I had OS X on my 266 iMac and it was slow slow slow. Yes I had enough RAM. I wouldn't bother with OS X on a computer for a user that's not interested. I'd bet most apps will run in Classic. Is she going to upgrad all her apps for OS X? If not then don't bother.
Well, the reason for upgrading is that she has seen my G4 iMac and loves the look of OSX. As her demands are light it won't be an issue upgrading the software.
As some of you suspected, no multitasking will happen, so I think on balance I'll go for it and see what happens. I'll upgrade this weekend, and report back.
Well, I based my opinion on my 233 MHz Wallstreet that I sold a couple months ago. It was very painful to run OS X on. However, that 400 MHz iMac has a better video card and a better processor... it would probably behave similarly to my brother's blue G3 (before he added a PCI Radeon and a G4 processor). His was jerky on many of the visual effects, like dock magnification, but it was definitely usable. I would suggest turning off dock magnification (and perhaps bouncing too) if you will be running OS X on it. But go ahead and do it, it's a great stable OS and you never even have to shut down your computer! Just sleep it.
I have a 400mhz iMac DV and I had installed Jaguar on it - and it was slow, I couldn't tolerate it.
I had passed it down to a family member and upgraded to an 800mhz iMac, and the 400mhz had a crash. I had to fix it and I just formatted the hard drive, installed a clean install of 10.2 and it made a complete change. It was very usable and didn't run too much slower than my G4. I was very impressed.
Back up her files, erase the hard drive, and do a clean Jaguar install. I've found out on 2 machines now that OSX hates to be upgraded. You'll get an amazing performance boost by doing a clean install. Also goto 10.2.3 - it has quite a few performance tweaks as well, and you'll want to squeeze every last drop out of the iMac.
I have a 400 DVSE iMac and OS X 10.2.3 runs great on it.
This machine originally had one of those POS Quantum Fireball hard drives which broke. I replaced it with a 7200 rpm 40 gig hard drive. It works great and does not get too hot. It is also very quiet.
I also added the 1 gig ram memory pack.
Every revision has been faster. We are very pleased with the way OS X works on this iMac. Don't be fooled by a lot of the comments above.
I think the differing opinions of performance are mainly due to varying expectations. As I stated above, I am very happy w/10.2.3 on an iMac/400. But, this machine is used for web, mail, text, and a very occasional PhotoShop. If I were trying to create psds on here all day, I would not be as happy w/ the performance.
IMO, the iMac is extremely usable and the GUI is responsive. This machine has been my point of reference for OSX's performance since it was the first Mac I installed X on when the PB came out. Since then, it has seen every iteration of the OS.
On a side note, last night I installed 10.2.3 on my mom's iBook 300/160. It is noticeably slower than the iMac, but I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of the system. I used email, web, and office w/o any problems. Now I just need a bit more memory in there.
Installed OSX, ran well. Went into OS9.0 to check a few internet settings, only to discover I can't select OSX from OS9.0 as OS9.0 only allows a choice of strtup disk, not startup folder.
Found a 9.2 disk, so rebooted and intalled 9.2 - everything worked fine, except the screen was very faded.
Then re-booted, and now I can't get anything at all onscreen - completely blank. Whatever disk I insert does nothing - any ideas?! I'm posting to genius Bar too....
Oh dear. You see, I did read but thought she was on 9.2. when I started with the problems and saw she was on 9.0 I clean forgot about the firmware.
Oh well, now the hunt is on for a second monitor.
David
PS at least it looked quick and responsive when it was working!</strong><hr></blockquote>
i didn't update my firmware on my old DV iMac until AFTER I installed X and started having problems with the screen, and it worked fine after I did it. you should try updating the firmware now. go to apple.com to find the right updater. it's kinda scary to do it, but it should work out.
My desktop since OS X was released is a 400MHz iMac DV, w/512MB RAM. It is slower than 9, but usable IMHO. I also ran it on a blueberry iBook 300MHz w/192 MB RAM, and it ran well on it... I recently got a new iBook 14" so have been using that...
I havn't been using my iMac lately because the hard drive got all messed up a week or so ago. Just got the iBook, so the timing is right... heh...
My girlfriend's old iMac-333 runs OS X with 288MB RAM. Apps are slow to start, but system performance in general is "acceptable" (By acceptable, I mean pretty slow. Think Win95 on a 486).
RAM is key here...with 512MB or better, your friend will have a system that's responsive.
I have a 400 MHz iMac DV running OSX 10.2.3 with Classic 9.1. I just increased my RAM from 192 MB to 384 MB. Surprisingly, I didn't see any change at all in performance, which is quite acceptable.
