Hey, I have a SE iMac, and want to know if there are any hardware hacks for it. As in, changing the Grafix card so I can run dule monitors, PCI slot hacks, ect...ect. I know about the glowing mouse stuff, and I don't want to have to tweak the case too much, or have ugly stuff hangin out the side (like some hard drive hacks I've seen. So, any ideas?

------------------
I have an iMac DV
Special Edition....I will
use it to.....TAKE OVER
THE WORLD!!!
ahem.

[Cotton]

sorry, gfx chip is on the soldered on the motherboard, no PCI, no mezzani (spelling?) slot, unless you have a rev. A or B - you have USB and firewire, tho! not much you can do legacy hardware wise, except an external monitor (350 and 400DV's).

-cotton

[Feathers]

Well, you can start with a bigger hard-drive!!!

[Ca$h68]

wow... you must know like NOTHING about your computer dude.. the iMac is basically ...um.. un-alterable.. what you have is what you get. If you want someting that you can tweak like mad, I'd sell it and get a G3/G4 tower or something...

Ca$h

the technical name for a computer like an iMac is a "closed" system, meaning the user can only add more memory w/o voiding said warranty. I prefer to call my alterations "unauthorized renovations" rather than hardware hacks, that sounds too painful.

Excuse me, but I do beleive I titled this thread "iMac hardware hacks." hacks, being the operational word there. I know exactly what I'm talking about, and what I am looking for are "unauthorized renovations" as wetsponge so delicatley put it. (yeah, hacks is a bit painfull) So, no offence, but, No Crap you don't have any real options for expansion and tweaking, like u do w/ the G4. i was too impatient to save up the money for that and a monitor. If, something is soldered on the motherboard, that just means the work will be a bit more delicate, not impossible. So, anything for me now?

[Kozmik]

So, you plan to unsolder the graphics chip and somehow stick on a new one and think it will work? Good luck; you're going to need it. The circuitry is made like an ATi Rage 128 VR card, integrated into the motherboard (if I am wrong, please tell me), with the chip soldered on it, like in the card. So what do you plan to do? Put a Radeon 256 or Voodoo5 chip onto a Rage 128 VR card? And "PCI hacks"? What exactly do you mean by that? There are no slots of any sort on the motherboard except Mezzanine in A and B iMacs. I expect you'll want to solder a PCI slot onto the motherboard too! The only thing you can do to an iMac DV SE "hackwise" is replace the hard drive and possibly the modem, or overclock.

[Ca$h68]

Hmmmm I already said this 4 times, but... SOMEBODY keeps deleting my posts...

Yes, this dude knows NOTHING about iMacs or he would know that:
A. there are no PCI slots

B. You cannot (without spending MORE thanyou would for a brand new G4) unsolder surface mounted resistors, chips, etc and resolder a new video card onto the mother board (Which wouldnt fit save for exteranally mounting anyway

C. Only 1st gen rev a, b iMacs have video upgradeability, unless you are getting one of those iMacs and swapping parts around like me...



Ca$h

I think I know where he's coming from. He's motivated by people telling him it's impossible. He wants to know if any of you are truly brave or rich enough to do some serious experimenting. I'm sure it's possible, but not for the faint of heart or someone that can't afford to throw away their new imac. The problem that he has is that if he couldn't wait until he saved up enough for a G4, he problably can't afford to do this kind of hack either. It sure would be fun to try though.

[Ca$h68]

Have you ever SEEN the motherboard?!??! Do you really think that you could distinguish all that stuff? For the effort/time/money you'd pay into attaching an EXTERNAL videocard (voodoo3) to an iMac, you could have purchase 2 G4s, or one pimed one.

Ca$h

[blizaine]

I added a Voodoo3 card to my iMac DVSE. The card was kinda big so about 3" of it has to stick out the slot loading DVD drive but it plays great!

[Kozmik]

Care to tell us how?

he's kidding (i hope) and if he isn't, he'll be dealt with.

[Ca$h68]

He's joking. duh.

Ca$h

Ummmm - duh - He wants to know about HACKS - See you do something everyone says YOU CANT DO IT - well you probably can do it it's just that no one has tried and you know what Im tired of all these moron's talking about how hard it would be and just putting people down who ask questions about wanting to put in another vid card or the like - cause I want to do the same thing and I dont see why you arnt able to - When he was talking about the PCI slots - I think what he wanted to know if there is a way that you could add them or something - Dont put people down because of stuff like that - Hacking hardware is a good thing - you gotta think more positive - Just cause most of you guys out there can afford a G4 which btw a cheap one is about 2 grand with the monitor - doesnt mean blackfrost or other people like me can so keep that in mind. In a couple years I will probably move on to another machine and will want to try something with this iMac DV SE - so lets see what we can come up with here shall we??

