Buying advice on an iMac G3
Hi!
I just found a place near my house that is selling an iMac G3 very cheaply. It runs OS 8.6 and has a slot-load CD-ROM. It has only 96MB of RAM built-in and it operates at 333 Mhz.
As I'm not very familiar with anything pre-iMac G4 era, could anyone give me a rundown on this? Can I install OS X on it? How much RAM can it accept? Will it work reliably (very light internet browsing, perhaps a little word processing, but that's all).
I want to use it at home for web surfin' as I sold my iBook some time ago and am stuck with WinXP (Linux is the king, but I don't have the time to tweak it) and I want to get rid of XP.
Again, I'm not sure the name of the model, but I'll give some of the specs I saw at the store in the system profiler.
- iMac G3 - 333 Mhz.
- 6 GB Hard Drive (is it upgradable?)
- 92MB RAM (again, is it upgradable and to what amount?)
- CD-ROM
- OS 8.6
The guy is selling it at $99. I don't need speed, I just need OS X on it 'til the Intel Macs come out then I'll rub my hands on some new hardware
Thank you.
I just found a place near my house that is selling an iMac G3 very cheaply. It runs OS 8.6 and has a slot-load CD-ROM. It has only 96MB of RAM built-in and it operates at 333 Mhz.
As I'm not very familiar with anything pre-iMac G4 era, could anyone give me a rundown on this? Can I install OS X on it? How much RAM can it accept? Will it work reliably (very light internet browsing, perhaps a little word processing, but that's all).
I want to use it at home for web surfin' as I sold my iBook some time ago and am stuck with WinXP (Linux is the king, but I don't have the time to tweak it) and I want to get rid of XP.
Again, I'm not sure the name of the model, but I'll give some of the specs I saw at the store in the system profiler.
- iMac G3 - 333 Mhz.
- 6 GB Hard Drive (is it upgradable?)
- 92MB RAM (again, is it upgradable and to what amount?)
- CD-ROM
- OS 8.6
The guy is selling it at $99. I don't need speed, I just need OS X on it 'til the Intel Macs come out then I'll rub my hands on some new hardware
Thank you.
Comments
Originally posted by Gene Clean
Hi! - iMac G3 - 333 Mhz.
- 6 GB Hard Drive (is it upgradable?)
- 92MB RAM (again, is it upgradable and to what amount?)
- CD-ROM
- OS 8.6
The guy is selling it at $99...
It'll work fine for what you want ...
-Hard Drive ... definitely upgradeable, and not to difficult. The most annoying part is that it will require partitioning and the System will have to be installed on a partition within the first 8GB of the disk. (I put an 80 GB HD in a 233 iMac similiar to that one.)
RAM ... again , upgradeable - fairly easily. adding one stick (up to 512) will be easier... swapping the second stick (for up to another 512) is more challenging, but still do-able. so in theory, you could bump it to 1 GB, though
CD-ROM ... works fine ... can be upgraded to CDRW ... not sure if a 333 G3 could handle software decoding for DVD Player though.
OS ... 8.6 works fine, but I'd install Tiger on it myself (or Panther).
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117
Here is the thread about it.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/show...;threadid=48713
Other than that, it will do what you want. We still have 6 of those running 10.4, w/512MB at a school computer lab with 20G hd's. They do a little video and web work on them, so it should be good for what you want.
reg
Originally posted by KingOfSomewhereHot
[B]It'll work fine for what you want ...
-Hard Drive ... definitely upgradeable, and not to difficult. The most annoying part is that it will require partitioning and the System will have to be installed on a partition within the first 8GB of the disk. (I put an 80 GB HD in a 233 iMac similiar to that one.)
How do I do this? I've never used OS 8/9 before, so I have no clue. And can I upgrade to OS X directly from OS 8.6 or do I need to upgrade to OS 9 and then OS X?
RAM ... again , upgradeable - fairly easily. adding one stick (up to 512) will be easier... swapping the second stick (for up to another 512) is more challenging, but still do-able. so in theory, you could bump it to 1 GB, though
OK, good to hear. 512 MB would be good enough for me. 512+92 = more than enough for surfing.
CD-ROM ... works fine ... can be upgraded to CDRW ... not sure if a 333 G3 could handle software decoding for DVD Player though.
I just need it to install OS X, I don't need DVD playback. Again, how can I install OS X on this little sucker?
OS ... 8.6 works fine, but I'd install Tiger on it myself (or Panther).
That's what I want to do too. But I'm not sure I'll be able to get Tiger CDs. Do they sell them or do I have to wait for that media-exchange stuff?
Thanks for your answers.
Originally posted by reg
You also need a firmware upgrade. Without it, you could lose video and it is a pain to restore it.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117
Here is the thread about it.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/show...;threadid=48713
Other than that, it will do what you want. We still have 6 of those running 10.4, w/512MB at a school computer lab with 20G hd's. They do a little video and web work on them, so it should be good for what you want.
reg
OK, thanks reg. That's good to know.
FIRST thing you need to do is start the machine as is... get online ... go to Apple.com and do the firmware upgrade. DO THAT BEFORE ANY osx OR hd UPGRADES!!!
then, get your Tiger (or Panther) CD's, install the new HD
Then startup from the osX install .... you'll have to go to the menubar and select disk utility ... reformat the harddrive ... it'll get to a point where it asks for partitions... just make sure the uppermost partition is only 8GB.
After partitioning.... RESTART the whole machine (from the install CD again) ... then continue with the OS install.
The thing that drove me nuts was I didn't know you had to do that last restart ... the machine wouldn't see the partitioned drive untill I finally did that.
I've only got Tiger on DVD, but I may still have the Panther CDs laying around....
Originally posted by kcmac
And just why are we suggesting partitioning this machine? Update the firmware. Clean install OS X. Be done with it.
Because the machine won't boot unless the OS is on a partition lcated entirely within the first 8GB of the HD. ... even with the firmware update.
now, I know for sure this was true of the tray-load models, but I THINK it was true of the 333 also .... If memory serves, the DV models were the first without this "restriction".
Originally posted by KingOfSomewhereHot
...FIRST thing you need to do is start the machine as is... get online ... go to Apple.com and do the firmware upgrade. DO THAT BEFORE ANY osx OR hd UPGRADES!!!
then, get your Tiger (or Panther) CD's, install the new HD
Then startup from the osX install .... you'll have to go to the menubar and select disk utility ... reformat the harddrive ... it'll get to a point where it asks for partitions... just make sure the uppermost partition is only 8GB.
After partitioning.... RESTART the whole machine (from the install CD again) ... then continue with the OS install.
The thing that drove me nuts was I didn't know you had to do that last restart ... the machine wouldn't see the partitioned drive untill I finally did that.
... ....
sorry to get of subject, but are these the same steps used to upgrade a powermac G3 rev.1 from OS8 to OSX
o and by the way, i wouldnt use a 512 stick of ram w/o some conformation first. acording the the Centon memory configurator (http://shop.centon.com/microcenter2/...&SysModel=6143) the max is 512 (2 x 256). my powermac only uses up to 4 x 256 so i doubt the imac can use 512s.
I have Panther in it with 576Mb RAM