Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Upgrading White intel iMac processor... 17", 1.83 ghz

mar2194 said:
Okay, so I installed my new RAM today! My iMac is much more responsive now. I think I will put off the CPU upgrade for a while at least.

I plan on going ahead with the HD upgrade nonetheless. I have a question that you may know how to answer:

Once I put in my new blank hard drive, I can install OS X 10.6 from a DVD right? I just have to hold down c while booting...?

Another question I have is I'm afraid (not for certain) that my CD/DVD drive is broken. I'm not entirely sure, but I don't use it often and last time I did I was trying to burn something and it kept spitting them back out... :(

So now I'm thinking... is there a way to install OS X from an iPod (or maybe a USB key) if I have to? If you don't know right off the bat that's fine, I will try using a DVD first. I put a CD in earlier today and it read that *okay* but I'm not sure about DVDs.

So let's say I have OS X on my new larger HD... can I use migration assistant to pull everything off of the old drive and put it onto the new one somehow? (I know SATA to USB 2.0 cables/enclosures exist) If so, how would I put the hard drive into "target disk" mode?

Please help before I buy a hard drive online!

- mar2194
Click to expand...

just use carbon copy cloner , means boot from your old drive thats then in a external enclosure and let carbon copy cloner make a bootable copy from it on the new velociraptor

and for the dvd drive , hmm the one in mine is only picky what it wants to play , it has a mind of its own when it comes to cd's ,dvd's some it likes to play others not , nothing to do with condition of the dvd's or cd's , its just the drive that has a different opinion about what i should play on it, other dvd's it likes so much that it tries to keep them and wont allow to play them, but that all depends on the mood the drive is in
 
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
flopticalcube said:
Should be ok but I would make sure that the enclosure works with 2tb drives. Some are known to work only up to 1tb.
Click to expand...

Well I was too impatient to wait for a response email from the enclosure company, but I checked everywhere on their website and on Amazon.com and nowhere did they specify a limiting capacity, although on WD's website there are problems with some computers handling drives that are larger than 2.19 TB. So hopefully I will be fine... if not returns on Amazon.com are usually a breeze.

So I ordered the 2 TB Caviar Green HD and that enclosure (I decided on a nicer one because I read a lot of horrible reviews on other ones, plus this one included a USB cable)

Anyways, I receive my shipment on Wednesday, so I'll keep everyone posted on how the tear-down goes this weekend!
 
flopticalcube said:
Should be ok but I would make sure that the enclosure works with 2tb drives. Some are known to work only up to 1tb.
Click to expand...

MacHamster68 said:
just use carbon copy cloner , means boot from your old drive thats then in a external enclosure and let carbon copy cloner make a bootable copy from it on the new velociraptor

and for the dvd drive , hmm the one in mine is only picky what it wants to play , it has a mind of its own when it comes to cd's ,dvd's some it likes to play others not , nothing to do with condition of the dvd's or cd's , its just the drive that has a different opinion about what i should play on it, other dvd's it likes so much that it tries to keep them and wont allow to play them, but that all depends on the mood the drive is in
Click to expand...

I just put a CD in my drive today from a photo lab (I had some negatives put on film) and it read the disc fine. The problem seems to be burning DVDs when I was having problems. And when I was burning DVDs I was trying to burn a DVD of Snow Leopard... that may have been the problem :confused:
 
Thank you!

So to everyone:

I put my new 2 TB Caviar Green HD in my iMac today! It went great! The hardest part was peeling back the foil that surrounds the screen... what a pain in the arse! Also, putting the case back together was a bit tricky because of the iSight and microphone wires... altogether it took me about 1 hour start to finish (up and running)

Thanks for the advice on using Carbon Copy Cloner, I put my 2TB drive in the enclosure I bought and cloned it, then took out my old HD and out with old and in with the new. :)

Problems encountered: 0

Infinite thanks: To flopticalcube :)

My computer is a lot fast now (maybe because I have more than 6 GB remaining on my HD!)

Processor upgrade may be coming soon... not sure when/if I'll do that.

I did but a new WiFi card so I can use 802.11n etc. That's easy to put in though compared to the HD

Thanks again!
 
Processor Upgrade???

flopticalcube said:
The only processors worth upgrading to are the T7200 T7400 or T7600. It's dubious given the effort, however. Sell it and buy a newer iMac.
Click to expand...

It's been a long time since I did this upgrade, and I've gotten a new computer since then but I'm thinking about upgrading to the T7600 this Winter for a little project. What do you think?
 
flopticalcube said:
Blast from the past! For a learning experience it would be excellent just don't expect to recoup the costs in a sale. Make sure you get some fresh heat sink compound to apply to the new processor. Check YouTube for guides.
Click to expand...

And are we sure that the T7600 is the right socket, etc?
 
T7600 is the right socket. Just make sure you get the LGA and not the BGA one. (You want the one with the pins sticking out of it.) Have you thought about flashing the iMac5,1 firmware onto your machine for 3.3GB of ram access?
 
mar2194 said:
And are we sure that the T7600 is the right socket, etc?
Click to expand...

Yes, T7600 is socket M.

Intell said:
T7600 is the right socket. Just make sure you get the LGA and not the BGA one. (You want the one with the pins sticking out of it.) Have you thought about flashing the iMac5,1 firmware onto your machine for 3.3GB of ram access?
Click to expand...

Firmware flash would be most helpful. The extra gigabyte will be very beneficial if running Snow Leopard or Lion.
 
mar2194 said:
How can I flash the newer firmware? Am I wrong to assume BIOS won't let me.
Click to expand...

Mac's don't have BIOS. They have either OpenFirmware or EFI. Intell Macs have EFI. The process is fairly simple. Use this thread to do it: http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,1122.0.html Do keep in mind that after you do this, your iMac model identifier will change from iMac4,1 to iMac5,1. Because of this change, your reinstallation discs for that machine will no longer work with it.
 
