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Won iMac on eBay

QCassidy352 said:
I strongly disagree with this. OS X was made for the G4 processor and later. Yes, it can run on G3s, and I know many people do that, but in my experience, it never really runs right. It ran Ok on my 900 mhz ibook G3, but it was a total dog on both the 400 mhz imac and 600 mhz ibook that I used to have.
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And I extremely strongly disagree with that. :) :p

I ran Tiger 10.4.4 on my 300Mhz G3 (clamshell iBook) with 544MB RAM and it ran really, really, nice. Nice enough to surf in safari, use mail, listen to iTunes, and talk on iChat, all that the SAME TIME. Window movements were fast and crisp, and the computer kept up fine.

I think if you have enough RAM, the Panther or Tiger experience will be great.
 
Eidorian said:
It's the 350 MHz slot loading model though. Only the models slower than 350 MHz didn't come with FireWire. (DV vs. Five Flavors)
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Only 400mhz and faster models include firewire.
 
Well, I just put Tiger on an iMac g3 500mhz. AND I run panther on a 233mhz, 266mhz and 400mhz iMacs no problems.

They did not make a combo drive for the iMac g3. ONly a dvd/cd drive or a cd/cdrw drive or a standard cdrom drive. I am pretty sure of this. Getting Tiger on a G3 iMac without firewire requires a Tiger cd or some other sort of solution. However, if you stuff them with max ram, lke I did on the 500mhz, plus I put in a 120gb 7200rpm deskstar drive, the thing SINGS. It runs as fast on a lot of things as my G4s. They are convection cooled, no fans but I've never had a problem with them overheating.
 
Well, I have came across a hitch!

I was bidding on several Macs. One in particular where I was highest bidder. About an hour later, I made a bid retraction and the person who was highest bidder before me bidded on another computer and ended up winning 2 iMacs - the one he original bidded on (but I placed a higher bid - and then retracted it, making him highest bidder again) and the other one he placed a bid on as he wasn't winning the auction I was winning. He is now demanding I take one of the iMacs; but I have won one of my own!

The specs are:

Graphite G3 400Mhz, 256MB of RAM, 8 GB HDD, Slot loading DVD and Firewire (from the same seller I bought my iMac from!). Which went for £122 including P and P (mine went for £72 including P and P). He said he will get eBay to suspend my account and after reading the terms and conditions this will happen. What should I do? I don't care if my account get suspended but I was maybe thinking of striking a deal where he would pay for the iMac I won, and I would pay for the one he won? Do you think it's worth spending the extra £50 on a machine than is 50Mhz faster with DVD and firewire? I could buy both machines and install OS 9 on the 350 and OS X on the 400? Or I could stick with the 350 that I have won?

Regardless of this, I am still buying RAM and a hard drive.

I have decided on the RAM


But what harddrive do I need? SATA? IDE? Will this work? This says ATA but later in the page it says IDE/EIDE? I am all confused!
 
FearFactor47 said:
But what harddrive do I need? SATA? IDE? Will this work? This says ATA but later in the page it says IDE/EIDE? I am all confused!
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ATA is a synonym for IDE. You'll only be able to fit an IDE hard drive in the iMac G3.
 
Well, I have placed the orders of the 512MB of Apple Memory and 80GB Seagate Barracuda Harddrive. So that is finalised!

Now, it all comes down to what iMac:

Blueberry G3 350 Mhz
96 MB RAM
40GB HDD
No Firewire
CD Drive

£52 / $91


Or:

Graphite G3 400 Mhz
256 MB RAM
8 GB HDD
2 x Firewire
DVD Drive

£102 / $179

I have spent £77.53 / $136.08 already for the 80 GB HD and 512MB of RAM (including P+P).
 
Right, here is the final situation!

Computer I bought from eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8776578487&rd=1&sspagename=STRK:MEDW:IT&rd=1

£122 / $214 including P + P.

Bought 512MB RAM and 80 GB Seagate Barrcuda HD:

£77 / $135

Totals:

Got:

Graphite G3 400 Mhz DV
640 MB of RAM
80GB HDD
DVD Drive
Apple Mouse and Keyboard
2 x Firewire

for: £199 / $349.

What do you think of this? Expensive? Reasonable? Good, Bad, Ugly?

Final thoughts please as the system has cost me more than expected!

For £149 /$261 I could have had:

Blueberry G3 350 Mhz
576 MB of RAM
80GB HDD
CD Drive
Apple Mouse and Keyboard
No Firewire

Was it worth the £49 / $86 extra?
 
FearFactor47 said:
Was it worth the £49 / $86 extra?
Click to expand...

Faster chip, more RAM, DVD reading and firewire. For 50 quid?

Yeah, I'd say it's worth it.

Now you have the option to add an external firewire DVD burner or HD in the future. A Mac without firewire these days won't get you too far, and opening up CRT all-in-one Macs can be a little hazardous.

As you have found out though, it can quickly become false economy buying a low end Mac and upgrading it. I'd say you have it just about right.
 
At US$349 you're venturing close to used eMac/iMac G4 territory. :(

I just bought an iMac G4 for $380 here. It was the 800 MHz model with SuperDrive, 768 MB of RAM, and an 80 GB hard drive.
 
Lol, I'm no good at english - what does 'false economy' mean? :p

I intend to open up the iMac to install RAM and the hard drive. I am hoping that it won't be too difficult!
 
