[Koralatov]

Hi. I'll start with a bit of background first. I'm new to Macs, though I've been admiring them from afar ever since I frist read about OSX (probably ~three years ago). As a student, I could never afford to buy one, but recently (now graduated) got my hands on a 20" G4 iMac for £400--from what I could tell, a total bargain. The screen has two small, barely noticable 'shadows' in it, but it's a small price to pay for such a beautiful machine. Two weeks with it and I'm a total convert--Windows has lost me forever.

It runs Tiger (10.4.9) and has 786MB of RAM. Sadly no Airport Extreme, but I'll get around to buying one sometime. My question, however, is this: can I install a larger SODIMM in this machine?

I understand I could take out the pre-installed (engineer access-only) 256MB SODIMM and replace that with a 512, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. At least, not just now, anyway. What I'm really interested in is whether the user-installable SODIMM slot takes larger than 512MB? Having read-up a bit on the G3 clamshell iBook (a machine I still covet, despite its age), I found out that can take a 512MB module, despite only 'officially' support 256. Is this the case with the G4 iMac, or were the specs accurate?

Thanks in advance!

[analogika]

The 20" iMac G4 will eat PC2700 RAM, which is available in up to 1GB sticks.

Both slots will take 1GB each, so the maximum for this machine is 2GB.

1.25 GB should make a substantial difference in handling, though, so replace the user-accessible one first and see if that's enough for you.

That's a lovely machine, btw. - and a rather nice price, IMO.

[Koralatov]

analogika,

Thanks for answering my question--it's very much appreciated. I think I'll follow your advice and start off with a 1GB in the user slot, and maybe move onto the engineer slot when I'm feeling a bit braver (and richer).

As for the price--I've been doing some research (googling "refurbished mac") and it seems I paid the going rate for a much less powerful 15" model. Knowing this has made me even more thrilled than I previously was.

Thanks again for the help!