Upgrading an iMac G3 / iBook G4

sweet-rasmus

So, I have an old iMac G3 CRT Power PC model. Its OS is 8.5.1 and years (and years) ago I did try to upgrade it to OS 9, but never managed it. What can I do to upgrade this (or pay someone else to)? It was my first mac and I don't want to throw it out. I am not looking to compare it to the latest model and it would just be used to write word documents or browse the net. I remember ages ago seeing these sort of macs to watch television through, but haven't a clue how.

I also have an iBook G4 running 10.4.11 which won't update to 10.5.0. Why?!

I look forward to any ideas/responses

Edit: oh, my iBook G4 also thinks that no batteries are available, even though the battery is in there. Is this normal for a dead battery, or am I looking at a bigger issue here?

pvik00

sweet-rasmus wrote: »

So, I have an old iMac G3 CRT Power PC model. Its OS is 8.5.1 and years (and years) ago I did try to upgrade it to OS 9, but never managed it. What can I do to upgrade this (or pay someone else to)? It was my first mac and I don't want to throw it out. I am not looking to compare it to the latest model and it would just be used to write word documents or browse the net. I remember ages ago seeing these sort of macs to watch television through, but haven't a clue how.

What model (CPU/memory) your iMac exactly is? What problems do you encounter that prevents you from upgrading?
If you max out the memory you may be able to go with some older version of OS X and run more recent sw. Classic sw will still be available though Classic emulation. This is definitely the way to go unless you really want to stick with 9.x for some reason.

sweet-rasmus wrote: »

I also have an iBook G4 running 10.4.11 which won't update to 10.5.0. Why?!

I look forward to any ideas/responses

Edit: oh, my iBook G4 also thinks that no batteries are available, even though the battery is in there. Is this normal for a dead battery, or am I looking at a bigger issue here?

Your iBook should be able to upgrade to 10.5 without a problem if your CPU clock speed is above 867MHz. If otherwise workarounds still exist but I don't really think it's worth it. You'll be probably short on memory anyway (1GB is really recommended although only 512M is needed).

If you need new batteries you can always buy one, but Apple will sell it for a price that's probably more than the money the whole machine's worth. Never mind that if it does everything you need and you still like the old beast.

sweet-rasmus

Well, the G3 is a very old machine which has not changed since it was first bought, so has its original specs (I’ll have to check what they are). I can't remember why I never managed to get it onto OS 9, so pretty much the upgrade would be from scratch. I was checking out an upgrade video on YouTube and they were saying that upgrading the harddrive will make it a much quieter machine but it might heat up a bit more than usual as a result (?). I guess that the memory and possibly CD-rom drive could be upgraded. Things I don’t know would be: how do you know how much memory / how large a harddrive / which newest OS I can upgrade to? I guess the OS depends on the memory/harddrive. Would I necessariily need to upgrade to a DVD-rom drive? I am not interested in using any classic OS software, so that’s not an issue.

I've never done any mac hardware work before; I'm just a user of the machines.

The issue with upgrading thr OS of the iBook G4 I have just figured out it is because I was trying to upgrade using 10.5.0 and 10.5.2 OS discs which were included with newer mac models and which I now realise, will only work with them. It needs to be a full install version. I checked that mac’s specs and it should run fine on it.

You are probably right about the battery cost. It's just that I abandoned that G4 when it made a lot of noise and died on me two years ago. Well, it would last for a few minutes, but then it would freeze up and make a lot of noise. Soon it wouldn't even turn on. Now it seems to run ok, surprisingly enough, but with the battery showing as dead... Probably more issues than its worth. I’m gonna play around with it and see if the symptoms return.

pvik00

sweet-rasmus wrote: »

I guess that the memory and possibly CD-rom drive could be upgraded. Things I don’t know would be: how do you know how much memory / how large a harddrive / which newest OS I can upgrade to? I guess the OS depends on the memory/harddrive. Would I necessariily need to upgrade to a DVD-rom drive? I am not interested in using any classic OS software, so that’s not an issue.

In order to answer these questions I'd need to know the exact model of machine you have. Based on that information we can figure out what your upgrade options are. The easiest if you just punch in your machine's serial number here:
http://support.apple.com/specs

You'll probably want more memory and a larger hard drive. Upgrading to a DVD drive usually doesn't really worth it unless you're hopelessly in love with your old hw. If you have a firewire port you can boot from an external hard drive and you can use that to install the operating system. Older version of OS X (up to 10.3) also came on CD's, so I think you really don't need one.

sweet-rasmus wrote: »

I've never done any mac hardware work before; I'm just a user of the machines.

The issue with upgrading thr OS of the iBook G4 I have just figured out it is because I was trying to upgrade using 10.5.0 and 10.5.2 OS discs which were included with newer mac models and which I now realise, will only work with them. It needs to be a full install version. I checked that mac’s specs and it should run fine on it.

You are probably right about the battery cost. It's just that I abandoned that G4 when it made a lot of noise and died on me two years ago. Well, it would last for a few minutes, but then it would freeze up and make a lot of noise. Soon it wouldn't even turn on. Now it seems to run ok, surprisingly enough, but with the battery showing as dead... Probably more issues than its worth. I’m gonna play around with it and see if the symptoms return.

Upgrading a desktop is not really complicated but laptops, especially older ones can be. The good thing is that detailed guides exist to help you through the process so if you have the manual dexterity and some technical affinity it shouldn't really be a problem. Memory is usually a no-brainer, but swapping a hard drive can be tough (on a laptop).

You're right with the OS X install disks, you cannot really use those ones that are distributed with newer machines, at least not without tweaks. It's easiest if you get a generic one that's supposed to work with any machine.

sweet-rasmus

Thanks for your help pvik00

Ok, I stuck in the serial number and have the specs here: http://support.apple.com/kb/SP131

6 GB harddrive. 96 MB memory (32 +64 MB). Had a search online and was able to upgrade to OS 8.6 Can I get away with updating to Firmware version 1.2 (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60384 ), without the need to go to OS 9, heading straight to an OS X 10.4? (I checked and my Firmware seems to be ‘up to date’.) I imagine that the hardware upgrades are necessary to get 10.4 working resonably well?

You are right, that there would be no real need to get a DVD drive into the G3.

pvik00

Max out your RAM, fit a reasonable sized HDD (you will not be able to find enough 'small' these days, I have a faint memory that it will not handle 128GB+ drives)
If your firmware is up-to-date then you can go ahead installing OS X, OS 9 is not a pre-requisite. Classic Mac OS died with 9, X is a different codebase. Don't go for 10.4, you will not have enough RAM to meet the minimum requirements. 10.3 should run OK, and you can update it to 10.3.9.

sweet-rasmus

So, 128 MB RAM for OS 10.3, sounds good. What do you mean by a reasonably sized harddrive? Oh, 128 GB, yes, I heard that mentioned on the uTube video I watched about doing up G3s, not to go above 128.

Now for a stupid question or two - i've never bought any hardware for macs. I heard something about the RAM having to be non-ecc... Are there any other specifications that I need to consider when buying the harddrive and RAM?

pvik00

If you buy from the below (or similar vendors) they'll have a tool that will let you select your machine/model and advise on which module to buy. Crucial is pleasure to deal with, they'll replace your module if in the end you find that it's not what you wanted.
http://www.welovemacs.com/
http://www.crucial.com/eu/

Some sources say that with up-to-date firmware you can upgrade to 256M. I cannot comment on this, but feel free to google it. Since the modules are relatively cheap, most of your money will be spent on shipping.

sweet-rasmus

Cool, thanks a million.