FearFactor47 said:
Lol, I'm no good at english - what does 'false economy' mean? :p

I intend to open up the iMac to install RAM and the hard drive. I am hoping that it won't be too difficult!
Click to expand...
A "false economy" is a purchase that at first leads you to believe you're saving money but in the end you end up spending more money than was saved.

It would have been better to hold out and get a G4 iMac/eMac with that money instead of upgrading the old iMac G3.
 
I have had an eMac before and they are very noisy machines! Prices tend to me cheaper in the USA, here it would cost around £350/$614 for a G4 iMac!
 
FearFactor47 said:
I have had an eMac before and they are very noisy machines! Prices tend to me cheaper in the USA, here it would cost around £350/$614 for a G4 iMac!
Click to expand...
The iMac G4 seems to be holding value in the UK but the eMac isn't fairing as well.
 
That's one of the things I like about Macintosh computers - they hold their value. More specifically, they don't depreciate as fast as PCs or other types of computer.
 
Well I run Panther on my 366 with 576MB of RAM and I'd have to say it performs fairly well for the usual tasks. I even ran photoshop CS on it :O
 
munkees said:
deebster said:
and opening up CRT all-in-one Macs can be a little hazardous.

It is not hazardious, the CRT is in a different compartment to the computer, and it easy to access the computer part. it slide out.
Click to expand...

Ah, OK. I stand (or sit) corrected.

I was basing my comments on reports I've read about getting inside the eMac. Figured they were basically the same design-wise.
Click to expand...
 
FearFactor47 said:
Right, here is the final situation!

Computer I bought from eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8776578487&rd=1&sspagename=STRK:MEDW:IT&rd=1

£122 / $214 including P + P.

Bought 512MB RAM and 80 GB Seagate Barrcuda HD:

£77 / $135

Totals:

Got:

Graphite G3 400 Mhz DV
640 MB of RAM
80GB HDD
DVD Drive
Apple Mouse and Keyboard
2 x Firewire

for: £199 / $349.

What do you think of this? Expensive? Reasonable? Good, Bad, Ugly?

Final thoughts please as the system has cost me more than expected!

For £149 /$261 I could have had:

Blueberry G3 350 Mhz
576 MB of RAM
80GB HDD
CD Drive
Apple Mouse and Keyboard
No Firewire

Was it worth the £49 / $86 extra?
Click to expand...

The 400mhz is the better deal but buddy -- bid retraction is a drastic measure in eBay world. Aren't there rules about it? I've been on eBay for seven years and NEVER retracted a bid. And I've only been on one auction where I've seen it happen. Why did you retract your bid?
 
To be honest, I got a bit carried away with my bidding, and ended up the highest bidder of a computer which wasn't worth the price it was at. So I retracted my bid. All is resolved now which is good.

I am going to set up internet access on the computer when it arrives. I have a wireless network in my house. I have a cable box in my room. A RJ45 cable runs from this to the wireless broadband router. My iBook connects to the wireless network via Airport. This computer I am receiving will not be connecting via Airport, as it doesn't have an Airport card. However, I noticed the wireless broadband router has several ports at the back labelled 'Local Network'. I am planning to run a RJ45 cable from the ethernet in the iMac to this port in the back of my router.

Will this work?
 
Ok I have received the computer.

When I opened the box, I started it up and it was VERY VERY noisy! The hard drive was really loud, plus there was this loud whine, which I assumed was from the power supply.

So, I installed the 512MB of RAM, bringing the total up to 768MB of RAM. It seems to run Panther pretty well - I'm impressed. Most of the problems came when I went to install the new hard drive.

I installed the new hard drive, and the computer powered up, and nothing, except this weird noise. I removed the 256MB of RAM that came with the computer, and the computer started up and I got the blinking '?'. I then swapped the RAM slots so the 512 was where the 256 used to be and vice versa. The computer started up again. I inserted the Panther disk. It then would let me install Panther on the HD (athough the hard drive appeared in disk utility from the disk) - it didn't give me a reason, just a red exclaimation mark. I restarted the computer and it let me install OS X.

The hard drive is pretty noisy however the loud whine which I thought was the power supply has gone. The unit is pretty quiet when it is not access the hard drive. This is a Seagate Barracuda 80GB HD. Should it not be silent in my iMac? This hard drive is certainly not silent, I can easily hear it, however it is quieter than the drive it replaced!

I am going to return the drive to where I got it online and buy another drive and fit it into the computer. Do you think this is wise, or should I expect to hear noise from the Seagate Barracuda drive? Occasionaly a noise comes from the computer (HD I think) it is a buzzing noise, accompanied with a fast 'tick tock, tick tock'. Sort of like tapping your finger on the table constantly - that sort of noise. It goes away after about 30 seconds. When I click on an Application (which accesses the hard drive, the noise stops immeadiately).


The actual iMac I won on eBay seems to be fine. It is a nice Graphite colour and has better sound output than my iBook.

Thanks for your final suggestions.

Shaun.
 
Personaly i would put the highest version of os x i could get to work on it. I dont think 10.4 would be that much slower than 10.3 or even 10.2, but also you may not be able to install 10.4 at all without some workarounds. As long as you got a decent amount of ram, it would work just fine. And I would stay away from os 9 if you really dont need it for something specific.
 
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