Upgrading my iMac?

I absolutely love that generation iMac.
I wish I could find one with the 20" screen for a decent price, but have not had any success.
Like to find one under $400. The globe base design,IMHO, was an absolutely both and engineering and
aesthetic milestone and far more of an innovation than the newer all in one flat panel models.
Of the newer flat panel iMacs, I only like the 1st and 2nd generation all white G5 and early Intel
Flat panel iMacs.

Anyhow, seeing how old this iMac is, I wouldn't bother with a third party processor/logic board upgrade. With the costs of these, you would be better off with a new or newer Mac that has all of the current specs and hardware for today's computing needs. Using your existing Mac keyboard and mouse, you could purchase a Mac Mini with a decent flat panel LCD/LED screen that'll
"blow the doors" off and away from your iMac.
Also, I do not believe there is any video card upgrade for this generation iMac.


What I would do is MAX out the RAM to 1GB. Without cracking open the machine, buy a bootable,
external FireWire hard drive of any size you can afford and use this drive as your main boot drive.
You should see some performance gain.
You could "just" crack the case open enough to replace your PRAM battery as it sound as if you haven't ever replaced this battery? It's a half-size AA battery a only lasts at best 5-6 years under normal use.
The reason I'd stay away from really cracking this iMac fully open as there has been a lot of people here who have done so with detrimental results. The video screen no longer functions, there are some special thermal pads around the iMac's mounting perimeter that may need replacing as these can cause premature shut down of your iMac as it overheats the CPU.
Some other issues I can't remember at the moment.
Not sure what Mac OS you're running, but you can upgrade the OS in this iMac to
OS X Tiger 10.4.11. That, also, may help some of your speed issues.
The retail Black and chrome discs are harder to find now, but not impossible. You will however pay a big premium for these now. You could contact the Apple Store 1-800-MY-APPLE and ask for sales to see if can get a set of Tiger discs directly from Apple. You'll need to tell them if you need a CD set or DVD set depending on what kind of disc reading drive is in your iMac.

In the end, it's up to you if you want to spend a larger chunk of your hard earned cash
into an 8-year old computer. I saw a 1.35 Ghz from XLR8. This would make your iMac faster
than my 1.25 Ghz CPU-wise, but with only a 100 mhz system bus, you're still running your data
through a small data pipe. Probably won't be that much faster on the internet no matter what the connection is , but you see an improvement internally.

http://daystartechnology.com/AppleMac_Products/XLR8_Macintosh_Products/Mac_CPU_G4_Upgrade_iMac_FPPS.html

It's just will it be enough of an improvement for you to justify spending a total of $600-$700 on this Mac? That's the reality and what you have to consider.

If your issues are with speed and your speed on the web, I would think you would welcome a newer Mac?
If price is an issue, the best value Mac is definitely a Mac Mini. It's got a very small footprint, quiet
and if you get one with the faster CPU, optional larger drive and memory option, this a killer Mac for the price.

Message was edited by: MichelPM

Message was edited by: MichelPM

This page shows what RAM upgrades you can do, and it depends on the specific iMac G4 model.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/imac-g4-flat-panel-faq/imac-g4-how-to -upgrade-memory-ram.html

The later models can support 2GB of RAM unofficially.

I asked about upgrading, they said if I upgrade anything in the machine and need service on in the future, that Apple won't touch it if it's been upgraded.

Probably not a big deal since it is way out of warranty or AppleCare. I'm sure an independent Apple-authorized repair shop will be glad to "touch it" if you later need professional servicing.

The other important part that can be upgraded and possibly improve performance is the hard drive.

To upgrade the RAM to the max and change the hard drive to a larger/faster mechanism, you have to take it apart beyond what Apple considers normal user access. This is a well-known iMac G4 take-apart guide.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/iMacg4/imacg4takeapart.html

Is the Daystar iMac G4 upgrade service still being offered?

In any case, no matter what you do to an iMac G4, it will not be anywhere close to the performance of Intel iMacs, even three-year-old Intel iMacs. I sometimes use a Pismo PowerBook with a G4 upgrade and 1GB of RAM (plus upgraded hard drive) as my portable Mac, along with my "primary" +Late 2006+ Intel iMac. It is still useful for basic Internet uses. However, I don't have expectations that I can watch HD videos on YouTube or Hulu in full screen mode; the hardware is just not capable of it.

So whether it is worth the effort and expensive depends on your expectations. 🙂

I have the same model 17" 1GHZ iMac G4 and upgraded internal RAM, optical drive and hard drive. It runs 10.5.9 fine. See this older post for more details: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=3395777#3395777

I just opened it last week to clean out the dust. Use can of air, then clean old thermal paste off the two metal pads (preferrably with a soft plastic stick or old credit card) and replace with new thermal past. Easy.

I re-read this post today and just realized the poster is running 10.5.8.
You said you bought this iMac in 2002. You never posted your iMac's specs.
If this is correct, then your iMac G4 is one of the 700 or 800 Mhz models.
These can only take OS X 10.4 Tiger up to 10.4.11.
I am not sure how this was done, but, one of the min. system requirements is that a Mac has to
have at least an 867 Mhz CPU for installation of OS X 10.5 Leopard.
I do not think the installer will just let you install 10.5 Leopard as it looks for the all the reqts. it needs for an installation to progress and wouldn't let you proceed if your CPU was only an 800 Mhz CPU.
This might be one of the reasons why your iMac is running slow.
It's running an OS that taxes too much of your iMac's hardware.
I think in addition to thinking about hardware upgrades, I think you may need to do a downgrade install by backing up all of your data and third party applications , then do a complete erase and install of OS X Tiger. OS X Leopard maybe taxing you iMac. I am thinking you'll see performane increase by going back to OS X 10.4 Tiger,
I still recommend installing the maximum amount of RAM for this iMac, though.

The original poster said stated had this iMac since 2002.
The 17" 1 Ghz models didn't surface until early 2003.
Assuming the poster is correct about the date.
The specs for earlier iMac G4's only have a max RAM of 1Gb and could only have OS X Tiger for the
max OS.
The 1.0 Ghz and later models could take up to 2Gbs of RAM and install up to Leopard OS X 10.5.8.