imac too slow!!!

IMHO, 256MB RAM is too little for 10.4. Yes, it will "work" but it forces Virtual Memory to work a lot, slowing things. 512MB would be a better RAM amount for Tiger. 1G would be very nice. Do "about this Mac" from the Apple menu and, in the resulting window, click "more info." That brings up System Profiler. Click on "Memory in the left pane and that will show you what size modules are installed in the computers two RAM slots. From that, post what's in the slots. That will give the options for adding RAM.

One RAM slot is user-accessible; the other is deep inside and should not be accessed unless you are experienced with Macintosh surgery.

If the computer is used and the drive was not wiped and the OS reinstalled before sale, there could be a lot of deadwood on the drive you can't see--temp files and the like. Review this list of FAQs, especially those dealing with maintenance and performance:

http://thexlab.com/faqs/faqs.html

There is a wealth of info there. The part about "maintenance scripts" can help a lot on an old machine.

A too-full hard drive can slow things. Do "Get Info" on the hard drive and see how much space is available for use. You need a minimum of 10-15 percent free to keep OSX happy.

If the external hard drive is USB, it will never be satisfactory on a 700mHz iMac except for occasional backing up of smaller files. That modeliMa has only USB 1.1 ports --dreadully slow. Your only option for speed with an external drive is FireWire. You have the ports.

If it's anything like my iMac G5 this may help:


Open up System Preferences from the Dock
Select Energy Saver from the Hardware section (the light bulb).
Click "Options" to the right of "Sleep"
Where it says "Processor Performance" change it to Highest from Automatic.
Close System Preferences and you should be good to go

For some reason this is the default setting and I believe it reverts to Automatic when you install Leopard over Tiger.

It's worth checking.

H.

J13 is the one that's hard to get to, so it's good that J12 is empty. You could get a 512MB module like those here:

http://www.datamemorysystems.com/apple_info/Apple_Flat_Panel_iMac_700MHz_15_Memory1222.asp

install it in the "user-friendly slot, and have 768MB, enough for Tiger. Easy install--see this:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=26239

I've bought from Data Memory systems many times, but my only relation to them is as a satisfied customer.

About 20 bucks! Just kidding.

This from the website:

"The G4 iMac 700MHz 15" has two different memory sockets, 0ne 144 pin socket which is "user friendly" and one 168 pin socket (DM50 575) . It is not recommended by Apple that the end user try to update the 168 pin socket."

It seems that the $69 memory is the one for the "user friendly" socket that you could install yourself and the $47 memory is the one for the socket that you should not try to update yourself.

Regards,
Steve M.

Steve's right, the buried slot uses rather inexpensive full-sized modules (same one as the first eMacs use), where the user-accessible slot uses more expensive notebook RAM.