[Kozmik]

Okay, moron. Here are some hacks.

1. Open up the motherboard. Rip out the video chipset. Take off the chips from a Voodoo3. Solder them onto the ATi circuitry on the iMac's motherboard.

2. Take off the PCI slots from another motherboard. Solder them onto a convienient place in the iMac's motherboard.

Switch the iMac on and see your new hardware in action, working perfectly!

By the way, if anyone actually does this, I'm not responsible. Also, if you do this, please let me know so I can ridicule you about how you willingly destroyed your own $1200+ machine.

[wlonh]

Kozmik speaks harshly but truly here...

not much you can do other than a LED or two in the puck something like 'sine' did... sure enough though, if you feel like really taking chances given that you have extraordinary skills with a soldering iron (and no one with those kinds of skills would have any reasonable hope for consistent success!)... go right ahead we will all be waiting to hear about that one wee little tiny itsy-bitsy fatal mistake you made and killed your Mac

Why do I get this feeling like some people who post on boards work for apple and try to instill this fear amongst mac users that you cant hack their macs and only in trying you will destroy your machine? And why are people so negative towards trying this stuff? I just think that with over 2 million iMacs out there - there has to be something "cool" you can do to them hackwise.

[Ca$h68]

Ok, time to get out the can of whoop ass. I'm going to read the label on this can for ya. "This can of whoop ass is specifically made for morons who have NO IDEA or CONCEPT of the idea they are suggesting". Good! Perfect in this case. Now. Scotty boy. Since you are unregistered, I'm ASSUMING you are young/new to macs/unknowledgeable, but you DO have will. Thats a good thing. UNFORTUNATELY, it is FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR CHEAPER in time and money to purchase a G4 then swap vid cards in an iMac.


"WHY!?!?!? " you ask...

Well, Apple made this video card an ONBOARD video card.... which means you cannot remove it. It is IMPOSSIBLE to remove your video card. But then you MIGHT ask (but probably not because you don't even know this) about the voodoo2 upgrade cards for rev A & B iMacs... well, that video card is an exception. Why? It was a pass through video card. Basically, you hook up the monitor out to the video card input, then the video card output to the monitor. Hence the term "Pass thru". This is the only realistic way of upgrading a computer with onboard video's video card (Wow, that was an odd sentance..anyway). UNFORTUNATLY, most video card manufacturers have strayed from this type of card, as they are all regular vid cards, NOT pass through. THERE MIGHT (repeat MIGHT) be some way to make the gamewizard microconversion voodoo2 upgrade card (for orig iMac) work with the NEW imac, but even then, its a voodoo2, and its outdated... it wouldnt even have more ram than your current video card..

Here's another factor to consider. If you SERIOUSLY want a voodoo3 (which is 3dfx) in your ATI (Rage) powered iMac, you're talking SERIOUS modifications, NOT just a simple chip swap. The architecture of the two species are COMPLETELY different. They render stuff completely different. What does that mean? It means that THE ENTIRE ONBOARD VIDEO CARD could not be used AT ALL. Like NILL.

There would be ONE way you could do this.... and thats just a MAYBE, and that maybe would be if you said you happened to be not ONLY an electrical engineer, someone farmiliar with electronics and what not, but also able to understand video card concepts. You'd probably also have to dissasemble your iMac into a rack mounted iMac, due to space constrictions, like that one guy did. But...

LIKE EVERYONE HAS SAID IN THIS POST:

Its not worth the time/effort/money. Maybe NOW you can somewhat grasp the amount of time and knowledge required for even attempting such a project. A G4 would be a LOT easier, cheaper, and less buggy to upgrade.

And you do NOT have to get a flat panel display for a G4. Im sick of people saying this. You can get a decent 15" monitor (used) for around 100 bucks.

Ca$h

[Kozmik]

I have been saying this in all of my posts (well, I've been saying more stuff is impossible, but you know, it's the same type of thing). If they won't listen to me, I sincerely hope they listen to you, Ca$h.

[Ca$h68]

Thanks. Sometimes people just need a good virtual bitch slap to knock some sense into them.

Ca$h

[Ca$h68]

One other thing. "mac users FEARING to modify their macs". What crack are you smoking? I konw TONS of people on this board modifying their macs. I'm going to be one of them. I'm overclocking my Rev D iMac to 400mhz, also switching my daughter card to a rev A imac motherboard with voodoo2 installed on it. And I have a top secret project that will make you all jealous, but Im not talking yet.

Ca$h

[Feathers]

Originally posted by scottparr:
Why do I get this feeling like some people who post on boards work for apple and try to instill this fear amongst mac users that you cant hack their macs and only in trying you will destroy your machine? And why are people so negative towards trying this stuff? I just think that with over 2 million iMacs out there - there has to be something "cool" you can do to them hackwise.

