This iMac G3 Has a Terrifying Problem... Let's Fix It
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
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THIS is a 1998 iMac G3 Rev B, which I think is the best of all the trayloaders for several important reasons. What's not great is the terrifying electric arcing sound that's coming from inside while it's running...
Let's fix it, and get it ready for an extremely rare CPU upgrade!
LINKS:
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🍎 MOOT Teardown Video (Extremely Helpful!): • iMac G3 Take Apart
🍎 IFixit Guide: www.ifixit.com... (has slot loader and tray loader!)
🍎 Dielectric Grease: amzn.to/3nuWgvn
🍎 Flyback source: technotronic-d...
(Amazon links are affiliated links)
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#Macintosh #PowerPC #iMac
Anyone else living Saturday to Saturday, just waiting in anticipation to see what atrocity will be carried out next on a retro Mac? Just me?
Not just you. I wait for the end of my shift at work, to sit down and enjoy some shenanigans
My middle school had some tray loading G3s iMacs, despite being a Windows school. They had bondi blue and orange ones. I remember one year, there was a mix of both tray and slot loading iMacs. So there were computers with puck mice and the newer magic ones.
Could you watch gay porn on them?
I sold all my school's ones. £50 each in 2007. Seems they're worth £150 now, should have stored them somewhere.
we need all of the shenanigans!
I'm always impressed by the collection of rare Sonnet stuff you're able to find. I used the frame by frame view on RUclips to see the box. 🤣
I just spammed my spacebar and, who'da'thunkit, there was a clear frame there visible within a couple of seconds =D
let's face it, when Sean teases a rare upgrade, ten to one it's gonna be a Sonnet
@@GeFeldz if you hit 'K' it pauses the video and then the , and . buttons advance a single frame backwards and forwards. It's less of a pain than using space to try to get a lucky frame lock.
These cards are silly expensive for hobby play to just get 1, let alone owning multiple.
@@KiraSlith just about everything that company makes is always expensive. I was looking at some of their thunderbolt computer accessories at various times and those are expensive. Their specialty hardware for niche processor upgrades has always been astronomical. And as the stuff gets older and more rare it's just going to be worse.
While I have some hardware that is compatible with those niche parts, I've mostly kept everything period correct and unchanged from stock specifications. When I want to use something more powerful, I just can. (If a G3 doesn't have the power I need, a G4 will. If that doesn't cover what I need, a dual G5 should, etc.) I have all of tiers of Apple products covered from 68K, to PowerPC, Intel, and even up into M-series. (The trick is to buy when it's bottomed out in price, before anyone thinks of it as a collectible.) 😁👍
That flickering sometimes is caused by the deflection IC failing or bad joints on it. We used to work on those all the time on Sony and Toshibas.
6:14 I worked at a couple of little Apple resellers back in 1999 (and as a Mac consultant after that) and sold many CRT iMacs, and RAM upgrades were a common option at the time of purchase and in the years after. We never used a pick to get the case off: just flip up the handle where the screw is, and tug on the handle. It sounds like it’s tearing, but it comes right off. All of the translucent plastic is polycarbonate, not ABS, so it doesn’t hurt it. You definitely don’t need to worry about breaking it! (Unlike the opaque ABS inside, which you saw was yellowed and brittle.)
"Well, all the way back to life. It's not dead". Knowing how you approach most repairs, I was half expecting you to say "... yet!"
Hey! 90's grime is the best kind of grime! We called it "Grunge". 😉
Those computers really are super neat. I used a Windows PC at the time and used to mock my many Mac user friends at college because they were sort of slow in comparison. But those computers offered so much more than just horsepower. They were and are beautiful and were a joy to use.
These shenanigans would make Steve Woz proud. And anger Steve jobs to no known bounds. On that principle, I would call this endeavor a double win. 🎉
First thing I've watched today, and in no time Sean does that "sneak preview"!
Great start to my YT watching!!
I have that exact machine. And that exact problem. Not eager to attempt all that work on it, especially since I've never done a thing with solder.
