Q: How do I upgrade my old computer?

Phone the Apple Store and order a Mac OS X 10.6 DVD.

(68623)

The latest and greatest (allegedly ) is Mountain Lion, but it may not run on your Mac. You need to check the specs carefully and even if you can upgrade 2gb RAM won't cut it, you'll need to add more for the Mac to run well. Same goes for OS X 10.7 Lion.

Bear in mind that some of your older apps may not run on the later OS's.

Here's a link with advice on what Macs will work with MLion:

http://www.coolestguyplanettech.com/is-yours-good-enough-to-take-on-the-mountain /

Go to Crucial or OWC and order up 4 GB of RAM (Your Maximum). Then do your upgrade to 10.6.3 and the Combo Update to 10.6.8   At that point I would make sure that you could restore your system (Original Install Disks and or a Bootable clone of your system on 10.6.8) Then you can go to the App Store and do your Upgrade to Mt Lion. In case you find your system not to your liking or too slow in Mt Lion you can revert back to Snow Leopard and enjoy your iMac for a few mor years.

As old as your iMac is, have you cleaned out the dust? Dust buildup can lead to over heating issues. Remove any and all things plugged into it including the power cord, Remove the RAM access grille. Vacuum all openings starting with the RAM access area (air intake). Vacuum all ports and plugs, DVD slot and the opening across the top of the rear of the body. Blow compressed air through all your openings and vacuum again to remove any dust you loosend. Reinstall the RAM grille. Plug in the keyboard and mouse if not blue tooth. Insert power cord...

You are now in a perfect position to do a

SMC RESET

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

• Shut down the computer.
• Unplug the computer's power cord and ALL peripherals.
• Wait 15 seconds.
• Attach the computers power cable.
• Wait another 5 seconds and press the power button to turn on the computer.

• It is the 5 second timing that initiates the reset.

Here is a link to a Widget to monitor your temps and other operations:

http://islayer.com/apps/istatpro/

First, Welcome to the Apple Discussion Forums, Roxie's Mom!

The latest OS X version is OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. In order for you to update to this you need to find, purchase and install OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

Currently, neither are available online at Apple and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is a download only from the Mac App store.

You should be able to by a copy of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard direct from Apple's customer service number.

1-800-MYAPPLE. Ask for software sales then tell them you wish to purchase DVD of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

It's cheaper to get here than to find it elsewhere online.

Once you installed OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, you need to use Software Update in your OS X system preferences pane to update to OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. Installing this updater will give access to the Apple Mac App Store via an icon in your OS X dock. launch the Mac App Store icon to access the store, locate OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion update to purchase, download then install.

Before you do all of this, you need to purchase additonal RAM for your iMac. Your model can take up to 6 GBs of RAM, max. You can install 4 more GBs of RAM. Newrer iterations of OS X need more CPU, GPU, HD and RAM resources.

The more RAM you have in your IMac, the better OS X and other applications run.

You can purchase relaible Mac RAM from these two online vendors.

http://www.crucial.com

Or here

Or here for memory

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/iMac

Once you get this and install it, your iMac will be good to go for Snow Leopard or Mountain Lion.

A warning though.

If your have any software that runs on your iMac that was for older PowerPC CPU Macs, this software will not work past OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard.

Snow Leopard has an emulator called Rosettta that still allowed older Power PC applications to run on Intel Macs using OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

There is no longer any support for older,legacy software in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

If you have no worries are you are sure you are not running old software, then you can comfortably upgrade to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.

Good Luck!

I can't believe how many posters beat me to the punch line, here!!!!Q

Based on your reported CPU,

Your iMac is either a mid 2007 or mid 2008 iMac model.

Either way, you are good to update to the latest OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion if you can or choose to do so.

At the very least you could update to OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard.

Here is a link for the procedure for installing RAM in your iMac.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1423

Again, Good luck