Since the firmware was knackered, how was it that the iMac was happy dispplaying on an attached monitor, but not on its own inbuilt one?</strong><hr></blockquote>
The original firmware probably had _A_ driver for the built in video card, just not as good a driver as is needed to drive the built in screen. (Or at least different). Drivers don't work for 100 screwy reasons - there might be two completely separate sets of wires coming out of the video card, where the normal driver completely ignores one set, it might not handle the precise resolution of the screen without tweeking... who knows.
Comments
mm......some conflicting voices!
Well, the reason for upgrading is that she has seen my G4 iMac and loves the look of OSX. As her demands are light it won't be an issue upgrading the software.
As some of you suspected, no multitasking will happen, so I think on balance I'll go for it and see what happens. I'll upgrade this weekend, and report back.
David
I had passed it down to a family member and upgraded to an 800mhz iMac, and the 400mhz had a crash. I had to fix it and I just formatted the hard drive, installed a clean install of 10.2 and it made a complete change. It was very usable and didn't run too much slower than my G4. I was very impressed.
Back up her files, erase the hard drive, and do a clean Jaguar install. I've found out on 2 machines now that OSX hates to be upgraded. You'll get an amazing performance boost by doing a clean install. Also goto 10.2.3 - it has quite a few performance tweaks as well, and you'll want to squeeze every last drop out of the iMac.
This machine originally had one of those POS Quantum Fireball hard drives which broke. I replaced it with a 7200 rpm 40 gig hard drive. It works great and does not get too hot. It is also very quiet.
I also added the 1 gig ram memory pack.
Every revision has been faster. We are very pleased with the way OS X works on this iMac. Don't be fooled by a lot of the comments above.
IMO, the iMac is extremely usable and the GUI is responsive. This machine has been my point of reference for OSX's performance since it was the first Mac I installed X on when the PB came out. Since then, it has seen every iteration of the OS.
On a side note, last night I installed 10.2.3 on my mom's iBook 300/160. It is noticeably slower than the iMac, but I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of the system. I used email, web, and office w/o any problems. Now I just need a bit more memory in there.
Installed OSX, ran well. Went into OS9.0 to check a few internet settings, only to discover I can't select OSX from OS9.0 as OS9.0 only allows a choice of strtup disk, not startup folder.
Found a 9.2 disk, so rebooted and intalled 9.2 - everything worked fine, except the screen was very faded.
Then re-booted, and now I can't get anything at all onscreen - completely blank. Whatever disk I insert does nothing - any ideas?! I'm posting to genius Bar too....
David
<strong>Disaster!</strong><hr></blockquote>
I hope you read the documentation before installing or at least payed heed to seb's warning here: [quote]Originally posted by seb:
<strong>Make sure you update the firmware first - it's on the OS X CD.
<a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=001813"; target="_blank">or else</a></strong><hr></blockquote>
Did you?
Oh dear. You see, I did read but thought she was on 9.2. when I started with the problems and saw she was on 9.0 I clean forgot about the firmware.
Oh well, now the hunt is on for a second monitor.
David
PS at least it looked quick and responsive when it was working!
<strong> <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
Oh dear. You see, I did read but thought she was on 9.2. when I started with the problems and saw she was on 9.0 I clean forgot about the firmware.
Oh well, now the hunt is on for a second monitor.
David
PS at least it looked quick and responsive when it was working!</strong><hr></blockquote>
i didn't update my firmware on my old DV iMac until AFTER I installed X and started having problems with the screen, and it worked fine after I did it. you should try updating the firmware now. go to apple.com to find the right updater. it's kinda scary to do it, but it should work out.
I danced in my socks, as Seb ordered on his fix instructions.
What would I do without you guys
And yes, a G3 iMac 400 with 585MB memory runs Jag just fine.
David
Since the firmware was knackered, how was it that the iMac was happy dispplaying on an attached monitor, but not on its own inbuilt one?
Surely both are downstream of where the firmware does whatever it does, and so if one is 'broken' the other one would be too?
Cheers
David
I havn't been using my iMac lately because the hard drive got all messed up a week or so ago. Just got the iBook, so the timing is right... heh...
RAM is key here...with 512MB or better, your friend will have a system that's responsive.
<strong>Oh, and another thing.
Since the firmware was knackered, how was it that the iMac was happy dispplaying on an attached monitor, but not on its own inbuilt one?</strong><hr></blockquote>
The original firmware probably had _A_ driver for the built in video card, just not as good a driver as is needed to drive the built in screen. (Or at least different). Drivers don't work for 100 screwy reasons - there might be two completely separate sets of wires coming out of the video card, where the normal driver completely ignores one set, it might not handle the precise resolution of the screen without tweeking... who knows.