Need some help with a iMac 233 and 333

[carstairs]

I have a iMac 233 and a iMac 333 that I would like to repair so I can use them. I've owned the 333 since it first came out and I bought the 233 at a yard sale last year for $40. I have a list of questions if anyone can help me.

The CD-Rom on the 333 is broken. I put a CD in and it makes a clicking sound then asks if I want to reformat the CD. If I replace the CD-Rom will that fix it?

On the 233 the clock keeps returning to 1956...will replacing the battery fix that? And should I replace the battery on the 333 too?

Where can I get Ram for my iMacs? the 333 has 256MB (Years ago I upgraded it to that) and the 233 has 64MB.

Is upgrading to OS X possible? And if I did would that make it impossible to use my OS 8 software?

Is it possible to install larger Hard Drives in the iMacs?

And if anyone has any other suggestions for what I could do to upgrade them I would greatful.

 

[yoak]

Hi. I can´t answer all of your questions, but some.
You can upgrade the hard drive on the imacs to say, 40 gig.

You can aslo install OsX, but you need to an upgrade via software update. Check out www.lowendmac.com
They will tell you what to do to upgrade the OS.

Good luck

 

[TLRedhawke]

The optical drive can be replaced, but they're a pain to find. It requires a laptop style tray loading optical drive, and it may require a new power board, as Apple tended to use drives with upside down connectors. You could probably use a slot loading drive as well, but it might cause some mounting issues.

Replacing the clock battery will fix the time issue. The batteries don't cost much, so it would make sense to replace both at the same time. The 333 will have its battery go fairly soon.

Both machines take standard PC133 SO-DIMM, but cannot accomodate a 512MB stick. As a result, if you want a 256MB stick, you'll need to make sure you get a 16 chip stick.

You can upgrade to OS X, provided you meet the memory requirements (128MB is the minimum for Panther, which is the most those machines will run officially), and it will most likely eliminate the use of your OS 8 stuff. Some of it might run in Classic mode, however, but no guarantees. Be warned though, these machines can tend to crawl under OS X.

Also, be absolutely certain that you've installed the latest firmware for the machine before installing OS X. Failure to do so can brick the machine.

You can install a larger hard drive in the machine, but it necessitates a nearly complete disassembly. It takes a standard 3.5" Desktop hard drive, but uses an IDE66 bus, and so the drive cannot exceed 128GB.

These are good, solid machines. I bought my parents one a year or two ago, and it works great for their needs. Granted, OS X needs to be played with to get it to run anywhere near smoothly, but there are a number of FAQs regarding how to dumb down the graphical elements to make G3 machines run better.