Internet Help Needed - iMac G3 DV and 56K Dial-Up Service

[STL]

I would appreciate suggestions for improving the internet performance using an iMac G3 DV and a 56k dial-up provider. Below is a summary of my experiences to date, which include using both MacOS 9.2.2 and OSX 10.3.9. I know there is a lot of talent and brains that read this board and I'm hoping some of your suggestions will provide me a breakthrough. However, I do realize that there may not be a low cost path to my goal. Thanks ahead of time.

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I'm trying to provide a widow a Mac to replace her ancient Windows machine. She uses it for word processing, printing and internet although she describes it as not being able to handle even emails without locking up. She currently has $10/mo juno dial-up internet and her budget prevents her from stepping up to DSL. Before I provide her the Mac I want to ensure she will have a satisfactory internet experience - very few crashes of browser and / or OS.

The Mac I'm testing for her is an iMac G3 DV / 350MHz / 7GB Hard Disk, see link, except improved to 192MB RAM. Expandability is only through USB 1. There is not any Firewire port.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/im...ndigo.html

To see if my goal was even feasible I started using my broadband cable modem connection. I decided if the broadband internet experience was satisfactory then dropping back to the 56k dial-up may provide at least a borderline satisfactory experience.

Broadband With OS9.2.2 :-(
Based on some internet research, recent experience with this Mac and OS 9 and a broadband connection I concluded Mozilla wamcom-131 was a better browser than IE, icab and Opera, however, even at that Mozilla stalled and crashed occasionally. I feel the internet experience was unsatisfactory.

Broadband With OSX 10.3.9 :-)
My internet research suggested OSX Panther 10.3.9 would work in the iMac and it does, with about 4.5GB of the 7GB hard drive available after install. I connected a freshly initialized 200GB external hard disk via the USB 1 connector. Using my broadband connection, Safari's internet performance is not stellar but steady. I was very encouraged as it exceeded my goals to provide her a satisfactory internet experience.

Dial-Up 56K with OSX 10.3.9 :-(
After switching from the broadband connection to a 56K dial-up provider , the internet experience was unsatisfactory with frequent stalls and crashes, but still better than I experienced using OS 9 and Mozilla wamcom-131.

The machine could handle the internet with the faster connection but choked frequently with the dial-up connection. I must be missing something fundamental because I expected just the opposite.

[kj4btkljv]

I would really, really, really upgrade the internal hard drive in that machine. You could probably use the one that's inside the external USB case, but you're not gonna see the entire 200GB worth of space, I'm pretty sure. Even a 20GB or 30GB hard drive from somewhere would be an improvement.

Are you sure there's no low-cost DSL provider in her area? There's gotta be something close to what she's spending on dial-up every month. Anything? Maybe a neighbor that has broadband and a wireless network would open it up so she could share the connection? You'd have to add an ethernet to wireless bridge to the machine.

Honestly though, I think you're heading into a real struggle (internet-wise) with a G3 machine. A G4 machine would be a much better choice. I know you're really constrained on this project, but I'm just sayin', a G4 would be much better.

Jeff

[michaelb]

I would occasionally connect my 266 iMac to my G5 iMac and share my high speed internet so the kids could use the old imac (it is now relegated to the attic, and I am going to set up the G5 for them). I tried a bunch of browsers. iCab seemed to work the best (in Os 9), but in the end the bottom line was that some websites worked fine, but that many did not. I don't think it has as much to do with the dial up connect as it does with flash and other fancy eye candy, that the imac couldn't handle (dog slow or not loading, on pages pulled up on the G5 in an instant).

So my guess is that the iMac could work fine for email, even on dial up, but the "internet" is going to be hit or miss, mostly miss at this point. Word processing and printing should be fine. I went back and forth between Os 9 and 10 too, and either worked ok.

[GGD]

Does Juno require any of their own software, or is it just vanilla PPP using just the built-in OSX networking?

On some of the Mac models, I think there were a few different modem scripts that would apply to the modem that may give better reliability. I seem to recall being able to chose a modem script that would disable the v.90 protocol and use v.34.

When you talk about crashes, exactly what is crashing? Are you running 10.3.9 with all updates applied? Any third party software (like from Juno?)

[deckeda]

Add up the costs + shipping for maxing out the RAM and a little bigger HD, as Jeff says. And then compare that with an old G4 tower or G4 iMac or 600MHz iMac G3 that already comes with that stuff.

The problem with getting G3 "up to par" is that it usually only takes another few bucks to simply swap it out for another slightly-less-archaic model. But name your budget first.

[Harbourmaster]

IIRC even though the built in modem in that iMac is rated at 56k you will most likely never see better than 33k speeds out of it.

[STL]

Jeff thanks for your suggestions.
The least expensive DSL in our area is a $15/mo special for 1 year. I've mentioned this to her but she said that she just didn't want to pay more than $10/mo.

I agree that the hard drive is insufficient and I wouldn't hesitate to swap it out if I was confident it was the reason for the lousy internet experience. I question whether it would help because with Panther and 5Mbps broadband the iMac seemed to handle the internet info just fine. It was only when I switched to dial-up it with Panther that it started choking. My conclusion, maybe incorrect, was that the hard drive was able to handle whatever swapping was required.


What I did not include in my first post was the history of the project before the iMac became available.
My machine of choice for her was my G4 PowerMac / 350MHz / 80GB hard disk with a little over a 1GB of RAM.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/po...0_agp.html

I thought I remembered using it years ago with it's 56k internal dial-up modem. Eventually I moved to broadband and then about 4 years ago to a G5. I still used the G4 occasionally but it's connection to the internet was through ethernet and my LAN.

After I finished setting up the G4 with OSX Tiger for the widow, I tried the dial-up modem and couldn't even get it to dial out. System profiler gave me some info on the modem script but nothing really of substance on the modem itself. System Profiler under OS9 said something to the effect that there was not any modem. I'm now doubting my memory. I haven't opened the G4 to check for an internal modem but it does have a connector on the case and then there are my memories of using it via dial-up.

I gave up trying to get the G4 PM's internal modem to work.
When this iMac with a working internal modem became available to me I thought of this lady and restarted the project.

Thanks again for the suggestions.
If I get a resolution I'll certainly post about it.

[STL]

milchaelb

Thanks for you help. I think you're right on the email, internet and flash.

Maybe I'm chasing a ghost, but I just don't understand why the iMac was able to handle the internet when connected to broadband and it's faster connection but had trouble when connected via the dial-up modem. I expected just the opposite results with the iMac being able to process the info when coming over the slower connection and not being overwhelmed by the faster flow of info when connected to broadband.

[C(-)ris]

I just retired a G3 350 iMac that my sister was using. Had a 40GB drive and 512mb of ram. It worked for occasional web surfing, email, and watching DVD movies. This was on broadband though. I think what you are realizing is that dial-up is horrible and not good enough for most modern websites. Any site that uses an flash, or javascript, or most any other plugin is going to run horrible. That takes out 75% of most websites. Some have mobile versions that should work ok on dialup.

[C(-)ris]

STL wrote:
milchaelb


Maybe I'm chasing a ghost, but I just don't understand why the iMac was able to handle the internet when connected to broadband and it's faster connection but had trouble when connected via the dial-up modem.

Because the iMac can handle it just fine. It is stuttering and not working right because the dial up cannot get the information to the computer fast enough. It then stutters and waits and craps out, if you were on a G5 tower it would probably do the same thing.