Upgrading Your Original IMac G3

The iMac G3 introduced in 1998, was credited with saving Apple and launching it into a golden age. Everyone wanted one of these new strange and cool looking computers, and they were really easy to hook up. They came in many different colors including the original "Bondi Blue" color. The original iMacs are the ones we are going to talk about today, as we are going to go through what type of upgrades you need and how to upgrade your original iMac G3 Revision-A tray-loading machine.

The original iMac came with system 8.1 with a 233MHz G3 processor and 32MB of ram. Absolutely archaic for by todays standards. This system in this configuration at 233MHz and 32MB of ram with a 4GB hard drive and it can actually run OS 9.2, but it will be extremely slow. If you want to browse the web basically at all these days your going to have to upgrade to OS X. The best operating system you can get on here is OS 10.3.9 Panther, and that requires at least 256 MB of ram.

The iMac G3 will be relatively easy for you to upgrade, all you will need for this operation is a screw driver, two SO-DIMM 144 pin PC 100 256MB ram sticks, one 120 GB hard drive for iMacs(iMacs won't handle high RPM drives) and a wrist ground strap or something to ground yourself and the computer to protect against static electricity. Do not worry about the CRT shocking as you will not be messing around in that compartment.

Open up the iMac by placing it upside down there is one screw and a handle in plain view, unscrew that screw and pull on the handle until the whole plastic piece comes off, give it a good tug. The iMacs motherboard,CD,drive and rest of the insides are all in one piece and slide right out. Just unscrew all the screws holding the motherboard to the case, disconnect the cables and slide the motherboard out, along with the CD drive and hard drive.

Now look at the motherboard, it has a processor card with a cage over it, open the cage and take out the processor card, install the first stick of ram underneath the processor card the second one above it and pop that baby back in there. Then put the cage back on, disconnect the hard drive slide the new one in hook up the wires that were on the old hard drive to the new one. If you want slide out that CD-ROM drive and throw in a DVD burner, reconnect that with the same cable as the original, then slide the whole thing back into the case put the screws in,connect the cables and pop on that case and your done.

It sounds easy but it can be a pain, as there are screws that pop up here and there that you have to take out and the most important thing is to keep track of the screws and make sure that you don't lose them. Don't worry too much about damaging that plastic case though, it's only plastic.

You want to install OS X 10.3.9 after this and if everything went the way you planned it and you didn't screw up your computer it should start right up to a blank disk. Now pop that OS 10.3.9 Panther CD in there and install that sucker and you got a modern machine ready to tackle the Internet. It's pretty funny how serviceable of a machine it can be after over 11 years of use. This all cost about $130 bucks but that is depending on how much you get ripped off in the vicious predator computing market. It will run Safari and be able to open all of your favorite web pages, although video will be a little rough on the poor old guy. The 120GB hard drive will be big enough to store all your files as well. You will be able to run a majority of the OS X programs with out a major problem.

The only drawback to these things is they have that built in CRT monitor and those tend to die, and then your really out of luck because then your iMac G3 is just dead. However if you can find one in good working condition it will be a more then serviceable machine for years to come with these major upgrades you can do to it.