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jfdonahue · Jan 1, 2002, 04:13 PM

I am thinking of switching my 350 slot loading iMac over to OS 10.1. It currently has 256megs of RAM. Will that amount of RAM be ok, or should I get a 512meg stick? Also, can anyone comment on the speed of OS 10.1 on a 350Mz iMac? I will be using the iMac mostly for email, word processing, and filemaker databases. Thanks.

vmarks · Jan 1, 2002, 09:48 PM

you're going to hear a lot of things about how Os X 10.1 is unusable on anything less than the very newest g4.

This isn't necessarily true- it partly depends on you.

The more RAM the better.

And, this is an OS X - General question, not an iMac hardware question really...

Moving there now...

KaptainKaya · Jan 1, 2002, 10:09 PM

bump the RAM to at least 512MB, if not maxing it out. On a G3 that helps the best...I know cause I have 896MB on a G3/350. Its not blazing fast or anything, but its more useful than when I had 192MB before the summer.

BTP · Jan 1, 2002, 10:20 PM

You have the high points (more RAM), anything more is noise. I have used OS X on slower machines than yours and you should be relatively happy, depending on what you want to do with it and what your expectations are.

wzpgsr · Jan 1, 2002, 10:26 PM

I run OS X on a 350 iMac with 512 MB and use it as my main machine. GUI peformance is slower than I prefer, but everything else is solid.

Sarc · Jan 1, 2002, 10:49 PM

Originally posted by wzpgsr:
<STRONG>I run OS X on a 350 iMac with 512 MB and use it as my main machine. GUI peformance is slower than I prefer, but everything else is solid.</STRONG>

Me too, on the G4 it's very nice (640 RAM), and on the imac with 512 MB is very, very usable, before it had 192 and there it's a bit slow, but the more RAM you add the better it will go.

Sarc

juanvaldes · Jan 2, 2002, 04:29 AM

I was very impressed with the speed of OS X on a rev D (333, 256ram) and rev something (400, 512) is quite usable.

While these systems are not speed demons in OS X, its' more of the systems fault then the slower hardware. It is not that much notably different then on my Dual G4

dtriska · Jan 2, 2002, 07:17 AM

Like the others have said, buy RAM. You shouldn't have a problem with your iMac after doing so.

I was using my sister's iMac 500 today and was quite surprised that OS X ran as smoothly as it did. Her Mac has 640 MB of RAM, and no other modifications. It doesn't compare to my G4 450 DP, but I wouldn't expect it to. You'll have no problems doing what you want to do.

[ 01-02-2002: Message edited by: dtriska ]

JD Jacob · Jan 2, 2002, 03:08 PM

I just installed 10.1 on an iMac DV SE with only 128 MB RAM and it actually works fine, even running Office X. I'm upgrading of course, but it is still perfectly usable though it slows down with several apps open. (It is amusing watching Quicktime movies play during the genie pop-up - you get a few seconds of a movie in "genie mode.")

drjoe · Jan 2, 2002, 03:35 PM

Originally posted by jfdonahue:
<STRONG>I am thinking of switching my 350 slot loading iMac over to OS 10.1. It currently has 256megs of RAM. Will that amount of RAM be ok, or should I get a 512meg stick? Also, can anyone comment on the speed of OS 10.1 on a 350Mz iMac? I will be using the iMac mostly for email, word processing, and filemaker databases. Thanks.</STRONG>

I have used 10.1.2 on a Beige G3 DT at 233 Mz and with 768 meg ram it is quite usable. So if you max out your ram you should have no problems at all. I recently went to 500 Mz G4 via XLR8 and is even better. Moral? Ram is more important than speed but speed is nice :-)

Jeffrey P. Kempster · Jan 2, 2002, 04:50 PM

I have OSX 10.1.2 running on an iMac 350 with 320Mb of RAM. I also put in a 30Gb Hard Drive and a CDRW drive. All works very well with 320. I get all my memory *NO PLUG* from thechipmerchant.com. Very reliable.