that section.

If anyone could assist me in explaining how to resolve these annoyances, if possible, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[aquajet]

I assume you're running OS 9? First suggestion I have is to buy more RAM. You might try another browser, such as Firefox or iCab if there are rendering issues with websites you view. I agree those monitors aren't any good above 800x600, but if your iMac has a video-out port on the back (I know my 700 mhz did, not sure about the 350) you could connect a bigger external monitor.

 

[Jedi128]

I have a 400Mhz G3 iMac and there's not much you can do. I would suggest more RAM and possibly OS X, if you're not currently running it. I never have that problem with loading pages but I use Safari and have 512MB of RAM in the thing. If you continue to run the old OS I find that these problems are unavoidable. The computer is old, there's nothing you can do about it...sadly.

I think OS X would be the greatest improvement (but I wouldn't do it unless you get up to at least 384MB of RAM or more).

 

[macEfan]

re-format the imac. Your neighbor probally has a lot of stuff on it.(that U will never use

 

[Man In Black]

re-format the imac. Your neighbor probally has a lot of stuff on it.(that U will never use

I dont have the disks for OS 9.2.

However, it looks like her son removed all the personal stuff and any added programs. However, im not sure if he did a re format. It looks like he did, as far as I can tell.Since Ive never seen a Mac before, I cant be sure.

 

[FadeToBlack]

As others have said, the best thing you could do would be to put OS X on it. I bought Panther on eBay for my Lombard for like $67 shipped. My Lombard has 320MB RAM, running at 333MHz and it runs Panther really good for what I use it for (Mostly Safari, iChat, etc.)

 

[gwuMACaddict]

I bought Panther on eBay for my Lombard for like $67 shipped. My Lombard has 320MB RAM, running at 333MHz and it runs Panther really good for what I use it for (Mostly Safari, iChat, etc.)

i have the same set-up! works great for as old as it is

 

[Man In Black]

Yaar, thou be rich folks! I cant afford to spend 100 dollars for OS Xand RAM to upgrade this unfortuantly. If I DID have 100 dollars I would be putting it towards something newer, a Dell maybe?

 

[joecool85]

If you are using 9.2.2 you can run mozilla, it works nicely. That's what I have on my beige G3. Everything on my beige runs great and its 266mhz, 224 ram.

 

[FadeToBlack]

i have the same set-up! works great for as old as it is

Yes, it definitely does. When I bought the Lombard, it had 8.6 on it and I planned to keep that on there, but then I read about how good Panther would run on it, so I decided to go ahead and upgrade it to OS X. I'm glad I did!

 

[reberto]

If you want OS 10. I have a 10.0 and .1 disk. That would help a TON on that iMac.

 

[ITASOR]

Yaar, thou be rich folks! I cant afford to spend 100 dollars for OS Xand RAM to upgrade this unfortuantly. If I DID have 100 dollars I would be putting it towards something newer, a Dell maybe?

Wegnermedia has Panther for like $39.

 

[Makosuke]

If you want OS 10. I have a 10.0 and .1 disk. That would help a TON on that iMac.

Um... I wouldn't do that, personally. Anything older than 10.2 is going to feel very slow on that computer, and regardless no version of OSX is going to run well on 192MB of RAM. I wouldn't try to use 10.3 without at least 256MB.

I do, however, have that very machine doing office duty here, and it works just fine for basic word processing, browsing, and e-mail, using 10.3 and 256MB RAM.

Were I you, I'd hop over to a site like Other World Computing and buy myself a copy of 10.2 for $18 (link: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Apple/6914337A/ ). With that on there, you can download and install Firefox or Camino and it should handle browsing and e-mail acceptably. If you're feeling rich, they'll also sell you a 256MB stick of RAM for it for $29, which once you pop it in (there's an easy-access door on the bottom) will get it up to 384MB and running more comfortably. For $47 plus shipping you can get a useable computer out of it, or, if you're feeling rich, you can spend $30 on a copy of 10.3 from a place like MegaMacs.com or eBay. That's going to waste a total of $60 or so on an old computer, but it'll be quite useable for anything simple.

Funny, though; on the identical iMac we've got here the 75Hz setting really doesn't seem that bad, and I'm usually pretty sensitive about flickery monitors. Maybe it looks better under OSX for some reason (can't think of why, though), or maybe you're just more sensitive than me.

 

[Man In Black]

Um... I wouldn't do that, personally. Anything older than 10.2 is going to feel very slow on that computer, and regardless no version of OSX is going to run well on 192MB of RAM. I wouldn't try to use 10.3 without at least 256MB.

I do, however, have that very machine doing office duty here, and it works just fine for basic word processing, browsing, and e-mail, using 10.3 and 256MB RAM.

Were I you, I'd hop over to a site like Other World Computing and buy myself a copy of 10.2 for $18 (link: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Apple/6914337A/ ). With that on there, you can download and install Firefox or Camino and it should handle browsing and e-mail acceptably. If you're feeling rich, they'll also sell you a 256MB stick of RAM for it for $29, which once you pop it in (there's an easy-access door on the bottom) will get it up to 384MB and running more comfortably. For $47 plus shipping you can get a useable computer out of it, or, if you're feeling rich, you can spend $30 on a copy of 10.3 from a place like MegaMacs.com or eBay. That's going to waste a total of $60 or so on an old computer, but it'll be quite useable for anything simple.

Funny, though; on the identical iMac we've got here the 75Hz setting really doesn't seem that bad, and I'm usually pretty sensitive about flickery monitors. Maybe it looks better under OSX for some reason (can't think of why, though), or maybe you're just more sensitive than me.

Unfortuantly, my iMac just has a CD-ROM drive.

BTW, at 75hz, if I look at the corner of the image on the monitor, you can visibly see it shaking.