iMac G5 Upgrades
About a year ago, I performed some hardware upgrades on an iMac G5 1.9 GHz 17" (iSight) from late 2005, and I thought I’d share some insight into the process, some pictures, as well as the final result.
The upgrades performed were the following:
- upgrading the RAM from 1.5 to 4.5 GB (the official supported amount is 2.5 GB),
- replacing the original 3.5" HDD by a 2.5" SSD,
- replacing the original screen with a new one, which was showing vertical lines (an issue frequently reported).
Buying new hardware
RAM
As stated on the EveryMac.com website, the official maximum amount of RAM supported is 2.5 GB (the internal 512 MB and an extra 2 GB RAM module). However, as also noted there, it’s very well possible to put a 4 GB RAM module.
The RAM module should have the following specs: 4 GB Samsung 2Rx4 PC2-6400U-666. After some online digging, I settled for the one in the picture below, which I ordered on eBay for $13:
SSD
I initially put a Crucial MX500 SSD in the iMac, only to find that it wasn’t recognized by Disk Utility. I tried again with a Samsung 870 EVO 500 GB and it worked perfectly. Cost: $62.
Screen
I bought the 661-3789 Apple LCD Display Panel on DV Warehouse for $89 plus $112 for shipping!
Total cost of the upgrades: $276.
Performing upgrades
Overview
On this page, we can find all iFixit guides for our iMac. However, we are mostly interested in the one for the RAM replacement, the hard drive replacement, and the screen replacement.
These guides are a great resource, so read them carefully! The guides make it look easy, but it’s not so and lots of patience is needed. Removing the white case is a bit of a pain, and disconnecting the iSight camera is equally tricky. Removing the screen is fine, but putting in the new one and reassembling the iMac is the biggest hurdle. Oh, and be mindful not to drop any of the screen screws behind the motherboard!
Changing the RAM doesn’t require opening up the iMac completely, so it can be done either before or after changing the screen and SSD. In order to remove the hard drive, you’ll first need to disconnect the screen. For these reasons, I suggest the following order of things:
- Upgrade the RAM.
- Open up the iMac: remove the white case, and disconnect the iSight camera and the screen to have access to the hard drive.
- Replace the 3.5" hard drive with the new 2.5" SSD and secure it with some good duct tape so it doesn’t move. Be sure to reattach the hard drive’s thermal sensor on the SSD, otherwise the iMac’s fans may run at full speed constantly.
- This step isn’t shown in the iFixit guide: you’ll need to disassemble the “structure” around the old screen and put it on the new screen, so that the new screen can be screwed back into the iMac (see pictures below).
- Reassemble the iMac.
- Format the SSD and install Mac OS X.
- Enjoy!
There are some good YouTube videos showing how to disassemble and reassemble the iMac. Two of them below:
Pictures
Before the upgrade: 1.5 GB of RAM and vertical lines everywhere on the screen.
Inside the iMac, before the hard drive removal…
… and after.
Overview.
The front and back of the original screen.
The new screen, notice the absence of the metallic structure and cables that are
still on the old screen.
Some close ups of the original screen.
The new screen with the metalic structure and cables around it.
After the structure has been screwed in. Tape everything.
The EMI shield was also moved from the original screen to the new one (the black
one, as well as the silver ones on the sides).
Is it really working?! Time to install Mac OS X on the SSD. This was quite a
pain, as my optical drive worked only about 10% of the time.
500 GB SSD, 4.5 GB of RAM and a new screen!
Browsing the web using TenFourFox web browser (Tiger’s Safari doesn’t
support newer TLS versions).
Conclusion
I’d been wanting to do this for a long time, and now it’s finally done!
The iMac now restarts in 52 seconds — unfortunately, I don’t have a measurement from before the upgrade for comparison.
It’s still running Mac OS X Tiger (10.4), even though it should support Leopard and possibly a hacked version of Snow Leopard. Upgrading from 10.4 to 10.5 would be nice, as Tiger doesn’t support the latest TLS versions, which makes Safari pretty much useless and renders software updates impossible.