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Squidge Monkey · Feb 7, 2006, 06:16 AM

I want to upgrade my E Mac is there any chance I would be able to, install an extra hard drive, shove some more ram in (more then 1Gb), also upgrade the graphics card and maybe change the cpu to the new intel ones? If so how?

e-dard · Feb 7, 2006, 01:45 PM

you should be able to do some of those things however i don't know anything about eMacs, someone will come along and tell you, what you can do in the mean time is reply with the revisions of your eMac that is: when did u buy it and what are the current specs; this will help someone tell you how much Ram the system can take etc...

edd

G5power · Feb 7, 2006, 02:19 PM

The video is not something that can be upgraded in the eMac. Also the system will not support an Intel processor.

Without knowing the specifics of your system:

The eMac that came out in 2002 with a 700 or 800 mHZ processor and has two
PC133 SDRAM slots and is listed as maximum RAM at 1GB. That memory configuration is listed as the same with the following years models that reached 1GHz speeds.

In 2004 the USB 2.0 model came out with a 1.25 GHz and has two PC2700 SDRAM slots, again for a maximum of 1GB.

The latest revision has a 1.42 GHz processor and the same memory.

So it appears that 1GB is the limit for memory.

discotronic · Feb 7, 2006, 09:37 PM

Unless there is a limitation on the board, which I doubt there is, you should be able to upgrade the RAM to 2GB.

TiberiusOsX · Feb 8, 2006, 09:55 AM

Originally Posted by discotronic

Unless there is a limitation on the board, which I doubt there is, you should be able to upgrade the RAM to 2GB.

this is true. 2 gb is the actual limit of RAM in the eMacs. I'm pretty sure that you cannot physically upgrade the graphics card, but since all eMacs use ATI chipsets, you can easily overclock them using ATIAccelerator II. just check macupdate

wmcraver · Feb 8, 2006, 12:56 PM

Originally Posted by G5power

The video is not something that can be upgraded in the eMac. Also the system will not support an Intel processor.

Without knowing the specifics of your system:

The eMac that came out in 2002 with a 700 or 800 mHZ processor and has two
PC133 SDRAM slots and is listed as maximum RAM at 1GB. That memory configuration is listed as the same with the following years models that reached 1GHz speeds.

In 2004 the USB 2.0 model came out with a 1.25 GHz and has two PC2700 SDRAM slots, again for a maximum of 1GB.

The latest revision has a 1.42 GHz processor and the same memory.

So it appears that 1GB is the limit for memory.

I just upgraded my eMac to 1 gb of ram. Unless I am mistaken the max. ram that can be installed is 1 gb as G5Power said.

Waragainstsleep · Feb 8, 2006, 04:07 PM

The 2005 eMac will take up to 2GB of RAM, despite Apple listing the max as 1GB. All the previous eMacs will only take 1GB max.
All versions can take pretty much any size ATA drive you can buy. If yours doesn't have a superdrive (or has an older, slower one), you can swap your current optical drive for a dual layer Pioneer DVR110. These are cheap and numerous, and will work pretty seamlessly with the help of Patchburn:

http://www.patchburn.de/

Thats about it for upgrading eMacs unless you want to overclock the CPU:

http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/eMac/eMac-upgrade.html

Squidge Monkey · Feb 15, 2006, 12:06 PM

Hey sorry for the long delay but heres the specs of my mac:-

Hardware Overview:

Machine Model: eMac
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (3.3)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1 GHz
Memory: 768 MB
Bus Speed: 133 MHz

Waragainstsleep · Feb 15, 2006, 01:57 PM

It will take 1GB of RAM max.

Its either an eMac (ATI Graphics) or an eMac (1.0GHz G4).

discotronic · Feb 16, 2006, 01:17 PM

It will take 2GB if it uses DDR RAM. If it used the PC133 RAM, it will only go to 1GB.

The early releases of this model used PC133 where the later used DDR.

