My first iMacs

[smason]

For some unknown reason I decided I'd like to learn a bit about Macs.
I haven't touched a Mac since the Mac Classic back in the 80s.

So I aquired 2 iMacs this week.
#1 iMac G5 I got from a car dealership, they say it was displaying pictures all day every day, then died.
I disassembled it. Looks clean, and the motherboard has lots of beautiful flat-topped Rubycons.

The power supply is another story. Full of crappy bloated Elite and Ltec caps.

So I'm starting with the power supply. Have replaced a few caps, including the one under the heatsink. Managed to get it out, and another in without removing the heatsink, which has about 6 TO-220 devices on it.
THere's friggin glue on almost every cap, and some of the through-holes have been a pita to desolder.

A few of the values I don't have in stock, so will be ordering some caps.

The 1000 uF @35v is a pita, I have both Panny FM and FC in stock. The FM is too tall, the FC is too fat

Will report more this weekend.

Haven't opened #2. It's a G5 iSight. It's an e-bay purchase from a not-so reputable source (I didn't realize who it was 'till I got the local pickup address)
Paid $45.00 I suspect it'll be missing some parts inside.
If it's really bad, I'll repair the power supply, and sell it to a local Kijiji guy who is looking for one, I'll make my money back, plus I'll take his bad one and repair it, and either use it or sell it.

Stay tuned.

[Topcat]

Re: My first iMacs

These machines are loads of fun! I had 8 of them donated to me for the polymer experiments I did on them. of course all the PSU's needed recapped and the logic boards were done in polies. The more you use them, the more you will like OSX......I did anyway.

[ratdude747]

Re: My first iMacs

agreed... i used to be a mac hater... but since ^ sent me a polymodded g5 to play with, i have come to really like OSX (still like ubuntu on x86 better for most things). classic mac os still sucks... i hated it...

my advice for G5 owners:

1. plan on a poly mod. if you use it for more than pictures, the rubies will fry...
2. get a firewire 5.25" enclosure... they also like to fry the internal optical drives... mine was dying when i got it, the dvd laser was shot as it it was fine with cd's. go firewire because ppc=no usb boot. you can get the enclosures as cheap as $12 usd (more since you have to ship to canada)... and make sure the drive you pop in can read dvd DL:
3. OS 10.5 is your friend. Linux was useless on ppc (little support, etc.). 10.5 runs well on the g5 and provides a very good experience. it is a DL disc (unless you use the sparseimage compression hack to make a dvd SL work).
4. if you do OS 10.5, be sure you have more than 512mb ram. if you go with 2 chips, make them matched... 1Gb total reccommended, the differcane in .5 gb is huge.
5. have a powered usb hub ready- no front usb hubs, and mac keyboard hubs are 1.1 low power, the hub is your best friend sometimes.

enjoy your mac!

note- the g5 isight is a PITA to open... you have to remove the screen to do it. i personally would have steered clear... the original and ALS g5's are easy to open and easy to work on. the isight was not designed to be opened... the only screw is to open the door for the ram upgrade slot (idiots soldered 512mb to the board and gave you one ddr2 slot, as opposed to the ALS/ori. units which gave 2 ddr slots). if you can get in it, good for you, but be aware it could get really sucky really fast.

[toastygoodness]

Re: My first iMacs

my first imac was a bondi-blue g3. personal favorite was the lamp mac. couldn't ever stop playing with the moving monitor lol

sadly those only go officially up to 10.4, though my leopard copy is secured to an intel mbp so i haven't tried leopard yet.

[smason]

Re: My first iMacs

Thanks for the tips!

note- the g5 isight is a PITA to open... you have to remove the screen to do it. i personally would have steered clear... the original and ALS g5's are easy to open and easy to work on. the isight was not designed to be opened...

I just found that out. The G5 was easy. I thought the iSight was the same thing, just with a camera, but no, it's radically different.

I figured it would be missing parts, but these guys wouldn't bother to disassemble it to remove them....

[Toasty]

Re: My first iMacs

>>The 1000 uF @35v is a pita, I have both Panny FM and FC in stock. The FM is too tall, the FC is too fat <<

You must have the 50v FM and the 16x20mm FC.

Both 35v FM & FC come in 12.5x25mm.
You can fit up to 30mm high caps in these.

The coil on the output side looks good (unburnt), so it should be a simple *ahem* recap to get flying.

>>the motherboard has lots of beautiful flat-topped Rubycons<<

That may or may not last. It depends how much crap they had to deal with from the PSU. I've seen Ruby's blown in these from the heat.