Had exactly the same problem on my Rev. B in 2003, had to send it to be serviced. Great little machine, my writing career started with an article about installing Linux on it.
Sadly, the machine isn't working anymore since my cats dropped it from a table. The internal plastics cracked/shattered, but the external ones and monitor are fine. However, when I try to turn it on the power LED just stays orange, no chime.
I'm hoping it is just a mistake I made when reassembling it, but currently I'm lacking the patience for a disassembly. And I do not have a good place for it, so I'm considering putting it up "for adoption".
I had the box with the complete accessory kit (discs and manuals) until a few weeks ago, but this was on a shed that got damaged by a summer storm, and I had to throw the kit out. 😓
Glad you were successful! I have a dead parts unit (early Blueberry) I was going to offer you the analog board if you couldn't get yours going. My experience is that usually you can see fractured solder joints; if they looked fine, I'm thinking the goop corrected leakage and arcing. And yes, those things are sooo brittle these days! I cringe every time I take one apart!
*FLICKERS* “Damn it!”
Ah, a Harmoni G3. You got me all excited thinking you had one of the Voodoo 2 mezzanine cards!
Spoilers 😬
Man I wish I'd done this with my old Rev A Bondi Blue iMac when I had it. I had the exact same flickering issue.
Looks like my newly acquired Grape iMac (333 MHz) has the same CRT issue! Thank you for all your videos and entertainment! I will restore it!
Well done for the correct pronunciation.
If your mystery upgrade for the next video is a CPU/FireWire upgrade, I have that in a rev. A Bondi iMac that I acquired about a year and a half ago. 500 MHz G3 with FireWire port...but I had to remove the FireWire daughter card as it was causing the computer to slow to an unusable crawl for some reason and was unable to diagnose, so I will be curious to see if that is indeed the upgrade and if you were able to get it all working properly.
Adrian’s digital basement style goggles 😅 nice! My retro hero.
Thank you for pronouncing Bondi correctly!
Discovered your channel through the Power Mac G5 video! Definitely subscribed!!
Rocking those extra firm Tortex green picks like a boss
Ouch first thought for me was flyback.
I used to volunteer for an elementary school fixing their equipment. Had this G3 that would not turn on unless it was upside down. Had to run to Radio Shack for a soldering iron and solder to re-attach the... I assume a BIOS/CMOS battery... back onto the board. I'm no expert when it comes to Apple products. Mainly a PC user and PC computer whisperer myself.
I really love that Twiggy disk t-shirt.
Thanks for sharing your G3 journey with us all!😄
I have CTX monitor that I found at my grandad's in a barn. It was filthy but after a good cleaning it worked and had very sharp picture so it must not have been used much. The monitor worked for a while until the vertical drive IC got could solder joints. Which made the vertical almost collapse and lose sync signal. After I resolder the chip the monitor worked again just like it did when I got it.
0:45 Harmoni G3
Fun fact.. With a lil modification you can apparently use a Rev A flyback in a slot loader
I have the exact same problem on the exact same model iMac. :D
I def don’t miss these older models. Speaking from eye perspective!! Lol😂
the solder joint reflow is most likely what solved the problem, no?
Love the Hoovie's Garage shirt !
I have the SAME PROBLEM! Then I tried a silent fan noctua mod and it did "tschh tscchhh tscchhh" 3 times and... Died. Where did you buy the extra flyback, if I can ask?
Imagine making it easy to get to the safe part and hard to get to the "might kill you DED" part, mayhaps a thought or two behind that =D
Beware of the bezel same ABS plastic as the beige Macs. I think someone was making replacement ones made of better plastics.
The second computer my family got when I was growing up was a grape iMac and we used it until the first Intel iMac. The first was a Performa 550 but I was too young to remember that being our daily driver. It got relegated to kids games for my sister and I to keep us off the main computer.
I freaking love this design language. The laptops in particular look amazing.
