Perspectives: Apple iMac G4
Added 2018-12-07 15:52:41 +0000 UTCThe first 4k video!
Comments
I had planned on doing a RAM upgrade on this while doing the video and tightening the arm. It turned out I didn't have the 512MB small DIMM I needed to max it at 1GB, so that got scrapped. I had done some research before all this and knew about the the case being part of the heat sink. That's just crazy! I decided it wasn't worth it for just a 512->768MB upgrade and put it off. But based on something I got from a viewer in the mail, I may be doing another video on the G4. A physical copy of Ubuntu 5.04 for PowerPC! So I guess I could put on my best Druaga1 impression and put in an SSD and install Ubuntu on it while maxing the RAM and fixing the arm.
Tech Tangents
2018-12-08 14:00:18 +0000 UTCServicing these things was... interesting. At the school district I was working at, we didn't have the special foam stand Apple made for holding it when opening it. Instead we'd wedge it between our knees while being careful with the screen below. Later we stopped caring about scuffing the cases and staring just laying them screen down on an empty desk (a rarity in our repair room with its constant 100+ older iMacs cycling in every month). The lamp iMac G4's seemed more reliable than the previous generations that were ripe with lots of failure modes. I think we mainly saw failed HDDs and flat PRAM batteries, which were the most common failures from the older generation. I think we might have had only a couple that had failed screens. FYI, if you do open the G4 iMac, there are thermal transfer interfaces between the upper and lower case as the entire shell is part of the heat sink. The thermal grease on those interfaces needs to be replaced when reassembling and the machine should not run for long with the bottom removed, or not at all if possible.
Kadah
2018-12-08 09:22:24 +0000 UTC
