Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Near Indianapolis
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So today we were getting rid of some old stuff at work, and there was a graphite iMac G3 in our equipment graveyard. I dealt with this machine a while ago, and I knew it had problems. So I volunteered to take it home.
I left it in my office at the end of the day, because it had been raining, and I didn't want my new toy to get wet. BUT I think I know what the issue with it was. I'm pretty sure that the hard drive is dead. I have an 80 GB IDE drive sitting unused in an old PC that I don't use any more, so I'll probably pull that drive and put it in the iMac. Have any of you done that with this model? From what I've seen online, it looks pretty hard. As long as the new drive works (or if I can get the original 40 GB drive working), I'm planning to install Tiger on it. Once it's up, I have three more main goals: Upgrade the RAM and add WiFi and Bluetooth. I have a USB Bluetooth dongle that a coworker used in Tiger on a hackintosh, so I'm hoping that will work, despite the architecture difference. It's a pretty generic BT receiver (I think it cost $2 brand new), so I'm hoping the generic drivers in Tiger will work for it. RAM might be a little trickier. If I remember correctly, the PPC Macs were a lot picker about RAM than the Intel Macs are. This one has 256 MB installed, but I'd like to take it up to its max (1 GB). Are the memory requirements posted online somewhere? I know it takes PC100 (and that PC133 will work), but I'm wondering if there are other requirements beyond just the speed. I don't want to do anything too demanding with it, so the stock 256 might be okay most of the time. I just want to be able to run TextWrangler, Inkscape and Gimp. But probably not at the same time on a 600 MHz G3. I expect the biggest problem will be WiFi. As far as I can tell, the Apple-branded cards can be hard to find, and the adapter to install them internally can be expensive. (If I'm wrong, somebody please tell me.) Are there any USB WiFI dongles that I could buy that would work with this iMac? It only has USB 1.1, so I don't have any major speed expectations. I just need to get *something* on this machine so that I can use FTP occasionally, and my router is on a different floor of my house. I'll post updates as I go, and I'm sure I'll have plenty more questions before this is up and running. Pictures are coming Monday. |
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geri to my friends
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Heaven
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Don't know whether you've seen this or indeed if it's of any use but just in case.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/103447/iMa...assembly-Guide Good luck, look forward to following this. I used to be undecided.....But now I'm not so sure. No trees were harmed in the sending of this message. However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: San Francisco, CA
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I used to have one of those, and yes, the hard drive is really hard to replace. You have to more or less take apart the entire bottom of the computer.
I don't think the type of RAM matters that much, as long as it fits in the slot. I might even have a couple 128 MB sticks lying around if you need some. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Near Indianapolis
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I'm really excited about this project, so I'm glad at least one of you is looking forward to what will probably be a ridiculous experience for me. I came to the Mac much later (G4 mini was my first), so this is new territory for me. Quote:
I think I'm going to try Craigslist for the RAM, if anybody can conclusively tell me that they're not as picky as I think. I just remember spending a lot of time trying to find RAM at the correct voltage for my mini, and I don't want to get a bunch of RAM for this that doesn't work. |
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Mr. Vieira
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
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Awesome machines, those little slot-loading jellybeans! The graphite looked great too. Tangerine, graphite and lime were my favorites.
Yeah, the hard drive would be the toughest. I think there are about 9,000 screws involved. But people - mere mortals - have done this, so it's not impossible. Instructions, with step-by-step photos are online at various sites. I'd forgotten about the AirPort card needing to go in tgat little adapter frame first... The RAM should be easy to get via crucial.com. Tiger is what I have on my DV. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
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It has Ethernet, right? You could get one of those generic game console wi-fi adapters, the sort that just has an Ethernet port. They're designed to not need any software installed--they just convert the Ethernet signals to wi-fi.
