Another iMac Bites the Dust...

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coius's picture
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Another iMac Bites the Dust...

Yes, and now for another round of the iMac biting dust.
My mom's iMac bit the dust today. The high-volatage Power supply (analog board) went out, and now there is a _very_ dim image on the screen that represents the desktop and all things and such.
Anyways, I am setting up my B&W G4 at the dining computer table, and at least some of the iMac works, because it is now the gateway to the internet.
It is sharing it's airport connection to the Ethernet, from which a cable feeds the net connection to the B&W. This weekend we will be ordering another iMac, this time an up-to-date intel one.
I knew it would happen eventually. The 12v lead on the hard drive went out some time ago, forcing us to use an adapter and a Laptop hard drive.
My mom has been putting off getting a new machine. I guess this was the pushing point. We will be getting the stock intel one, since we wont be using it for much other than to browse the web and do email, as well as do MS Ofice stuff.

Anyways, It sucks it came to this, but I guess that's how it goes with a machine that is prone to failure

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Just curious what iMac it was

Just curious what iMac it was? 233, 266, 333 or a DV or up? And what flavor plastics was it?

coius's picture
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iMac DV Summer 2000

At least, I am sure that is the mac. It's a Slot-Loader Saphire Blue. 400Mhz DV w/ 8MB VRAM. and it came with a 12GB Hard drive iirc. I may be able to convince my mom to part out the machines. It has an airport card, which i will talk to her about. Right now, we have no imediate plans to do anything with it, till we get the new iMac (she works at a school, so with the $1099, she can get the next model up, as the lowest is pushed down to $899)

Anyways, i will keep you posted with what we decide to do with the parts. We may part out most of the stuff, like the Speakers/CD-ROM/Airport/PC-133 512MB/Casings and etc...

I am trying to find out which would be the best machine for my mom. Right now, we are looking at the lowest level machine that has a DVD Burner and Dedicated Video system. So, that is most likely what we will get.
We are not looking to fix this up, since it is old, and I really don't want a project on my hands.

So, i will keep you informed. I got my B&W G4 up, and they are loving the speed of it, since it has like 832MB ram and a 400Mhz G4, as well as an 80GB Hard drive and a 32MB PCI Radeon 7000
The machine is running OS X 10.3.9, and there are a few issues to sort out, because my mom's iMac was running odd before I did the transfer.

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Academic pricing ...

I work for a university, so I know what you mean about the academic pricing. The 17" iMac 2.0 ghz Core 2 Duo is definately the machine I would buy of the low end machines. Just about all of the iMacs are pretty great values, even the GMA950 model. I just don't recommend that one to anyone other than the stingiest of stingy mcstingikins.

On my desk at work is the machine I recommend to everyone at work - the 20" 2.16ghz core2 duo model. Big screen, 250gb hard drive, 8x DL superdrive, as well as all the other trimmings. At $1399, it's a pretty good value for the money.

The other nice thing about all the intel based iMacs is that, like their Mac Pro and Mac Mini brethren - the CPU's are socketed, and thus upgradeable. (cracking open an isight equipped iMac isn't something I like to do - I let the apple reseller do that)

coius's picture
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s'not dead yet

after smacking the system across the side a couple of times, i found that SOMETHING was loose. Especially when the system's screen came back to life. it turns out that those little pots that control the focus and screen, had become broken from the solder point. After discharging the CRT (and scaring the dog in the process!!!) and reflowing the soldering points, it works now.
Now, I know the system gets hot quite a bit, but i dunno if this was the cause of this, or what. It could have been the vibrations from those people that go down the alley with their stereos blasting rap-crap and shaking the whole house, or the printer we have next to it with it's head swiping back and forth.
Needless to say, i also found out why the 12v wasn't working on the Molex. The wire had become broken some-what, and after putting a new molex connector on it, it works

The machine has come back to life!!!
Shame we already ordered the mac...

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Shame we already ordered the mac...

FWIW:

You have a great spare if the new one needs any warranty work ... or when two people want to use the computer at the same time: paper, rock, or scissor?
[LOL]

David

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