Hey Scotty, don't bother registering, as a matter of fact, don't come back at all. If you believe the above quoted horse-bucky you...

a) Haven't read many MacNN forums vis-a-vis hacking iMacs etc.
b) Have no respect for US MacNNers
c) Stink like a PC user

[MacNZ]

HI,

yeah, i totally agree. Sounds like a PC user! Ca$h and others have covered basically everything about the iMac and he still isn't satisfied. What is the point in spending ages looking for obscure iMac hacks which are darn expensive when the money could best be spent initially buying a better system.

I bought an iMac because it did what I wanted and I wasn't concerned too much about upgrades. I'm sure most iMac owners are the same. However, there are the few hacks like the game wizard and G3/466 upgrade everyone knows about which are bonuses. I didn't buy an iMac to go soldering inside every two seconds.

Maybe Apple should educate their buyers about expandability and what it means!

[joe]

Yes, there is at least one hardware hack you can do for the iMacDV - clock it up. Doing so will *VOID your WARRANTY!* However, someone has already done it and even posted a web site complete with pictures, step-by-step instructions, and benchmarks from the hack. This is very delicate work and should not be done by someone inexperienced. And while I don't feel the need to do this to my iMacDV (yet), I have done this mod on other computers. Most recently was a Phase5 233MHz 604e accellerator card for Amiga which worked fine before and after. This sort of mod usually requires additional cooling as the cpu generates more heat at faster speeds. That's not going to be easy on a computer that did not even come with a cooling fan. If you're determined to take this risk and have very little soldering experience, you can practice on old junked PC video cards and motherboards. They are loaded with those pesky SMD jumpers. Here's the URL for anyone that's interested: http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~t-imai/imacde1.html

This may not qualify as a "hack" but you can upgrade the internal hard drive. There is a link at www.imac2day.com under "slot loading" that has step-by-step instructions with pictures. Both ATA/33 and ATA/66 drives can be used. But there will not be any performance advantage to the ATA/66 drives as the iMacDV has an ATA/33 interface.

The ATI 128VR graphics chipset standard on all slot load iMacs has been described as being "underclocked." However, there is very little advantage in clocking it to ATI's spec as the real bottleneck is the non-upgradeable 8MB video memory in the iMac. This is the same chipset Apple uses in the G4 towers with 16MB video memory. So while it's theoretically possible to double the memory, noone has done it. It would not surprise me to see Newer Tech or some other Mac hardware developer offer this upgrade at some point. The method for upgrading the iMac video ram is the same as upgrading the iMac backside cache which Newer does already in their remanufactured rev a-d iMac accellerator. Normally, such work is done with expensive soldering workstations by experienced and qualified techs. Both ECG and ChipQuik offer a $20 kit that claims to allow regular soldering equipment to unsolder/resolder SMD chips. It hardly seems worth the risk though.

But if the iMacDV had 16MB video ram and 2MB of backside cache, it would vastly improve both gaming and rendering performance. And that's even with the stock 400MHz G3. Personally, I think Apple should expand it's marketing strategy for the iMac. Sure, the iMac makes an excellent entry level computer. But some folks (myself included) prefer the smaller, compact, and stylish all-in-one design to the more traditional towers. No doubt that the towers will allways be easier to expand. But as the Mac 3rd party has already proven, give them a mezzanine slot or 2 and they'll develop something useful. It would not be too hard to have allowed for a video memory upgrade like the original iMac had too. Just some expandability - maybe a processor slot. Of course, it doesn't help that Motorola can't seem to crank up their G3/4 clock speeds. But that's a subject for a different thread...joe

[Ca$h68]

Thats one hell of a first post Joe. I salute you, you seem to know yer sh*t.

Ca$h

[joe]

Thanx. I just wish the slot load iMacs had as many upgrade options as your rev A

[Ca$h68]

thats a Rev D with a rev A motherboard and rev D daughtercard to you buddy!

Just give it time. And Im still not happy with upgrades available for my puter. > I want a 16 meg graphics card dangit!

Ca$h

Or is that now a rev.A with a rev.D daughtercard, case, and monitor? Or would it now be a rev.AD (after what?).

