What should I do with my dead Strawberry iMac?

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Level 1

15 points

What should I do with my dead Strawberry iMac?

I have a Strawberry iMac G3, 400 Mhz, 64MB RAM, 10GB HD, DVD-ROM (slot loading) that I bought on eBay in August 2005. Three weeks after I got it, the hard drive failed! I had paid $120.00 (+ $40.00 shipping) for the darn thing! I got a quote of around $200 for a new hard drive, PRAM battery & more memory sometime last year. Was going to update the firmware, install Jaguar & Microsoft Office v.X after getting it back in running order.

Really don't want to spend the $200 (in parts only; I would fix it myself-never have fixed computers before, but am mechanically inclined) it would take to get it going again. Thought I'd be *better off* getting something like a Blue & White G3, 300 Mhz, which looks way easier to work on than the iMac! Just found a B&W G3 300 Mhz on eBay for $20.00 + $25.00 shipping! If something goes wrong with it (hope not!), then I'm not out the amount of money I am with the iMac.

Does anyone know how much I could get out of the iMac for parts? I'd like to at least get some of my money back if at all possible. Probably just dreaming. Certainly don't want to throw it away in the landfill either!

Any suggestions on what to do with my dead iMac will be greatly appreciated! It's sure been a doorstop around here since it died! Maybe I'll just have to fix it up and then either keep it or sell it... If I fix it, wonder if it could be done cheaper than $200?

Thanks.

Strawberry iMac G3, 400 Mhz, 64MB RAM, 10GB HD, DVD-ROM (slot loading), Mac OS 9.0.x

Posted on Jul 22, 2006 11:36 AM

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Answer 1

mrtotes

Level 6

11,836 points

Jul 22, 2006 2:33 PM in response to silverado93

I'd part it out.

If it's got an Airport card that'll probably make your $120 back alone. If not the Optical drive certainly has value as the slot-loading laptop drive isn't too common so several iMac G3 users are bound to need one. The RAM should work in the B&W okay. Various other parts probably hold value on ebay too.

mrtotes

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Answer 2

Jul 22, 2006 3:54 PM in response to silverado93

If the screen is nice and clear, and the optical drive works well, I'd go to eBay and look for a nice 7200 RPM IDE/ATA drive. I'm partial to the quietness of the Seagate drives, but any of them will do. Don't go over 120GB. You'll find nice 40 - 80 - or 120GB drives for well under what you were quoted.

I'd keep the little rascal going!

David

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Answer 3

Jul 22, 2006 5:10 PM in response to silverado93

I’d go with the advice to replace the HD – I’ve just done my daughter’s imac and it’s pretty straightforward [and believe me, I’m not remotely technically-minded!] . Then even if you do decide to go the ebay route, at least you’re selling one that works… you can pick up a replacement HD on ebay pretty cheaply.

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Answer 4

Jul 28, 2006 11:06 AM in response to silverado93

Before buying a 7200 RPM drive I would do a little checking first. I can't remember where, but I read somewhere (probably on this forum somewhere) that the iMac can't keep a 7200 RPM drive cool enough. You might want to consider a 5400 RPM drive instead. That should cut the replacement cost down some as well. If your hard drive runs too hot it will be prone to failure and you'll have a doorstop again.

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Answer 5

Iko Jones

Level 1

105 points

Jul 28, 2006 1:36 PM in response to grey bird

Yeah, I remeber reading that, too, but somebody else posted back and said it was wrong.

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Answer 6

Jul 28, 2006 3:55 PM in response to grey bird

The 7200RPM warning is outdated. I have a 40GB 7200 Seagate drive in my wife's 400mhz iMac and it's cool as a cucumber (not sure how cool cucumbers really are, but you get the drift, I hope).

David

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Answer 7

Daniel W

Level 2

165 points

Jul 29, 2006 11:20 PM in response to silverado93

Hello!

Aw, pity. Our old G4 sawtooth is the same way.

Indeed, HDD's aren't all that expensive anymore. Well, the old ATA drives are getting more expensive.... If you wish to replace it, you might check online - HDDs have a tendency to fail, so get a new one if you can. I know when I looked at hard drives at our local Fry's Electronics back in June they had some 80Gigs for under $70 - However, they've eliminated most of their stock...

As per RAM - don't buy it in a big retail store - you can find it pretty cheap online. Other world computing (.com) has a 256 meg chip for $25, if I remember correctly. 64 meg is quite low, particuarly for OS X - when I upgraded from 192Meg to 384 Meg in my iMac (OS 9.2.2), it seemed to be at least 3 or 4 times faster for many applications.

You can also get a PRAM battery for around $5 online. I think I need one too - my clock resets every time I unplug the iMac.

If you want to get it back up, make sure you shop around for sales.

And if you decide not to upgrade the iMac, you might decide to make a nice Macquarium! (Mac-aquarium)

-Dan

15" 1.67 Powerbook G4 (non-HiRes), Slot loading iMac DV SE Mac OS X (10.4.7) 1G RAM on PB, 384 MB iMac.

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Answer 8

Jul 30, 2006 12:02 AM in response to silverado93

Just my two cents,

Whatever you do dont throw it out, that is a quite capible machine. Its quiet, compact, and runs nicely. You can get ATA hard drives for really cheap nowadays, I got my 80 gig for 40 bucks. Just look out for sales, comp usa has some decent prices. I would suggest going to those small little PC chop shops, you can get RAM and HD's for pennies there. Alot of them have older hard drives that they aquired from upgrading systems and will resell them for cheap.

cheers

Patrick

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Answer 9

Aug 2, 2006 6:01 PM in response to David Jenson

Agreed. If that's the only thing wrong with it, replacing the hard drive is not that difficult. There are several web sites with with step-by-step instructions. The hard drive is on the pull-out "tray" you may have removed to do a memory upgrade.

I bought a 120GB Western Digital IDE drive for my iMac, and it cost me about $50 after tax and rebates. Check dealmac.com for good deals.

Be sure to note there is a 8GB size limit on the partition with Mac OS X. It must be the first partition on the drive, and it must be under that 8GB limit. The rest of the drive can be used, you just cannot boot from anything above the 8GB limit. Actually, the limit is more like 7.7 or 7.8 GB. This is a limitation of the old IDE controllers.

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Answer 10

silverado93 Author

Level 1

15 points

Dec 2, 2006 10:24 AM in response to silverado93

Thank you to all of you that gave me suggestions on what to do with my dead iMac. Since it has a DVD-ROM drive, I have decided to go ahead and fix it. I don't have a DVD player (only a DVD-ROM drive in my Dell PC) and thought since the iMac already has the CRT built-in, why not use it as a "DVD player!"

Finally found a new hard drive for it on eBay last night for a total of $52.00. It's a Seagate 120GB, 8MB cache, Ultra 100 IDE Barracuda! I was about to go nuts finding a drive that would work for it! Didn't want to spend a lot on a hard drive. Also found a 256MB memory stick for $30 on eBay from Ramdirect and a PRAM battery for $4.00.

I wish I could have bought a 512MB stick of memory, but can't afford to now. Want to eventually install Tiger on the iMac since it has a DVD drive.

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