Alternatively, a cheap router with DD-WRT can be set up the same way. I have an old Linksys WRT54G plugged in to my DirecTV receiver to get it online... It connects to my router as a normal client. |
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geri to my friends
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Heaven
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Near Indianapolis
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I'll probably go with one of the two ideas you suggested if I can't find somebody to barter with for a usable Apple Airport card. Thanks for the ideas! Now I need to have a mini-selloff on Craigslist and the Nova Bazaar to pay for my upgrades. Plus I'm sure my wife would love if I sold off all my electronic junk I have in the closet. Anybody want to buy a b/g Airport Express? I have one that I hardly used at all. |
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ಠ_ರೃ
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
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RAM is also an issue. 512 MB PC133 DIMMs have a nontrivial cost, $30-$50 each. You could get by with just one, giving you 640 MB total (128 + 512). These things all add up. You don't want to sink too much money into a decade-old computer that is permanently tied to a 15" CRT. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Near Indianapolis
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[edit] This is the point where, if I was single, I'd just set it up near my existing wired ports and use a long Ethernet cable. But Mrs. Wyatt wouldn't go for that. I once had an 8 foot cable attached to my XBox for a week, and she nearly killed me. |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
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It's actually fairly easy to do, I've done it a couple of times, there isn't that much to worry about apart from the cracking sound when you break the bottom clear section away. I've got a DVSE500 with a decent sized HDD in it I have partitioned into several OS versions for prosperity.
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Near Indianapolis
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I just tried to boot the iMac for the first time, and it's extremely loud. No OS loads. Sounds like a dying hard drive.
So I booted the Tiger installer disk (Well, CD 1 at least). It boots fine, and system profiler reports everything is okay, including the hard drive. The drive even shows the SMART status as Verified. But if I try to format the hard drive with Disk Utility, I get an I/O error. The Installer Log says "Could not mount disk 'disk0s3' after erase" So, do you guys think it's the logic board or the drive? I'm (obviously) hoping it's just the drive, but I'm not optimistic. |
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Banging the Bottom End
Join Date: Jun 2004
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Throw the drive in an enclosure and see if a different computer can format it. Still, if the drive is very loud, that itself is an indicator, although drives from 9 years ago would seem quite loud compared to the fluid dynamic bearing thingamajigs used in drives today.
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Banging the Bottom End
Join Date: Jun 2004
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Also, I have a bag of old RAM lying around somewhere. If I can find it, I should have at least one stick of 256MB PC100/PC133 RAM in it.
I also have an original Airport base station (UFO looking thing from 2001) that will bridge between wired and wireless, but it's 802.11b only. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Near Indianapolis
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I just tried to format using target disk mode... no dice. Since I have to open it up anyway at this point, I'm going to go ahead and drop in the 80 GB drive I have at home. Hopefully, that drive will be quieter (and actually work).
I should have time to do that over the weekend, I think. I'll post another update after I try the other drive. bpmf, we'll have to talk about that RAM if I get this thing up and running. Someone gave me a 256 MB already, so if I could get one of yours on the cheap, I could get up to 512, which should be plenty for what little I'm going to use this for. [edit] On a positive note, I fired it up with the USB bluetooth dongle plugged in, and System Profiler seems to be recognizing it. That should mean that it will work when I get Tiger installed. |
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Yarp
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Road Warrior
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I had a graphite G3 iMac for about 4 or 5 years. It was a great computer, except, it eventually developed this really nasty whine whenever it was on, which, I became used to, but when I finally got a powerbook, then macbook, the relative silence is unbelievable.
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Near Indianapolis
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I think I might have it figured out. I haven't had a chance to burn it yet, but apparently if I install 9.1 or higher, there's a firmware update that I can install. It's a required update for 10.2 and newer, and it's NOT installed on this iMac.
I still want to replace the hard drive, but I'll probably try this first. Hopefully I can get 9.1 and the firmware update installed. If that works, I'll swap out the hard drive before I install 10.4. If it doesn't, then I'll do the drive swap and try again. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Near Indianapolis
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I have a little time to work on it tonight, so I'm sitting on the floor in front of it. My wife has taken over my desk with her sewing machine.
It won't boot from the CD version of the OS9 installer I have, so I'm copying the installer to a flash drive to see if I can get it to boot from that. It's a random shot in the dark, but I don't think I have any other options at the moment. I can't install 10.4 until I have that firmware update installed. Here she is: |
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Member
Join Date: Nov 2006
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I like the combo of G3 iMac + aluminum keyboard.
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Near Indianapolis
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Me too. I had to bring that one home from work to test with, since I don't own any USB keyboards. I'm actually thinking about buying one (sans-number pad) for myself, though. I have a really small desk (if my wife ever cedes control again), and it would be great to have a keyboard that small.
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