Wonder whether to put money in my imac

[cathalibm]

I received an imac from the office, its an a1224. It has os x 10.4 on it. First of all i need to wipe the hard drive clean. I have no cds for it. I've haven't used an mac since the early 90's so i'm pretty clueless. I wondering whether i should try to upgrade hd and memory. Also i'm finding that the os x is too old for some applications.

Any thoughts or solutions would be nice.

 

[pigoo3]

- Technically you don't need to upgrade the hard drive (as long as it is working fine).
- We don't know how much ram it currently has…so hard to say what to do about the ram.
- If it's still running OS 10.4…this DEFINITELY needs to be upgraded!!!

If it were me…I would definitely upgrade this computers OS and ram!

Overall…it really depends on what your goals are with this computer.

- Nick

 

[harryb2448]

G'day and welcome to the forums.

A late 2007/early 2008 iMac can run right up to the latest operating system. Suggest you lash out $20 and buy Snow Leopard OS X.6.8 from Apple Online. After this you can decide if you wish to update further.

You have not told us how much memory you are using. For OS X.9 and X.10 install the maximum 6GB, 1x2GB and 1x4GB modules. Later operating systems are memory hungry.

 

[cathalibm]

G'day and welcome to the forums.

A late 2007/early 2008 iMac can run right up to the latest operating system. Suggest you lash out $20 and buy Snow Leopard OS X.6.8 from Apple Online. After this you can decide if you wish to update further.

You have not told us how much memory you are using. For OS X.9 and X.10 install the maximum 6GB, 1x2GB and 1x4GB modules. Later operating systems are memory hungry.

It comes with 1 gig, I could possibly put more into it. Comes with 320 GB hardrive. I only figured out last night that it has a built in camera at the front on the top.

 

[harryb2448]

Possibly? Wow wonder you can get it to do anything. Have troubles browsing?

 

[cathalibm]

Web issues

Every program that i try to download for is looking 10.6, I did get a copy of 10.6 and dumped it onto an external harddrive. I run the program. It tells me to reboot the machine to continue. When i do, it boots back into the desktop.

Im leaving it for the moment. Im trying to find a copy of the 10.6 in the office on cd before i will consider wheither to buy additional memory for it. I suspose I could wipe it and stick linux mint on to it!

 

[harryb2448]

Lash out and spend the $20 with Apple and buy OS X.6, to do a clean install and the greatest trouble shooting utility available to your iMac.

Trust you did not download Snow Leopard from anywhere suspicious as you may have also got a truck load of malware and adware for the same low price.

 

[cathalibm]

My boss at work dug out a copy of mac box set which comes with snow leopard, i life09 & iwork 09. I have to give back the cds when the snow installs.

I take it that ilife and iwork is something like ms Office?

........

Im running the cd, seems to be installing correctly, Ive got 38min left on the installation!


.......

Had to redo the install as it didn't wipe all the data. I had to go to youtube to find out how to do a clean install. It seems to have worked. Now trying to do the software update.

 

[harryb2448]

They may be model specific discs only for the model they came with, fingers crossed, whereas no joy you need to buy the Apple Retail install from Apple Online.

Such old discs the iLife and iWork may not update. And you can install up to 6GB of memory, 1x2GB and 1x4GB. OWC and Crucial recommnded here. Do not buy eBay/PC memory as it will not work. Mac memory is low density and most PC memory cheaper high density.

 

[cathalibm]

They may be model specific discs only for the model they came with, fingers crossed, whereas no joy you need to buy the Apple Retail install from Apple Online.

Such old discs the iLife and iWork may not update. And you can install up to 6GB of memory, 1x2GB and 1x4GB. OWC and Crucial recommnded here. Do not buy eBay/PC memory as it will not work. Mac memory is low density and most PC memory cheaper high density.

I got into the desktop, did the software update. So its now 10.6.8. Ive installed the iLife and iWork fine.It asked me to install updates for both. Everything is working.

My next step will be to buy memory, but i might leave it for a little while.

 

[chas_m]

Glad to hear you got it working, but bear in mind that that machine is too old and now unsupported for security updates, so it's really not safe to use on the Internet.

If it's a 2007/2008, it's overdue for replacement by about 2-3 years at least. You should figure roughly a 4-5 year replacement cycle on notebook/desktop computers generally. I'm currently using a 2012 MBP and loving it, since it is essentially the same as the current model non-Retina MBP except for some minor differences (TB vs TB2, primarily). I expect to replace this unit with something newer in 2016, but then I rely on my MBP very heavily for work and play. Lighter-duty users can get away with waiting longer.

 

[cathalibm]

Got 4 gig of memory from crucial for €60 which included the shipping. Hopefully it will be a painless install!

 

[Slydude]

Check out this page from Other World Computing. It has installation videos for a variety of Macs. Many forum members have used these guys and their instructions are clear and accurate.