But seriously, don't be so hard on the dude. Maybe he can see the beauty in his machine from more than the perspectives of function and economics. You've done your duty in advising him of the risks involved. Let him have his forum to find what he is looking for. If he pulls it off, he'll be stoked.

back to Moria…

this will wander far afield from the imac section- but if the fellow wants to play with the guts of a machine he bought the wrong product. There are mods documented and more still in the trail and (frequent) error stage being done to the all-in-one desktop appliance style imac. But to buy a graphite imac and immediately want to start soldering sockets onto it's multilayer surface mount board is strange. or buyer's remorse.
Years from now there will be a hardcore bunch with wild mods; much like the folks who still keep the original mac all-in-ones working. Putting ppc boards into mac color classics or overclocking a '40 processor. Or just developing workarounds so an SE or Plus can surf the net or deal with the login procedure of an ISP. These things and more will develop for the imac over the years from the user community. But some of the things won't; or at least have no reason to. Some of the mods done on early machines were because there was little choice- there were few faster consumer or pro machines to purchase that were faster out of the box and the mods allowed doing DTP on large files in a reasonable length of time. Also there was the original purchase price; the SE/30 that can be picked up on Ebay for $20 bucks now cost over $2000 in nineteen-eighty dollars new.
In the modern timeframe there are alternatives to the imac, that either have the speed built -in or addable thru documented planned expansion areas.
If the fellow wants to play, or tinker, buy a cheap machine that has a much lower value and more designed in or developed expandability. Look on ebay for a used 8xxx or 9600 apple. Or a umax 900. It's "old iron" but can be tweaked to be modern and fast at much less intial and mod cost. Going thru smalldog.com's garage sale they have some barebones umax 600's that can be completed for under $150 bucks, and made into a g-3 full boat with 3 pci slots for under 4 bills. much cheaper to tinker with than cracking the case on a new imac.

oooooooooooooooooooooo - how so wrong you are

Why dont you go take a look at Appleinsiders Boards - I got 500 posts over there so dont think cause im not registered here im a total newbie. Also - I know EXACTLY what the **** im suggesting - I know its hard I know its not easy. Why do you think its called a hack - if it werent a hack it would already be that way and I wouldnt have to go an void the warranty now would I?? Ya see - if no one tried this stuff there would be no hacks. Another thing - I never said it was my main goal to make this easy as stated above I know this isnt easy but someone has got to try out this stuff - as stated above there are something like 2 Million+ iMacs out there I think we can come up with something a little better than lights in the mouse.
O and yet ...Another thing - Dont talk to me like I dont know my computer - ya dont know anything about me or what I do. I came here with the attitude of wanting to broaden the horizon of "mac hacks" then what do I get in return? A bunch of you dont know jack **** buddy better back your bags and leave cause its too hard costs too much and its too imposible.

O yes - one more thing
NO **** you wouldnt be able to use the same vid card - how stupid do you think I am?? See this is another example of how much you do not know about me or what I know. Hell for all you know I could work at apple then again maybe I dont.

::sigh::


[This message has been edited by wlonh (edited 05-25-2000).]

[Ca$h68]

YOU ARE A COMPLETE F*CKING IDIOT! SORRY PAL! HAD TO BE A JERK TO YOU! Why?!?! You come in with an attitude. Dont you think we've TRIED thinking of some way to get rid of the complete horseshit video card in the iMac?! YEP! If you even KNEW people on this board you would have known I would be the biggest supporter of putting in a new video card... I HATE ATI! And I HATE Apple (kinda) for deciding to package iMacs with such CRAP. If they had awesome video cards, they would be PERFECT gaming machines. Small, portable, and powerful. But your suggestion of "hacking" your iMac is completely assinine for a NUMBER of reasons.

1. The time and money spent putting a voodoo3 into an iMac would have bought you at least 2 G4s.

2. if you want to use the mezzanine card, you need a pass through video card. I'm not sure it would work, but you COULD convert the mezzanine to PCI to video card, BUT IT MUST BE A PASS THRU CARD! AKA VOODOO2, which isnt that great.

3. Unsoldering the ATI Rage Blow from the motherboard has to be teh STUPIDEST thing I've ever heard of. You ask where it is, yet you arent a newbie at all.. no no... you've DEFINATLY opened up your iMac before and seen the chip that says "ATI RAGE PRO" on it, but you just wanted to see if we knew where it was. Only a newbie ask a question like that. And a newbie would notice that the card is built INTO the freaking motherboard, meaning who knows how much stuff youd have to dissconnect, desolder, and pray that it still works. But you knew all that, because you have posts at appleinsider. WOOP DE FREAKING DO! YOU"RE STILL AN IDIOT! AND NEVER POST HERE AGAIN BECAUSE NOT ONLY DO YOU LACK BRAIN CELLS, YOU LACK TACT! AND YOU PISS ME OFF! I hate morons....ARGH!

Ca$h

PS: Virtual JUDO CHOP TO THE NECK! HEYA! >

[ThinkInsane]

And if anyone knows about TACT, it's Ca$h!!!!!

"Virutal judo chop to the neck"? Dood, although you make me laugh, I think it's time to see a therapist lol

[Ca$h68]

heheheh > Some people REALLY need a virtual bitchslap, judo chop, or swift kick in the nads every once in a while, don't ya think? HEHhe >

Ca$h

PS: Scott posted how wrong I was in the original thread. I'd like him to post here, because I believe I'm correct in most everything I said here.