Waragainstsleep · Feb 16, 2006, 03:14 PM

This first eMac with USB 2.0 has DDR RAM and only takes 1GB.

discotronic · Feb 16, 2006, 03:24 PM

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep

This first eMac with USB 2.0 has DDR RAM and only takes 1GB.

Is there a limitation on the board that prevents it from going to 2GB?

Waragainstsleep · Feb 17, 2006, 01:58 PM

I'm going by Mactracker. Its not infallible, but it lists the next model as being capable of 2GB. If there is a limitation, its probably the memory controller (aka the 'Grackle'). Thats what it used to be on older Macs. Thinking specifically of the penultimate G3 PowerBooks and 1st gen iMacs. Though I'm sure its true of others.
I think the memory controllers are usually designed to handle certain numbers and configurations of physical RAM chips on the memory modules. Otherwise you could try out 2GB sticks in each slot of the eMac and cross your fingers.

Gregory Goering · 06:46 PM

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep

I'm going by Mactracker. Its not infallible, but it lists the next model as being capable of 2GB. If there is a limitation, its probably the memory controller (aka the 'Grackle'). Thats what it used to be on older Macs. Thinking specifically of the penultimate G3 PowerBooks and 1st gen iMacs. Though I'm sure its true of others.
I think the memory controllers are usually designed to handle certain numbers and configurations of physical RAM chips on the memory modules. Otherwise you could try out 2GB sticks in each slot of the eMac and cross your fingers.

Mactracker is wrong. I am writing this on a early 2004 USB 2.0 emac that has 1.5GB installed. All USB 2.0 emacs have a "real" 2GB limit.

oswaldkelso · 10:44 AM

Hi my emac

g4 1ghz over clocked to 1.33ghz ,maxtor 200gb hd, 1gb ram.

it was 1.4ghz but i was getting freezes

see this link

http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/eMac/eMac-upgrade.html

oswaldkelso · Feb 22, 2006, 10:43 AM

Hi my emac in its 1.4ghz guise in the photoshop test

http://forums.macnn.com/search.php?searchid=765282

Grrr · Feb 23, 2006, 10:17 PM

I had a 1ghz eMac that I overclocked too. Unfortunately mine wasn't stable at 1.33ghz and would freeze solid after about an hour's use. However, it worked perfectly at 1.2ghz. It was a practically free 20% speed hike. And it really was noticeably faster. Plus it was 100% rock solid.
Don't attempt it though, unless you are 110% sure you know what you are doing. No offense, but its not noob territory. You have to remove and re-solder ridiculously tiny jumpers on the circuit board. No joke, I've seen bigger grains of sand. And you cant even do that until you have stripped the entire thing down into many many pieces. I think I counted 60 or so differing screws on the table while I had my eMac apart for the job.

Also, I found my eMac fast enough for most jobs, with 1GB of ram. It certainly ran demanding games like UT2003/4 surprisingly well.
Plus, I think many of these eMacs had 5400rpm hard drives? That being the case, then upgrading to a 7200rpm drive will pep things up noticeably too.
SuperDrive installs are a relatively easy and worthwhile upgrade aswell.
But absolutely forget about graphics upgrades and cpu swaps for eMacs..

mountainash · Mar 24, 2006, 04:05 AM

Buy a mac mini intel. Hollow out the eMac, patch the eMac's screen to the mac mini, patch the dvd/hard drive to the mac mini's onboard sata. Upgrade the DVD to pioneer 110 and the hard drive to a 500Gb ATA (or SATA, depending on your skills).

Similar things have been done with iMacs and Mac Mini G4s.

I suspect that this is too much for you at this stage. Max out the RAM, replace the hard drive and DVD drive. RAM is easiest, the DVD is probably next and then the hard drive. If you can follow instructions, and use a screw driver you can do it.

Then you might be able to (gently) nudge up the speed of the graphics and CPU by overclocking.