Mavericks upgrade

Hi ..

Is your iMac mid 2007 or later????

To install Mavericks, you need one of these Macs:

• iMac (Mid-2007 or later)
• MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later),
• MacBook Pro (15-inch or 17-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later)
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
• Mac mini (Early 2009 or later)
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)
• Xserve (Early 2009)

Your Mac also needs:

• OS X Mountain Lion, Lion, or Snow Leopard v10.6.8 already installed
• 2 GB or more of memory
• 8 GB or more of available space

From here > OS X Mavericks: System Requirements

It means you have 1GB of RAM, which is less than the 2GB required for Mavericks.

Is your iMac 2007 or later?

Your iMac has 1 GB of RAM (memory) according to the specs you posted from, "About this Mac".

Mavericks requires at the minimum 2GB's of RAM.

Colleen, we still cannot say because we still don't know the answer to the twice-asked question, "Is your iMac 2007 or later?" I realize Apple does not make it easy to tell model years, but try this:

Click and hold on your black Apple icon at the left end of the menu bar. While holding, press the OPTION key on your keyboard. The first entry, normally "About this Mac" will change to "System Profiler." Launch it.

Once Profiler is open, the main screen will look like this:

Note that I highlighted a code in the second line. On your computer, what is the code you see? DO NOT post a serial number here, however, just the code located where I indicated.

From that we can give you a solid answer about upgrading.

Given what you've said, now, about your Intel-based Mac, that would be an

early model and would not be able to upgrade to the latest OS X release.

While looking in About This Mac, see the OS X name with info beneath...?

Click on the small info under OS X to see up to three different items as

you click, in rotation: one may be Serial Number, Build, Version. That, plus

the additional info from system profiler when you click More Info, can tell

almost everything in and about your current computer configuration.

•How to identify iMac models

You may be able to upgrade to Lion 10.7.5, but that may compromise some

of the applications you already can use as they are, under Snow Leopard 10.6.

So I'd not advise that. An upgrade of installed of chip RAM may help it, though.

Upgrade to Mavericks

If you go that route, there are recommendations on quality parts, and places

to consider checking the correct specifications of the RAM, if you upgrade it.

That way Snow Leopard would work better, and if desired, Lion 10.7 may too.

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

There are instructions on how to access and remove/replace RAM chips

and these vary a little depending on your build year model Intel-iMac:

•iMac: How to remove or install memory

And while the above Support link also offers suggested upgrade capacity

or ceiling total of installed RAM, in some cases after introduction, it was

found some of these same models did accept a higher capacity upgrade.

If your iMac model has the Core 2 Duo intel-based processor, circa 2006

there are some suitable RAM upgrade parts here; based on identification

of the computer in exact terms of build model identifier & year...

An example of that specific guessed-at iMac version's RAM, here:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/iMac/Intel_Core_2_Duo_2006

For a cross-section of all the possible memory (RAM) for most iMacs, see:

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

OWC and Crucial are among the better reliable sources for Mac memory

upgrade, and have a good reputation among many Mac users.

So that's a possibility. Some early models can only use 3GB total.

That would mean, across two memory slots in the Mac, one would

take a 2GB chip while the other, would take a 1GB chip.

However, others can be upgraded to more. Identification is very important.

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

Colleen,

The forums currently have a major glitch that keeps images from displaying consistently for some users. However, maybe I can do this with words.

1) Close all actvive windows so that "Finder" appears next to your Apple icon at the left end of your menu bar.

2) Press and hold SHIFT and COMMAND, then press the u key. That should open your utilties folder in the Finder.

3) In the Utilties folder find System Profiler and double-click to launch it

The opening screen with have a list of content down the left side--ignore that and look at the big main pane. It will have "Hardware overviw" at the top.

Look at the SECOND line of data, "Model Identifier," that will have a code next to it. For my iMac the code is "iMac11,3" Please tell us what code shows there for your computer. It will probably be one of the following:

iMac4,1

iMac4,2

iMac5,1

iMac5,2

iMac6,1

If the numbers in the code are "7,1" or higher your iMac should be able to run teh latest OS version but you will definitely need to add RAM.

If the numbers are 5,1 through 6,1, you can run OS 10.7 "Lion." It is still available for download:

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

As mentioned, total RAM for Core2Duo early intel-based iMac 17" - 20" is 3GB,

that means one - 2GB chip in one slot, and one- 1GB chip in that other, per

the relatively easy instructions noted in the page I'd linked that has pictures.

•Maximum Memory 3.0 GB (4.0 GB can be installed, only 3.0 GB will be addressed)

•Memory Slots 2 - 200-pin PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 SO-DIMM

from http://mactracker.ca -- a database download free app to see most Apple specs

Or for convenience sake, two - 2GB chips can be installed, that may not be seen

as more than 3GB by the computer, BUT data speed may still be a tiny bit faster.

(Hopefully your applications won't balk at Lion 10.7.5, if any happened to be

originally written for PowerPC (non-Intel) and thus required 10.6.8 & before,

as those would no longer be supported after Snow Leopard, w/o rosetta.)

You should have been able to use  menu> about this mac> and page link

to 'How to Identify your iMac' and came up with the iMac model identifier 5.1.

Anyway, now you know and when you take the computer in to a tech for them

to upgrade RAM (since you appear reluctant to look deeper) note they also

will lookup the iMac in their database, to match whatever brand RAM in stock.

In any event...

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