[hcorf]

Dear all,

| have just purchased a new emac superdrive.

First question: compared to my iBook g4 it is really noisy, if i had gone for a more expensive imac or powermac would it be a lot quieter? or is iBook pretty much the only "silent" mac? just wondered because it reminds me a bit of a pc with the fan and hdd noise.

Second question: it came with 256mb ram, i was wondering if most owners would upgrade it to 512/786/1024mb or at least think it was worth it for the speed increase? (it is a family computer, sometimes with 3+ users accounts running at once, i presume this eats up a lot of memory with safari and mail running 3 or more times)

Oh, also: what res do most people run their emac in? i found the top one flickers too much for me, and the middle one required some screen adjustment, and now looks a bit curved, whereas the bottom one really looks as flat an image as a tft. Any thoughts?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

[Will C]

Originally posted by hcorf:
Dear all,

| have just purchased a new emac superdrive.

First question: compared to my iBook g4 it is really noisy, if i had gone for a more expensive imac or powermac would it be a lot quieter? or is iBook pretty much the only "silent" mac? just wondered because it reminds me a bit of a pc with the fan and hdd noise.

Second question: it came with 256mb ram, i was wondering if most owners would upgrade it to 512/786/1024mb or at least think it was worth it for the speed increase? (it is a family computer, sometimes with 3+ users accounts running at once, i presume this eats up a lot of memory with safari and mail running 3 or more times)

Oh, also: what res do most people run their emac in? i found the top one flickers too much for me, and the middle one required some screen adjustment, and now looks a bit curved, whereas the bottom one really looks as flat an image as a tft. Any thoughts?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

The new iMac G5 is quieter than an eMac - I cannot say by how much though. It does have a fan but a quieter one. The powermacs also have fans which are quieter by virtue that they are low noise models and run slowly and variable speed.

I would suggest if you can get a 1GB module to give you 1.25GB - I have two accounts running on my eMac with this most of the time and don't seem to run short of memory with lots of apps running.

Personally I run at 1280x960 at 72Hz. I can see the flicker but I can also filter it out and find the higher resolution useful - if you find it flickers for you you will have to use the higher refresh rates/lower resolutions. As for geometry, you have found that you cannot have a different setting for each resolution -I actually have mine set bext for 1024x768 but the picture is slightly smaller in 1280x960. I wonder if Apple could add that in - I don't see it being a complex OS mod.

HTH

[megasad]

Originally posted by hcorf:
First question: compared to my iBook g4 it is really noisy, if i had gone for a more expensive imac or powermac would it be a lot quieter? or is iBook pretty much the only "silent" mac? just wondered because it reminds me a bit of a pc with the fan and hdd noise.

Yup, the iBook is the closest to a silent Mac you can get. The PowerBooks have fans that come on far more often and the iMac and Powermac still make fan noise, albeit quieter than the eMac. When I download the huge files using BitTorrent, I now leave my iBook, plugged in, with the brightness all the way down, chugging away, non-stop until it's finished. If I left the eMac on it would not let me sleep.

Originally posted by hcorf:
Second question: it came with 256mb ram, i was wondering if most owners would upgrade it to 512/786/1024mb or at least think it was worth it for the speed increase? (it is a family computer, sometimes with 3+ users accounts running at once, i presume this eats up a lot of memory with safari and mail running 3 or more times)

Since you have the multiple users logging in at once, 768MB would be the minimum I'd recommend. After that, a 1GB chip or maybe take out the 256MB, put two 512MB chips in there, it's really down to cost. I have two 512MB chips, one that came with the machine, the other from Crucial.

Originally posted by hcorf:
Oh, also: what res do most people run their emac in? i found the top one flickers too much for me, and the middle one required some screen adjustment, and now looks a bit curved, whereas the bottom one really looks as flat an image as a tft. Any thoughts?

1152x864. It's not so much the flicker, rather that at 1280x960, things on the screen appear far too tiny. And at 1024x768, they are too big. I adjusted the geometry so that there is no noticeable curvature to me.

[the_glassman]

It's not ever going to be as quiet as an iBook, one is a laptop with slower, smaller drives and uses less energy (heat) compared to a desktop .

I would go with a 1GB or 2GB stick of memory, the more you can throw at OS X the better.

I run 1024x768 on both of my monitors and it works well.

[hcorf]

thanks guys,

always nice to get answers from real owners, not some monkey in a computer store.
Will bear those points in mind, try and get me some cash for memory.

[ApeInTheShell]

Hey!

Monkeys in computer stores always give good advice. Wait, monkeys in a computer store? Well that's just silly!