Good Luck!
Toast

[smason]

Re: My first iMacs

>>The 1000 uF @35v is a pita, I have both Panny FM and FC in stock. The FM is too tall, the FC is too fat <<

You must have the 50v FM and the 16x20mm FC.

Both 35v FM & FC come in 12.5x25mm.
You can fit up to 30mm high caps in these.

My mistake. I thought it was too high as it was above the heatsink, but it's the same height as another cap.

Oh, iMac #1 is alive!
I finished the PS recap, and removed the 2 256mb DIMMS and popped in 2 1GB sticks. assembled it, and pushed the button.
It fired up nicely. Now to figure out how to drive it.

[Toasty]

Re: My first iMacs

Now to figure out how to drive it.

As do many of us...

Congrats on getting the PSU fixed and the iMac working.

Toast

[ratdude747]

Re: My first iMacs

if you are running 2gb, leopard it if you can. 1gb does it for my gen 1, but it does have hang-ups now and then. i might have to whip out the performance monitor and see if it is the ram.

edit- on a lighter load, it is using 80%. maybe i should invest in a second identical 1gb stick...

[godonr]

Re: My first iMacs

the isight uses a special tool much like a credit card with a 45-degree bend on one end. the idea is to slide it in the vent slot and depress two clips (one in each corner). have to say it's not easy to open. once in, the power supply, etc are totally different. the first cases where such a nice design to work!

[seanc]

Re: My first iMacs

I've still got to finish the recap on my iMac G5 and investigate the dead PSU some more.
Maybe I'll poly-mod it.

The form factor is really useful, it sits on my workbench taking up minimal amount of space, playing music and displaying datasheets.

[Topcat]

Re: My first iMacs

The form factor is really useful, it sits on my workbench taking up minimal amount of space, playing music and displaying datasheets.

That's why I love them. Its one unit, one power cord, no fuss, no BS. Plug it in and it makes one hell of a nice internet machine, MP3 player, and general use machine.

[backtrack]

Re: My first iMacs

Macs are definitely turnkey. My first was a Apple III 1MHz 6502 with 128K and boy did it over heat!! Should of had polymers right.

[ratdude747]

Re: My first iMacs

the apple /// was in the same category as macs pre SE. fanless desoldering oven and floppy warper combo units. fanless only works if you engineer it right. which jobs didn't...

[backtrack]

Re: My first iMacs

Back then if I knew first hand of what was going to happen I would have opened it up and place it right next to a air conditioner or operate it inside of a refrigerator on max. That's how bad the temps were and the price was mistakenly high.

[godonr]

Re: My first iMacs

topcat... glad you are enjoying those imacs! while heat can be an issue, the real cause of their bad rep was bad caps. lucky for you, huh? enjoy the holidays.

[Topcat]

Re: My first iMacs

topcat... glad you are enjoying those imacs! while heat can be an issue, the real cause of their bad rep was bad caps. lucky for you, huh? enjoy the holidays.

Yes, your contributions were and still are much appreciated! I ended up with 8 of them all together. I kept 4 of them for my testing and gave 3 of them to others to test them as well (ratdude got one). What better way to test them than put them out in the world and see how they act with the polymer caps. After all this time, nobody has reported any issues. I have a gen2 ALS 20" one that has a bad logic board (the garbled video issue), thats the only one I couldn't get working, but it wasn't one of yours, it came from another guy.

I've got 1 on my home computer desk (along with my big bad PC), I gave one to my wife, and I have 2 in the shop as internet terminals. I also have a 17" gen2 that I've had for ages. It was done in lytics though, I recapped that one long before I even thought to try the poly mods.

[ratdude747]

Re: My first iMacs

^ thanks for the imac topcat.

note that mine orginally had issues, but i discovered that it was the hard disk i tossed in it. no issues... i find mine is good for things that are less than linux friendly (TI calculator link, PDA sync, etc.). it also browses well... mine is likely one of the worst ones for bad caps, as it was the middle model with both the small 17" form factor and the faster (and hotter) 1.8ghz cpu. it does get hot... but the polys can take it.

now to get an airport card for it...

[smason]

Re: My first iMacs

So I'm trying to install Leopard, but not getting too far.

I burned an image to a Fujifilm DVD+R dual layer, and the iMac doesn't recognize it at all.
The DVD reader in the iMac is working, it will read a standard Movie, and my burned single layer Win7 DVD. So not sure what's happening. I can see the burned Leopard disc in my Windows boxes (at least it sees the Bootcamp stuff.)
Any ideas?

[toastygoodness]

Re: My first iMacs

u have to burn using disc utility... i tried some settings on imgburn but it would fail halfway the install.