[selowitch]

Do you think it's wisest to stick with a 5400rpm hard drive to replace the internal drive on a CRT iMac G3? I worry that in such cramped confines, that extra heat will be bad for the long-term health of the components.

[storer]

For a slot loader or DV, i believe 7200 is ok. in the beginning they were too hot, but today they are cooler, and most people will tell you stories of installing one with no problems.

[selowitch]

Originally posted by storer:
For a slot loader or DV, i believe 7200 is ok. in the beginning they were too hot, but today they are cooler, and most people will tell you stories of installing one with no problems.

Too late. I already ordered the 5400 drive. I think the client will be happy anyway. Isn't the stock drive on a slot-loading 350MHz iMac G3 a 4200rpm model?

[austeros]

Originally posted by selowitch:
Too late. I already ordered the 5400 drive. I think the client will be happy anyway. Isn't the stock drive on a slot-loading 350MHz iMac G3 a 4200rpm model?

nope they have always been 5400rpm, in imacs. i can say from experence it was a nice jump to 7200rpm

[selowitch]

Isn't it true that whereas you cannot upgrade the ATA bus from 66, that you can't take full advantage of a faster hard drive? I mean, it will rotate faster and still perform better than before, but since the HD controller is soldered to the motherboard and can't be replaced (as it can in a desktop machine), the full benefits are not realized.

[Kenneth]

I put the WesternDigital 120GB (8mb cache) inside the Bondi Blue iMac (upgraded with a 500Mhz G3) without any heat issue. I never bought any 5400RPM desktop drive anyway.

[Luca Rescigno]

Originally posted by selowitch:
Isn't it true that whereas you cannot upgrade the ATA bus from 66, that you can't take full advantage of a faster hard drive? I mean, it will rotate faster and still perform better than before, but since the HD controller is soldered to the motherboard and can't be replaced (as it can in a desktop machine), the full benefits are not realized.

Well, it IS true that you can't change the onboard ATA controller. The only way to add an ATA controller is through a PCI slot, but iMacs don't have PCI slots. However, there are few hard drives that exceed a 66 MB/s transfer rate. As long as you only have one hard drive connected to an ATA/66 controller, it should be able to run without the ATA controller speed acting as a bottleneck. Now, certain demanding applications will tax a slower ATA bus, and you'll also want a faster transfer speed if you're using multiple drives on a single bus, but ATA/66 should be fine for a 7200 RPM.

Finally, I wouldn't be surprised if a 5400 RPM hard drive from late 1999 was nearly as hot as a 7200 RPM hard drive today.

[tooki]

Actually, modern 7200RPM drives are a bit cooler than the stock drives in those machines.

Do a search, I've discussed this topic a couple of times (most recently in the Power Mac forum, but several times in iMac, too).

tooki

[joe]

Originally posted by Kenneth:
I put the WesternDigital 120GB (8mb cache) inside the Bondi Blue iMac (upgraded with a 500Mhz G3) without any heat issue. I never bought any 5400RPM desktop drive anyway.

I was about to try the same for a friend (233Mhz Bondi iMac, 120GB HD). But I wasn't sure what IDE controller was on-board - is it ATA/66? If not, did you notice whether your Bondi iMac has a problems accessing data past 33GB? Thanx.....joe

[tooki]

Bondi iMacs have ATA at 16.7MB/sec (pre-Ultra ATA).

They can use drives up to 137GB (so, in practice, up to 120GB).

OS X must be installed on a partition completely contained within the first 8GB -- it must not be straddling the 8GB boundary!!!!

tooki

[kcmac]

I put a 7200 rpm drive in my iMacDVSE 400. (1999) It works great and gave it a nice speed bump. Did this a few years ago after the original drive broke.

[joe]

Originally posted by tooki:
Bondi iMacs have ATA at 16.7MB/sec (pre-Ultra ATA).

They can use drives up to 137GB (so, in practice, up to 120GB).

OS X must be installed on a partition completely contained within the first 8GB -- it must not be straddling the 8GB boundary!!!!

tooki

Hmmm. I thought I'd do a dry run on the stock 4GB drive. But every time the Panther installer restarts, the iMac boots into Open Firmware. According to the ReadMe, the 233MHz Bondi meets the requirements. Does it need something more:
- 233Mhz G3
- 160MB RAM
- 2MB VRAM
- 4GB HD
- OS9.2.2 and all updates

[tooki]

Well, the RAM is really meager, but it should boot.

But I'd try resetting the NVRAM. When it boots into Open Firmware, type:
reset-nvram [press return], then
reset-all [press return]

It should boot then.

Also, rather than just double-clicking the installer launcher in OS 9, did you try just booting off the Panther disc by holding the C key?

tooki

[joe]

Thanx tooki,

I finally got the OSX installer to run by booting directly off the CD rather than letting the installer restart from OS9. Agreed, the RAM is low. But it's going to end up hitting the swap file a lot even if I max it out. Hopefully the 7200rpm HD will help. I wonder if the VRAM has any affect given the chipset doesn't support QE.

