Another iMac 20" duo user report
I am/was the happy owner of a 20"/2.0ghz/1gig ram iMac.
I just got the same thing in the Intel version iMac.
Some observations:
Overall, its a bit snappier on the installed apps, but nothing to rush right out and get one over. I'd sure not get one yet if your primary apps arent native, though office seems to run at about the same speed as the G5. I set it up identically to my G5, with the same music, settings, photos etc. and tested them side-by-side, timing with my trusty nano stopwatch.
> The annoying startup sound comes on in various volumes, sometimes reasonable, sometimes full blast
> Screen colors slightly more accurate than my G5, yet screen seems less "crisp" than G5 (could just be normal manufacturing tolerances)
> The "Migration assistant" was worthless - had to manually copy music, photos, email/mail settings etc...
> iPhoto6 crashed trying to import photos, so I had to manually drag them into the library (that worked ok)
> Computer only comes back out of sleep about 50% of the time. When it does, about 50% of the time my airport network is gone - not just off, but missing - there is no link to it anywhere. Looks like the Microsoft solution of rebooting until it works is now a mac 'feature' too
> System prefs app corrupt - often crashes or doesn't save. Can't remove the volume icon in the menu
> Direct airport connection doesn't work at all. Works on G5, but no connection on intel box - had to use firewire cable or bluetooth for file transfer. (connection to my PC network to get to internet fine though)
> Had several crashes in iPhoto and Safari, just doing normal stuff.
> Hardware test won't run - hangs at selecting language
Summary:
Short of a total wipe and try again, I'd say I'm getting early adopter syndrome: excited by the new tech, let down by lots of problems that I didn't get on my G5. Hopefully the next few OS updates will improve things and show more performance improvement.
I just got the same thing in the Intel version iMac.
Some observations:
Overall, its a bit snappier on the installed apps, but nothing to rush right out and get one over. I'd sure not get one yet if your primary apps arent native, though office seems to run at about the same speed as the G5. I set it up identically to my G5, with the same music, settings, photos etc. and tested them side-by-side, timing with my trusty nano stopwatch.
> The annoying startup sound comes on in various volumes, sometimes reasonable, sometimes full blast
> Screen colors slightly more accurate than my G5, yet screen seems less "crisp" than G5 (could just be normal manufacturing tolerances)
> The "Migration assistant" was worthless - had to manually copy music, photos, email/mail settings etc...
> iPhoto6 crashed trying to import photos, so I had to manually drag them into the library (that worked ok)
> Computer only comes back out of sleep about 50% of the time. When it does, about 50% of the time my airport network is gone - not just off, but missing - there is no link to it anywhere. Looks like the Microsoft solution of rebooting until it works is now a mac 'feature' too
> System prefs app corrupt - often crashes or doesn't save. Can't remove the volume icon in the menu
> Direct airport connection doesn't work at all. Works on G5, but no connection on intel box - had to use firewire cable or bluetooth for file transfer. (connection to my PC network to get to internet fine though)
> Had several crashes in iPhoto and Safari, just doing normal stuff.
> Hardware test won't run - hangs at selecting language
Summary:
Short of a total wipe and try again, I'd say I'm getting early adopter syndrome: excited by the new tech, let down by lots of problems that I didn't get on my G5. Hopefully the next few OS updates will improve things and show more performance improvement.
Comments
and what are u talking about start up sound?
its the same chime right?
*****
Elixir: It's the same startup chime, yes. The volume depends on what you left your volume at inside OS X itself -- just like on PowerPC Macs. In other words, nothing has changed. Nothing to see here. Move along.
On the contrary, I'm impressed at iLife 06's stability, especially before any .0.x updates. I've loaded 29,000+ photos into iPhoto without a crash, and am very impressed at how Front Row can slideshow them so responsively. Much better than it did with an, ahem, hacked copy on my dual 2.5 Power Mac G5 which the iMac is set up next to.
Airport on a 802.11b/g router with WPA security has been fine, usually gets the signal coming out of sleep within 10 secs. Safari hasn't crashed yet.
Gone through every System Pref panel setting them the way I like it and none have crashed. Including the "Processor" panel which is added after installing Xcode and the CHUD tools from the included DVDs. Very stable.
Haven't shut it down more than once so can't say if the startup chime varies in volume.
Main annoyance so far has been non-playment of DivX .avi files, but then I found the beta DivX 6 codec, so all is well, except they sometimes don't work in Front Row quite right (the beta page mentions this, but they did actually work well enough for me to watch Friday's Battlestar Galactica through Front Row - and no I don't consider it piracy if there is no avenue in my country to buy it...).
And sometimes the infrared controller takes more than one click to get the Front Row menu up, although it always brings the iMac out of sleep fine. One trick I've found with Front Row is that if the menu button doesn't seem to be switching into it from the normal Mac UI, push the up button to alter the volume a notch, then try.
Advice: do a factory restore, don't let any stupid migration assistant muck around with your prefs, Library settings or app support folders. (Remember that in many cases you'll be going from both earlier versions of apps AND on a different architecture.) And remember the mantra: I'm a sacrificial guinea pig on the altar of Apple's transition to Intel!
Maybe if I didn't still have my G5 next to it I'd be less impressed trying to use it as my main machine, but so far it's great.
Three 720p movies running, 8 tracks of garage band running, Safari downloading, iWeb open, Keynote open with templates up, and then I started moving things around in iPhoto.
And it didn't seem to mind at all. Works for me.
Ran all the usual utilites and almost everything works now. What still doesn't is really irritating.
> When I put it in sleep, it often won't reconnect airport to my network requiring a reboot.
> If the option in prefs is checked to let the power button initiate sleep mode, then my machine won't come out of sleep. The power light pulses as normal, but when you hit a key, it shuts down instead of the expected return from sleep mode.