I didn’t realize that it was that “easy” to get into the iMac. I have an old grey iMac SE that has been in a closet moving with me for the past 20 years. Might try breaking into it and replacing a startup battery that I suspect has been bad for a couple decades.
I finally got a G3 for my collection, it has the exact same problem... remembered that I've seen your video on it a year ago :)
It would be interesting to know if reflowing or re-applying dielectric grease has done the trick - I might try regressing first and update here for anyone else who's wondering :)
@ActionRetro were you successful in fixing the industrial computer screen yet?
Is there anyone who generally repairs older iMacs? I have a 2001 Graphite iMac G3, that needs a new disk drive, and has a strange problem where the screen is fine and then will turn to yellow, and a firm (not hard) whack on the side fixes the problem until it is moved again. Now it is doing this flicker thing as well. It is a fully functioning 600 MHZ G3 and it is now just sitting on a shelf. It was the first Mac I ever bought, and I am holding onto it for sentimentality I guess. It used to DJ parties with an iSub, and I had the thing sitting in the kitchen for years working as a kitchen aid. I transferred the hard drive to a G4 Quicksilver so a part of it lives on but it is just sad to see it sit and wait to be repaired after everything it did in it's heyday.
Mac's from that era were not the easiest to mess with, but they were the most convenient. Meaning you can still put 1gb of memory in one without much "fiddling".
I have two of those Psion V i think. I got some heavy use out of them back in the day. After i got them used for cheap. I don't think i paid more than $50.
im dying in this heat during summer, my laptop is aswell, well i dont care ill sit here watch action retro
I used to have a Rev. C 333mhz iMac G3 Tangerine. I gave it to my girlfriend-at-the-time's family because they didn't have anything and I had just gotten a new G4. We broke up like a month later. I think about that iMac constantly, and have no idea what happened to it. It was an awful decision. Hug your Macs while you've got 'em, folks.
As always great video!!! Love the old apple tech and sending support from Pittsburgh!! Keep up the great work and content!
So it was basically a laptop with a CRT screen on it. Smart and bold for the 90s, tbh.
That's a cool electric screwdriver you're using! Where is it available? Thanks.
Since it has a standard DVI video output, and a standard ATX source output, I would put a modern PC card, maybe even do it on a Hackintosh on a Macchitosh lol.
_zap, flicker_ damn it
I feel the snap for the jump cut could have been more crisp
glad you fixed it and it didn't break apart its is a terrifying thing to do nowadays
So I take it you have found the super-rare iMac Game Wizard Voodoo2 card for that mezzanine slot, and you're going to play some old-school GLide games on that blue beast?
I had a salvaged iMac Rev B with a bad flyback that I gave away instead of dealing with that repair. Must’ve been 10 years ago now.
I got a imac G3 but when u turn it on everything red but can be used still
If anyone knows what it could be please leave a reply
I never knew there was actually a beige iMac inside one of those things. I kind of like the look of that.
I had a composite monitor that would do that. Eventually it would just shut down. No sweep, CRT heaters would go out, HV would discharge. Smacking the side brought it right back. I knew exactly what it was: cracked solder joints on the flyback. Big heavy transformer that vibrates, it's bound to happen eventually. Reflowed those pins and it was good until I gave it away.
Damn, a naked Imac 3g looks terrifying
Where's the original "Bond I" keyboard and Puck mouse?
Win 2K?! You should've installed everyone's favourite Microsoft OS...Win Me! 🤣
I do know at least on CRT TVs but it should be the shame for computer monitors. the pins on flyback transformer like to get cold solder joints over time. So I always recommend resoldering the flyback pins on a TV or monitor you care about.
Would be funny if the problem came back toward the end of the video as he declare it was working just fine
0:44 there is literaly 1 frame where you can see the upgrade
Can you post a link to the source of the flyback???
The original G3 had a fan inside? How did I not know that before? I thought all G3s were fanless
The original A through D had fans, the slot loaders afterwards were fanless
Curse you, camera! Now we have to wait and see what the upgrade is!
