just got an eMac...

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A lady on craigslist here in Manhattan gave me a free eMac (1ghz, 700mb RAM). She told me the screen would blink.

So I made the treacherous trip (it's way heavier than I expected) through the subway system home. I figured I would use the ram for my old iMac G3 I turned into a jukebox.

I look inside to see EVERYTHING (fans, holes, connections) covered in thick black dust. I buy a can of air, spray it out and also made the power button sturdier and bam....runs like a champ.


So my question to you gurus out there is what kind of things can I do with it.

I got a 512 MB chip of PC133 on the way to max it it. Are there any program that can run on this (I got 10.4.11) to give it a boost?

A fan control app?

Anything?

I am still in the dark about pre intel macs, but I love them for some reason.

Any info on currently supported apps for performance, diagnostics(check to see if this thing is in good shape), adjustments would be appreciated!
 
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MacMini 14.3, 8.1 & 4.1, OS 13.5, 10.14, & 10.11 & 10.6; Macbook Pro 8.2, OS 10.12.
So my question to you gurus out there is what kind of things can I do with it.

Welcome to the eMac fan club! Check Mactracker - get info on any Mac for complete specifications of your machine, and what you can do to extract maximum performance from it.

Essentially, there is no "boost" as such, your eMac will run at 1 GHz - and that's it. Maximum RAM of 1 Gb will help the process.

You cannot upgrade the video card so don't expect to run high-power games. Movies are okay but only from the internal CD-DVD drive. If no DVD, that can be remedied with an upgrade, but it's a tough task.

Diagnostics?
1. Onyx is the best utility for system maintenance.
2. Run Disk Utility from a Tiger Install disk - if you can - to check out the hardware.

Don't expect too much from the USB - it's only version 1.1 @ 12 Mbs. If you have USB devices, operate them through a powered external hub. Use firewire external devices where possible.

When you have the RAM cover off, look inside at the capacitors (about 5 of them) that are visible on the logic board. If the caps are swollen, cracked or oozing brown gunk, expect trouble. Capacitors can be replaced by someone who's good at fine soldering, but getting the logic board out of an eMac is difficult.

PM me if you want a link to eMac (and iMac) manuals.
 
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Everything is running awesome, except I have one problem...the screen flickers every few minutes. This is not continuous though, it happens every few days. Strange.

I have read up on the IVAD cable...so is it possible that or some other cable inside the computer is loose? I took a quick glimpse at the capacitors and they looked fine.

I am also surprised this thing runs Leopard smoothly.
 
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Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
The problem may well be the CRT monitor, as they are getting quite old now and the tube does begin to slip. Just ignore it if you can as the alternative is setting up an LCD screen.
 
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well I dug inside and did find the usual capacitors to be bulging/leaking. The flicker though only occurs seldomly every hour.

Does anyone know of a fix-this might sound dumb-to minimalize to flickers and preserve the damaged capacitors. I need to get this going along until I get a new/cheap desktop.

Maybe some kind of epoxy or solder-like metal conductor?

Maybe some settings I can change to take a load off the screen?

Sorry for asking so many questions...I am a "newb" at this sort of stuff.
 
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Don't mess with the CRT connections unless you *really* know what you're doing, ie. you're a qualified and experienced electronics technician. There is very high voltage flying about in there, and changes to it may cause serious damage, or fire - or both.

I'm not convinced the flicker is capacitor-related, but if it's unbearable, do as Harry suggests, and use an LCD external monitor.

Remaining option - replace the whole logic board, or solder new capacitors in, a fiddly and tricky job.
 

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