Imac G4/700: Upgrade vs. replace?

[dan steinberg]

Hi there everyone, I am hoping folks can weigh in with some opinions on a plan of action for my in-laws Mac. I am visiting them for the next week and doing some typical computer maintenance, and have been trying to decide on some options for making their computer run a bit better, or upgrading to a new machine.

In terms of their usage habits, they are very casual computer users, mainly using the web, doing emails with the OS X mail program, and occasionally doing a newsletter or label on Microsoft Word. Their current internet speed is as much a bottleneck as the computer itself, since they have DSL but the phone lines in the 40 year old housing development are so old and crusty that their upload/download speeds for Qwest DSL only go so fast, no matter what speed package they actually get. Cable is not an option as there is no cable coming from the street and getting it wired to the house would involve digging and large expense.

They have an Imac G4/700 with a CD-Rom drive, running 10.4. It only has 384 megs of RAM (256 meg chip and a 125 meg chip).

The computer runs a bit slow and I know that 384 megs is not very much for OSX. Does anyone have any recommendations for a vendor that has good prices and reliability for upgrading the RAM on this machine? Any opinions on how much memory would be good to add?

One caveat with that is that it would need to be shipped 2-3 day so it could get here in time for me to install it, if I ordered it a.s.a.p. I am around until the 25th-26th or so.

Another upgrade I was wondering about was replacing the onboard CD burner with an onboard DVD burner, which would be give him some options that we are currently lacking. Has anyone ever done this type of upgrade, and if so, were there important details about what type of IDE internal DVD burner to buy?

Lastly, we have also been pondering simply buying them a newer machine altogether. If we went this route it would either be the lowest end, smallest Imac currently sold (preferrably as refurb) or a Mac mini which we could pair with some nice monitor that we find locally on sale.

So basically, I'm trying to figure out if by the time we got some more RAM and a DVD burner, if anyone thinks that would cost enough that it might not be too big a leap at that point, to get some low priced Mini and a monitor, or moving up the food chain from there, a more recent Imac.

Thanks and I hope this wasn't TOO long winded

[vicrock]

I think I'd suggest upgrading to a refurb - a g4 is pretty long in the tooth, and would require spending more on it than it is worth. There seems to be a bit of a cult following for the "lamp", so you might offset the cost of the new machine by ebaying the old.

Apple site says free 2 - 3 day shipping and has this
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB324L...TExOTkzOTM

Additionally, this comes with a "free" printer after rebate - most of the printers now come with scanner/copy capability - probably an upgrade if their printer is the same age as the g4.

[clay]

I'd go with a new machine, personally. Even the cheapest intel iMac you can find will be worlds faster than their current machine in every way.

Of course, it's up to you and what you want to spend (both in terms of time and hassle). You could get a 512mb chip of ram for about $35 (plus fast shipping) http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/mem...MHz_800MHz and another $30 or so for a new optical drive, but you still end up with a 5 year old machine that's only going to be marginally faster that it was before the upgrade. A faster hard drive will help the speed, but I haven't looked recently to see how difficult that would be to replace.

For me, spending any money to upgrade their current machine feels like throwing good money after bad. You could spend the $75 or so now, and just hope that the machine doesn't die soon, or you could take pre-emptive action now and get them into a new computer. I realize that of the two options, one is $75, and one is closer to $1000, so that may be your deciding factor. I'm all for keeping old machines going as long as possible (have a g4 tower that we just recently retired as our office server), but at some point, the risk of the machine dying unexpectedly outweighs the benefit of waiting as long as possible to get something newer...

[Wailer]

The jump in performance from 384mb to 1.2gb of RAM will be nice, but I think it'll be costly ($100?) since that RAM is hard to find.

I wouldn't sink $100 into an almost 10 year old machine that could die any day. While the DVD drive won't be expensive, upgrading the DVD on a g4 mac is fairly involved. Maybe you can find an external firewire drive.

If the computer is sufficient for what your parents need, I probably wouldn't do anything with it other than make sure it has the latest version of Tiger and you have everything turned off that can affect performance.

Keep in mind that a 20" C2D imac w/DVD burner, 160gb HD will probably do what your parents want for another 5+ years and those run around $300 used. RAM for those is much cheaper.

[Zoidberg]

Agree with the general opinion; time to move on. Rather than spending $100 or more on an upgrade, that money would be better spent on a refurb Intel, and then cleaning up and moving the G4 down the line (another family member just looking for an email engine, freecycle, ebay, etc.).

[mrlynn]

We have a G4/700 iMac, too, with a bit more RAM (768); doesn't get much use these days, except for an occasional family iChat, but it's perfectly capable of surfing the Web and doing email. So if their usage is basically light-duty, and they're not complaining, I'd vote for some additional RAM and some housecleaning (those HDs were small and filled up fast; also repair Permissions and clear caches).

Faster Internet access might be more important. Can't run FIOS or cable over the air? Maybe the IPs would be willing to do some digging in return for a longer contract.

/Mr Lynn

[davester]

First off, that's a 7 year old computer, not a 10 year old computer. I myself am pretty happy using my 1.25 ghz G4 powerbook with 2 gb RAM that was pretty OK running with 1.25 gb previously. The powerbook isn't all that different than the iLamp. Given their minimal needs, I would do a very minimal upgrade of that computer and just buy a single 512 chip which will set you back $34 + shipping from our sponsor, OWC. That would probably give you a nice speed boost. I wouldn't spend the extra money to go with two 512 chips.

That said, there's a big issue with that computer. If you look here http://www.lowendmac.com/imacs/15in-imac...0-mhz.html , you'll see that there are two diffent types of RAM in that machine, and only one is "user accessible". Since one of the installed chips is a 128 mb chip, I'm guessing that it is the non-user accessible one. It can probably be replaced but you need to find out first which RAM chip you need to replace before undertaking this.

[AAA]

It is very hard to beat the Dell Mini for price.

[Winston]

I replaced both the optical drive and the hard drive on our G4 iMac a few years ago. It was not particularly difficult. Google around for instructions. As I remember, there were some notes on which optical drives fit best (I think we used a Pioneer). There was some issue about length of the optical drive case or how it fit with the drive door. OWC might also have install instructions and advice if you buy from them.

That said, the older Macs are having trouble with web video playback. That's the only functional issue I see with their using the old computer for a few more years. I am still on Tiger on a PowerBook G4 and that's my main complaint about using this computer.

If they do not have an external drive hooked up for backup, I'd get that before you do anything else, and set it up on a schedule.

A more recent computer will be a bit more functional for their needs. Do the upgrade if they have an emotional attachment to that Mac, and you'd like to have the challenge. Otherwise, a replacement is a better idea.


Good luck.

- Winston

[MikeF]

I think a new (or refurb) low-end mini with a new 17 or 20 inch display would be best -- depending on how much they're willing to spend.

They should contact the DSL provider (or phone company) to come out and check the lines. There's no reason they shouldn't get what they pay for...