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Imac G4 Leopard?!

E

EastonUK1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 3, 2010
7
0
Hi guys, i am new to mac rumours so i dont know if this isnt the right place to post this, i am just want some help please?

Right, i got my iMac G4 today, 800MHZ and i bought retail Leopard Mac Os x 10.5. i am wanting to install it to my iMac, i have used the LeopardAssist and it says, 'Dont have enough RAM' is their anyway i can 'force' it to install?

thankyou guys.
 
Dont think so. Even if you could you wouldnt want to? It'l just run fraustratingly slow.

How much RAM do you have?
 
oh, i have seen people run it on same iMac as me with same RAM and it looks fine, and i think 512 SDRAM not to sure
 
EastonUK1 said:
Right, i got my iMac G4 today, 800MHZ and i bought retail Leopard Mac Os x 10.5. i am wanting to install it to my iMac, i have used the LeopardAssist and it says, 'Dont have enough RAM' is their anyway i can 'force' it to install?
Click to expand...

You might want to check te site lowendmac. They have hints, tips and tricks for use cases like yours.

But indeed be aware of sluggish performance. If that doesn't bother you then enjoy yourself.

Try: http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/unsupported.html
 
Last edited:
il go check that out now, and no not really.. i just want leopard as i cant stand tiger-.-
i was thinking somehow modding the OSInstall disc so it doesnt install all the printer drivers etc?
 
hi, i guess il have to upgrade then, would you be able to provide me a link where i can buy more RAM? <--- sorry if thast a stupid question, like i said am new to all this stuff :(
 
Strongly suggest extra RAM.

I ran Leopard on a 1.25Ghz G4 iMac which originally had 768Mb RAM (256 +512Mb). While it ran OK open up a few applications - say Safari, itunes and Ms Word and the RAM filled. This means that it will start swapping out to hard disk and as the performance of the system is relatively limited it slowed down significantly.

There are 2 Ram slots in that generation iMac. One 'user replaceable' slot and one non user replaceable. You will most probably find that the non replaceable is either 256 or 512Mb. You should be able to get a 1Gb stick that will go into the replaceable slot.

This made a world of difference to my machine. I went from 768Mb --> 1260Mb and the result was very little swapping out and much improved day-to-day performance.

Hope this helps.
 
EastonUK - didn't twig the fact that you were in the UK(!) otherwise I would have posted the same advice as Cuckoo. Also recommend lowendmac.

Note that the official specs will say that these machines will only support up to 1Gb of RAM. It's not true and I think it was because at the time of production the 1GB chips weren't made. If you google around you will find plenty of articles on expanding the RAM beyond 1GB. For my own part I have never had an issue, although I have to confess mine is a slightly newer spec than yours.

Because of this you won't find 1Gb stick on Crucial. I bought mine on Ebay and it was fine. Just make sure you get the exact spec for your machine and use a trustworthy supplier. Bear in mind that you'll probably pay quite a lot more for this memory than newer machines as its getting pretty old spec now and therefore getting much rarer.

Still really like mine although we have a couple of much newer machines. Struggles a bit with flash video based websites though - tried tvcatchup the other day and it managed about 2 frames per second!

Best of luck, nice to know there are a few of these machines still going strong.
 
I had to upgrade the "internal" memory DIMM from 256M to 512M because the easily replacable soDIMM was already at 512M. It's a bit of a job to disassemble the G4 and you'll need thermal paste for a couple of the points where the logic board meets the top part of the case when you re-assemble. I had the DIMM laying around in my spare parts bin...but the Crucial site can tell you what you need.
 
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