Everything else seems 'normal' now, cept' some of my movies no longer play in quicktime. VLC still works though.
Front row is kinda cool - hadn't used that b4.
It's a little difficult to develop Flash content when you can't view it. Anyone have any suggestions?
M Stone
Originally posted by mstone
I had a weird thing happen with my 20" iMac intel. When I installed Flash 8, the installer asked to install Flash player 8 so I said sure... After relaunching Safari, I had no Flash player at all. It was working fine before. Went over to Macromedia and tried to download it. But to my surprise, the download page said they had no idea which player I needed, as in not recognizing my browser. Still haven't got it working.
It's a little difficult to develop Flash content when you can't view it. Anyone have any suggestions?
M Stone
Ugh. Flash 8 nuked your native player. For now you should be able to launch Safari in Rosetta mode (Get Info on Safari and check "open in rosetta") in order to use it. But Flash will be slow that way. You need to uninstall that gimped ppc version of flash player and get the original intel player back in place. I can't help with the flash 8 uninstall, but anyone with a new imac ought to be able to mail you the flash plugin for safari.
http://www.stoneworks.com/macromedia_save.zip
hope this helps
M
Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg
Whoa, that sleep problem is serious. I'd try reformatting the HD and doing a nice clean reinstall. If the problem persists, take that lemon back for a new one.
on my 17" Intel iMac, wake from sleep isn't as problematic but it isn't always smooth either. Rosetta apps can really slow everything down. Beachballs everywhere.
And fast user switching? ha! My mac mini handles multiple profiles much better (smooth like butter). But it could be the ram issue, iMac with 512mb, Mini with a gig.
Any ideas?
Originally posted by sandau
on my 17" Intel iMac, wake from sleep isn't as problematic but it isn't always smooth either. Rosetta apps can really slow everything down. Beachballs everywhere.
And fast user switching? ha! My mac mini handles multiple profiles much better (smooth like butter). But it could be the ram issue, iMac with 512mb, Mini with a gig.
From what's being reported it appears that Intel Mac + Rosetta + as much ram as you can cram in there= significantly improved performance (more so than the usual "throw ram at it" in the Power PC models).
Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg
Whoa, that sleep problem is serious. I'd try reformatting the HD and doing a nice clean reinstall. If the problem persists, take that lemon back for a new one.
Yeah, thats what I'm thinking, but saving off my data is not so easy at it seems. burn 13dvds? That sucks. I should get compensated for that if I have to do that.
Originally posted by Blackcat
If migration assistant is dodgy, what is the best way for me to migrate from a PB G4 to MBP? Normally I'd use Target Disk Mode but obviously I'm now switching architecture too.
Any ideas?
That is no prob. The architecture change is completely transparent. The automated assistant is worthless, but target mode works just fine. You don't do anything different except as noted below due to software bugs.
As a safety measure, wipe the new machine completely, do a fresh install, then drag over your info. Be careful about prefs and so forth though. I only grabbed stuff I was sure about, like mail settings, docs and apps.
DO NOT try to import photos into 6. It just crashes and screws it all up. Instead, open the iphoto folder in 6 - you will see some misc. files. Remove all these (I just trashed em). Drag over your current iphoto contents to this folder and run iphoto. It will tell you that the db needs to be upgraded and do it for you. Works perfect and is 100x faster than trying to import which will crash anyway.
For Itunes, upgrade on you current box to the latest version, then just drag over your music folder to the new itunes.. it will never know the difference
All my apps just dragged over with no prob. Some of them don't work at all on Macintel, so check their websites for compatibility info first.. (Flip4mac did't work, but a version is on the way, Onyx didn't work, but there is a new version that does etc..)
Its all pretty straight forward, just time consuming.
Cheers.
The major problems that I'm running into are:
Can't print to my old HP 4M/P printer. Can print to it from two other late model Mac's. Can't get it to work from this new box. The printer light will blink twice, then nothing happens. I did get one page of postscript gibberish to come out and that's it. My other Macs have a specific driver for the HP 4m/P but can find it on this new system. Generic post script should work too, but just stalls out.
None of the add-on programs that have pref-pane items for the control panel work.
Cannot get iChat Video to work. That was the major deciding factor for getting this new box. Other feed back I got said that this is a major problem with all Mac systems. Video chat very seldom works from what others on this board have said.
Lastly one of my cell phones won't let me browse the files on it. This seems to be a Verizon problem not phone (Motorola E815). If anyone has got a work around this let me know.
Here are the programs that I have tested that work: FireFox, OnSync (for my cell phones), Keyboard Masetro, Pather Finder 4.0.1, VNCDimension (wish this would get updated as I use VNC a lot and this one works well with my PCs), Adium, EyeTV (playback of files recorded on my Mac Mini then copied over to this box), SharePoints (but the pref Pane shows up but when you click it says "Can't run on this system contact the software vendor"), OSXvnc, Chicken of the VNC (great for Mac to Mac - Stinks for Mac to PC), Snapz Pro 2.0, Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0.5, Google Earth and Easy Find.
Other than that really suprised how well this guy works. Like the compact size.
-Scott
Originally posted by scott_r
Other than that really suprised how well this guy works. Like the compact size.
-Scott [/B]
You didn't happen to be the TV engineer at a small university in Northwest Missouri a few years ago did you?
Originally posted by Guartho
You didn't happen to be the TV engineer at a small university in Northwest Missouri a few years ago did you?
Hi Guartho, Not me, never been to Missouri.
My first couple of years in college our TV Engineer was a big Mac guy. He bought his first Apple from Jobs and Woz at a computer fair in California. Anyway, his name was Scott and he had a tendency to refer to computers and pieces of hardware as "this guy," so I thought you might be him.