Can I put a Graphite iMac inside a Lime iMac's body?

[Stampyhead]

Ok, let me explain. I got my little niece an old 333Mhz Lime iMac because it matched her room (yes, her parents painted her room lime green. It's intense.). She loves it, but can't do much with it. The Mhz and the hard drive size really limit installing OS X on it (Ok, it has 10.1, but that isn't really useful for anything), and she wants to be able to watch DVD, which the built in CD drive won't do. So I saw a Graphite iMac for sale and wondered how feasable it would be to simply take the Graphite iMac out of its case and put it inside the Lime iMac case. Her sister has a Graphite and it runs OS X 10.3 pretty well. Has anyone done this? Is it even possible? It sounds like a lot of work, but my niece insists on keeping her bright-a** green computer and I thought it might be an interesting project.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[jeremy.king]

Why stop there? Someone managed to cram a mini in an iMac case.

http://www.byodkm.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/60/cat/502

 

[strider42]

the 333 mhz machine is a tray loader, the graphite is a slot loader. They are very different machines. Arrangement of the logic board is different, the cooling system is different, even the size of the unit is different. It would be a difficult conversion I would think.

 

[bpd115]

Can't you just take apart the graphite casing and paint it lime?

 

[jaw04005]

I would just purchase an iMac DV Lime Green off of eBay. It's the same Mhz as the iMac Special Edition (Graphite).

 

[musicalmcs8706]

I would just purchase an iMac DV Lime Green off of eBay. It's the same Mhz as the iMac Special Edition (Graphite).

That sounds like the easiest thing to do, or find one that doesn't work and buy the graphite as well and just use the shell of the lime green one.

 

[Stampyhead]

I would just purchase an iMac DV Lime Green off of eBay. It's the same Mhz as the iMac Special Edition (Graphite).

Wow, do those exist? I was looking for something like that and I couldn't find it, so I figured the Lime only came in the 333Mhz iteration. I will definitely look for one of those. That would save me a lot of work (though it wouldn't satiate my Dr. Frankenstein-like urges). Thanks!

 

[ebow]

Wow, do those exist? I was looking for something like that and I couldn't find it, so I figured the Lime only came in the 333Mhz iteration. I will definitely look for one of those. That would save me a lot of work (though it wouldn't satiate my Dr. Frankenstein-like urges). Thanks!

Actually, when Apple upgraded the iMacs to slot-loaders, they changed the colors. The green slot-loading iMac is actually "sage" and is noticeably darker than the "lime" model.

There is a picture of one at Everymac.com

 

[Stampyhead]

Why stop there? Someone managed to cram a mini in an iMac case.

http://www.byodkm.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/60/cat/502

Woah, that's pretty cool. How do you put a CD in, though? It looks like he has the Mini in sideways.

 

[Stampyhead]

Actually, when Apple upgraded the iMacs to slot-loaders, they changed the colors. The green slot-loading iMac is actually "sage" and is noticeably darker than the "lime" model.

There is a picture of one at Everymac.com

Ok, that's what I thought. That's why I haven't been able to find one. So how feasable would it be to just take the graphite part (the plastic casing) off the graphite iMac and replace it with the lime part of the Lime iMac? I'm itching to take these things apart...

 

[moooosedude]

hahah trust me....its not going to work. i tried....to put a 400 in the 333 case, and its just a little bit off...nothing fits right. the 350 and up used one size, the 333 and down used another, and i have a broken 233 case to prove it

 

[disconap]

Are the cases different size? Because you could probably just take the lime outer shell and the speaker covers off the Lime one and replace the ones on the Graphite with them...

 

[strider42]

Are the cases different size? Because you could probably just take the lime outer shell and the speaker covers off the Lime one and replace the ones on the Graphite with them...

yes they are different sizes. You wouldn't be able to just switch out panels. The cooling system is also different, and the casing is part of that cooling system.

 

[disconap]

Huh. Makes sense, the "cooling system" in our imac G3 is basically, um, space.

 

[California]

Get A Sonnet Harmoni Upgrade Card For The Lime Imac

Get a Sonnet Harmoni upgrade card for the lime iMac. Look on eBay. You add firewire, then you bump up the speed to 600mhz. And you don't have to pull apart the case. I think the earliest 233mhz imac g3s had slightly bigger cases, too.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Black goes with everything -- just give her the graphite...

 

[disconap]

And there's always spray paint.

 

[LimeiBook86]

Take some advice from Limey...

Don't take apart the iMac and try and assemble it in a different case. That is risky because you can hurt or kill yourself if you don't handle the CRT correctly. Also it's a real pain and the case parts aren't interchangeable so they won't fit well. I say that you should get her a nice Mac Mini, buy an old CRT, take the CRT case off carefully, paint it, and your set. This way she has a machine that will last a long time and can do way more than any of those G3 iMacs could.

...or you can always re-paint the room