Have other rev A owners noticed a difference running Panther with the stock 2MB VRAM vs upgrading to the full 6MB?.....joe

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by joe:


Have other rev A owners noticed a difference running Panther with the stock 2MB VRAM vs upgrading to the full 6MB?.....joe

The 6 MB will let you run millions of colours at 1024x768, where the 2 MB only allows thousands at the same resolution.

[tooki]

Originally posted by joe:
Thanx tooki,

I finally got the OSX installer to run by booting directly off the CD rather than letting the installer restart from OS9. Agreed, the RAM is low. But it's going to end up hitting the swap file a lot even if I max it out. Hopefully the 7200rpm HD will help. I wonder if the VRAM has any affect given the chipset doesn't support QE.

Have other rev A owners noticed a difference running Panther with the stock 2MB VRAM vs upgrading to the full 6MB?.....joe

The max RAM in that machine is 512MB, which is not ideal for graphics work, for sure, but adequate for light use.

On an unsupported card (it's not just unsupported for QE, it's also unsupported for almost all graphics acceleration on OS X), VRAM isn't an issue per se, but upgrading it would help nonetheless.

As bradoesch said, upgrading the VRAM to 4MB or 6MB will let you run at millions of colors. Now, this may sound backwards, but OS X is optimized for running at millions of colors, so you may actually see a speed improvement by running at millions. (Internally, OS X always thinks in millions; when displaying at lower bit depths, it has to take an extra step to downsample the color.)

tooki

[joe]

Originally posted by tooki:
On an unsupported card (it's not just unsupported for QE, it's also unsupported for almost all graphics acceleration on OS X), VRAM isn't an issue per se, but upgrading it would help nonetheless.

Again thanx to all for your helpful advice I returned the iMac though I'll be sure to mention the VRAM upgrade again. At the going rate on eBay (about $10) for a used VRAM upgrade chip it seems well worth it IMHO.

Finally, I'm completely amazed at how well the iMac runs in Panther. It's no speed demon by any means. But given the hardware specs (233MHz G3, 160MB RAM, 2MB VRAM) it does surprisingly well. Also, Panther's printer driver for the Epson 740 was 1st rate......joe

[tooki]

You *really* need to max out the RAM. With 512MB, it will not be swapping out anywhere near as much as with 160MB (where it will be swapping pretty much constantly).

tooki

[selowitch]

Originally posted by joe:
Finally, I'm completely amazed at how well the iMac runs in Panther.

It's a testament to how fabulous Mac OS X is, especially from Jaguar onward. Hooray!

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by tooki:


As bradoesch said, upgrading the VRAM to 4MB or 6MB will let you run at millions of colors. Now, this may sound backwards, but OS X is optimized for running at millions of colors, so you may actually see a speed improvement by running at millions. (Internally, OS X always thinks in millions; when displaying at lower bit depths, it has to take an extra step to downsample the color.)

I think I remember running earlier versions of X at thousands of colours on my iMac DV for speed improvement. Did this work different back then?

[joe]

Originally posted by selowitch:
It's a testament to how fabulous Mac OS X is, especially from Jaguar onward. Hooray!

Exactly! I maintain/upgrade Windows boxes at work and wouldn't even attempt to install XP on a similar spec PC. Apple did one helluva job on Panther. I don't want to exaggerate performance though. That iMac isn't going to set the world on fire running Panther. But my friend primarily uses it as a net box so performance is fast enough. Plus, no more mysterious OS9 lockups and/or conflicts! I'll check back in a few weeks and see how well it runs long term. But for the few days I had it there was just no comparison. Panther rulz!.....joe

[buffalolee]

Originally posted by joe:

.....
Finally, I'm completely amazed at how well the iMac runs in Panther. It's no speed demon by any means. But given the hardware specs (233MHz G3, 160MB RAM, 2MB VRAM) it does surprisingly well. Also, Panther's printer driver for the Epson 740 was 1st rate......joe

Try upgrading your iMac to a G4 450+ MHz processor. I went to www.technowarehousellc.com, and purchased the upgrade. They were wonderful. $250+

On top of that, I installed an 80GB 7200 rpm hard drive (get Seagate 7200.7 model), and it's QUIET. I mean, I can barely tell if my computer is on.

I am running a G4 500MHz iMac (from 350 MHz G3) with 512 MB of RAM. the computer is smooth. Some say that with the money, I could have bought an eMac, but I liked my little 15" Strawberry. It's too delicioius to give up.

[tooki]

Originally posted by bradoesch:
I think I remember running earlier versions of X at thousands of colours on my iMac DV for speed improvement. Did this work different back then?

Nope.

tooki

[Kenneth]

Right.. the 8GB rule bugs me the most.