[driven]

Are any processor upgrades available for the iMac DV SE 500? (Graphite?)

This is still a nice box, but it would be great to make it a little faster. (Especially now that I've dumped OS9 on the box in favor of OS X)

[discotronic]

This is the only place that I know of. I can't see getting much better performance out of this upgrade than what you already have. Well, when you consider the price/performance ratio. For not much more you could get a used 700MHz eMac.

http://www.technowarehousellc.com/g4upforslloi.html

[driven]

Thanks.

I notice their benchmarks won't show the G3 500. <GRIN>

The Cube 500Mhz (G4) isn't noticably faster than the G3 500 iMac, so, as you pointed out, I'm not sure what I'd gain.

Bummer.

Thanks anyway. This iMac will live on in some form.

[macgfx]

Nope CPU is FIXED to the logic-board. Not much hope unless some co. starts to do PBGA rework for iMac, iBooks, PowerBooks.

There is a Co. in TX that does this for Powerlogix's "BlueChip" PowerBook G3 900mhz 750fx. In an iMac you could run that chip @1.1Ghz, it also has 1mb L2 running at full 1:1.

It would kick-@ss but for the poor video of the iMac.

It would seem that there is a large market for PBGA work, maybe we will see a few Co's pop up. NewerTech also has someone do this for the PB G3 to G4 upgrades.

PBGA work it-self is not that hard for trained professionals with the proper equipment. However, I'd think that the number of trained pro's to do this sort of work is low.
The equipment is high dollar. You need to heat the Logic-Board under the CPU at a low even heat to "break-up" the solder, remove the old chip, flux or clean the pad of the Logic-Board, drop the new G3 in place. Keep in mind that we are talking a boatload of pins on that CPU that must match-up with the Pads on the LoBo. Heat set the solder. Some LoBo's need to have the L2 disabled on the LoBo ,PB G4. Not much trouble.

Now they need to test the new CPU so boot up. If there is trouble they have to X-ray the CPU to see if any of the solder joints fussed.

The real trouble with doing this is you have to warrenty your work, and you worked on the LoBo so it could get $$.

Let's say I have a iMac 400 and I want to send it in for the upgrade. So I call and Co X tells asks me if everything on the Mac works or if it has any trouble. Well I know one of my USB ports stopped working awhile back and sometimes the Video goes out and I have to force reboot. But I lie and say it works great. So now even if they do the CPU 100% right I'll get my LoBo back and claim they broke it. So soon they have to test every system on the way in and on the way out. And shipping on an iMac is high. And they are out $$ for any time they put in an iMac that failed the "in" test.

Also, some troubles don't show up all the time so good testing would take days.

I'm not saying that it won't happen, but these are the troubles any upgrade Co. would face IF they were to try.

Hope that was helpful.

[macgfx]

Originally posted by discotronic:
This is the only place that I know of. I can't see getting much better performance out of this upgrade than what you already have. Well, when you consider the price/performance ratio. For not much more you could get a used 700MHz eMac.

http://www.technowarehousellc.com/g4upforslloi.html

Wow while I was writing my long reply you made me look a bit foolish. I'd not seen that upgrade. Thanks.

Don't see why they don't use the 750FX G3 seem it would sell better @1.1ghz. Myabe something with the iMac that is incompat. with the 750xx ??

[driven]

Nobody looks foolish.

All great input. Thanks!
Maybe I'll e-mail them and see why they don't use the faster chip.

[discotronic]

The upgrade to the 1.1GHz would be a very nice upgrade. If it where the same price as their G4 upgrade I am sure that alot of people would be jumping at it. For a user who doesn't need to play games or do anything too heavy in the graphics or video department that would be the way to go. It would also give people a better alternative to buying a new system when the one they have does just fine.

You might want to check eBay. I recently had a Blueberry iMac and was looking to upgrade the motherboard. A 700MHz board went for a little under $200. I would have jumped on it but I didn't want to sink that kind of money into it. Just a thought.

[cmoney]

I'd generally agree, except in the case of the iMac, the built-in video (AFAIK) doesn't support Quartz Extreme. This does make a noticeable difference and would be reason enough (for me anyway) to just scrap the whole thing and spring for a used eMac.

[driven]

The iMac has a nice small form-factor. It's great for the kids and makes a perfect kitchen computer. (Except for the rifridgerator making the screen jump around a little)

[kcmac]

I still have an iMac DVSE 400. We changed the hard drive to a 7200 and added the 1 gig RAM kit. This made a big difference in its performance. Not quite like what you are talking about but pretty inexpensive for that machine.

[driven]

I wouldn't even know where to begin to change the hard drive on that thing. <GRIN>

Are you running OSX on yours? I had held off for a long time because I was concerned about the performance of children's edu-tainment titles (OS9) on the box. When I finally upgraded I was surprised to learn that they worked just fine and the rest of the computer appears to "feel" faster. (I have 384MB in it and I'm still running 10.2.x on it.)

[kcmac]

I had it installed for me. The original hard drive on my iMac DVSE 400 broke. I had a new 60 gig drive installed for about +/- $150 back at that time I believe. I think the original HD was 5400 so the 7200 was noticeable. The memory kit especially.

I am running the most current version of OS X. Update as soon as they become available. Each major version has been faster as well. We are still happy with this iMac although we have a new one on the way.

[driven]

I have a G5 as well, but it's overkill for my 4 and 7 year old to play on it. :-)

Thanks again for the feedback.