Intell said:
T7600 is the right socket. Just make sure you get the LGA and not the BGA one. (You want the one with the pins sticking out of it.) Have you thought about flashing the iMac5,1 firmware onto your machine for 3.3GB of ram access?
Click to expand...

Haven't replied to this thread for a couple of weeks because I wasn't with my iMac. I'm home now and am still interested in the upgrade. So I'm going to buy a T7600 LGA processor and do the 5,1 flash onto the machine. However it looks like I'm going to have to install a bootleg copy of Lion or something because the upgrade doesn't fool the app store.

"I successfully upgraded my imac from 4,1 to 5,1, and from core duo to core 2 duo. See below. Yet, when I go to the Apple Store to try and download Lion, it says my computer is not compatible and refuses to download. Is it checking something besides model identifier = 5,1?"

Does this or this look like what I need? I'm thinking of making initial offers of $50 each and then seeing what they counter-offer. I'm also gunna need more ram, and I'm thinking about getting this 2gbx2 kit

Please let me know what you think!
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
flopticalcube said:
Absolutely. Before buying a new CPU, see if the RAM gives you enough of a boost. Core 2 processors are only about 25% faster than Core processors at the same clock speed. A 30% or so speed increase will be barely noticeable, especially after RAM and HD improvements.
Click to expand...

Since I'll be upgrading the firmware to allow for the 3gb of RAM (instead of 2) and the processor will be 2.33 GHz vs 1.83 GHz, I should see a 25%+ speed improvement. Assuming a linear relationship between clock speed and performance, a 2.33 GHz core processor would be 27.3% faster --> but since it is a core 2, it is 25% faster than that benchmark, giving a total speed increase of
Code: 
  (((2.33-1.83)/1.83)*1.25)= 34.1% ≈ 35%?

I'm not sure how much that 1gb of ram will improve everything, but I'd say a $130-projected tinkering project (the enjoyment of ****ing around with my iMac) + a 35% performance increase is worthwhile. I don't even use the computer anymore but am would like to have a tiger machine. I currently use 10.6 on my early 2011 macbook. I might figure out something more useful (and probably should!) since I participated in the screen replacement program, so it has an essentially brand new LCD screen. Any other suggestions for how I can pimp my iMac?
 
Last edited:
mar2194 said:
Since I'll be upgrading the firmware to allow for the 3gb of RAM (instead of 2) and the processor will be 2.33 GHz vs 1.83 GHz, I should see a 25%+ speed improvement. Assuming a linear relationship between clock speed and performance, a 2.33 GHz core processor would be 27.3% faster --> but since it is a core 2, it is 25% faster than that benchmark, giving a total speed increase of
Code: 
  (((2.33-1.83)/1.83)*1.25)= 34.1% ≈ 35%?

I'm not sure how much that 1gb of ram will improve everything, but I'd say a $130-projected tinkering project (the enjoyment of ****ing around with my iMac) + a 35% performance increase is worthwhile. I don't even use the computer anymore but am would like to have a tiger machine. I currently use 10.6 on my early 2011 macbook. I'm thinking about setting up the iMac as a tor exit node. I might figure out something more useful (and probably should!) since I participated in the screen replacement program, so it has an essentially brand new LCD screen. Any other suggestions for how I can pimp my iMac?
Click to expand...
Regarding the Ram i have flashed a 2006 mac mini to access 3Gb of ram and i makes a difference but if you are going to do it make sure you buy 2x2GB sticks so the ram can run in dual channel, because if you put a 1Gb and a 2GB stick you will get bad performance as they are not identical. Even though you will have 4GBs of ram the computer will still only address 3.33GBs.
 
mar2194 said:
Since I'll be upgrading the firmware to allow for the 3gb of RAM (instead of 2) and the processor will be 2.33 GHz vs 1.83 GHz, I should see a 25%+ speed improvement. Assuming a linear relationship between clock speed and performance, a 2.33 GHz core processor would be 27.3% faster --> but since it is a core 2, it is 25% faster than that benchmark, giving a total speed increase of
Code: 
  (((2.33-1.83)/1.83)*1.25)= 34.1% ≈ 35%?

I'm not sure how much that 1gb of ram will improve everything, but I'd say a $130-projected tinkering project (the enjoyment of ****ing around with my iMac) + a 35% performance increase is worthwhile. I don't even use the computer anymore but am would like to have a tiger machine. I currently use 10.6 on my early 2011 macbook. I'm thinking about setting up the iMac as a tor exit node. I might figure out something more useful (and probably should!) since I participated in the screen replacement program, so it has an essentially brand new LCD screen. Any other suggestions for how I can pimp my iMac?
Click to expand...

Now that the CD iMacs are flashable to 3.3GB of RAM (using a C2D, of course), its probably a worthwhile exercise. Watch out for the RAM cost. I am still doubt that you will notice a huge improvement in CPU but if you can find a cheap T7600 rather than a T7200 or T7400, go for it. You will need one of those after flashing to get the new RAM limit.
 
flopticalcube said:
Now that the CD iMacs are flashable to 3.3GB of RAM (using a C2D, of course), its probably a worthwhile exercise. Watch out for the RAM cost. I am still doubt that you will notice a huge improvement in CPU but if you can find a cheap T7600 rather than a T7200 or T7400, go for it. You will need one of those after flashing to get the new RAM limit.
Click to expand...

Will you check out the two on eBay I linked to above. Most eBay listings don't tell you if it's LGA or BGA.
 
One thing to note, a Core2Duo is not needed for the iMac5,1 firmware flash and the firmware flash does not need a Core2Duo.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back