I lost it at “CRTs orifice” 😂
Please tell me that you discharge the crt off camera before disassembly 🙄🥶
I have one Rev. B tangerine fully working with OS 9.2 and 10.4.11! :D
It does have OS X. I was surprised to see it running on the first Gen iMac G3.
Is that a voodoo 2 mac edition?
Looks like a Sonnet HARMONi G3 to me
@@yukisaitou5004 ya me to, but was hoping for the insanely rare VooDoo 2 8mb card. Only saw it in magazines.
@@knightsun2920 it's a cool upgrade for sure, but it's not very practical since it'd be bottlenecked by the original CPU (less floating point performance than a similarly clocked Pentium 2) and I don't think it would fit alongside a CPU upgrade. Not to mention it doesn't function in OS X.
@@yukisaitou5004 Voodoo 2 were cheap later in years and in my out of work days in late 90tys I used what I could. An old $100 Dell with a Pentium 166 MHz CPU. But its also the challenge of doing something silly: "I Tried Gaming On My AIO Display..." ruclips.net/video/8HvFPApBi3A/видео.html
"X-Ray Warning" = this is normal, all TV/monitor tubes do this, they are defacto very advanced shielded X-Ray tubes ...
"the iMac has drawn first blood" = it played the original Unreal Tournament (UT99)
Did you intentionally release this on the 25th anniversary of the iMac's introduction?
I think you are supposed to wear a lead apron when working with X-ray devices.
Sean that's not a potato, that's a nugget.
should look into getting a 3d printed replacement for the inner shell its only going to get worse and turn into dust witch it will
I'm surprised no one in the mac community has made reproduction of that part.
Last thing I expected to see here is Windows 2000 Professional.
That has to be the least upgrade-able and hardest to do so computer I've ever seen someone work on.
Leave it to Apple to sell people a tiny computer hooked up to a CRT with an actual DVI cable termination and call it an all-in-one. That has to be the most 'band-aid' solution I have ever seen a tech company try to implement at scale.
harmoni g3 firewire upgrade
Sean You got lucky with that much better than replacing the Flyback easy is always better
Hey I’m a younger collector of old tech would buying copy’s for f windows 7 be worth it
9:04 voltage is only applied if it is on/plugged in and the capacitors do self discharge to safe levels after a day or two in most cases. If you are that worried wait a week after it has been unplugged.
13:36 only to people stupid enough to touch anything inside, otherwise it is rather safe, the high voltage electronics are not going to jump out explicitly to hunt you down.
If you know nothing about electronics then learn before you mess with things this complex.
Welp, at least now you have a spare flyback transformer... I was almost certain you'd be replacing it!
WARNING: Be really careful! And you should know what you are doing when handling high voltages. You can get a serious shock or get killed in an instant.
Always discharge!! Learn how to do this properly. Most of the time it nothing will happen after, risk of a lethal shock will be next to zero. But be aware there could still be some charge left somewhere.
My iMac g3 is stuck on Apple logo can you help me to fix it ?
Good thing you didn't haven't to replace that transformer because if you touch it, you'll "flyback" 10 FT 🤣
Okay okay, I subscribed. I liked it.
Action retro you should of used the pick of destiny
“Don’t worry, we work safe here.”
If I had a nickel
You sure that's a Bondi Blue, and not a Blueberry? Both are M4984.
Also, win2k the G.O.A.T.
Curse Win XP, with its pastel colours and nonsense.
I kept win2k until they quit making Direct X for it. I think they made sure DX 10 wasn't allowed on win2k to finally stab it in the back, and i'm a gamer... I mean, 2k is NT 5.0 and XP is NT 5.1, so it's not like there's a lot of real difference besides artificial limitations.
INSIDE THE IMAC I CAN SEE THE CRT MONITOR WITH A DVI PORT AND A POWER INPUT CONNECTED TO A SEPARATE PC! What if you changed the old motherboard and replace it witn a new one? WHAT IF YOU USED THE IMAC G3 AS A MONITOR?
14:47 so this is in a sense an "Hackindows" right? x3
If you would end up needing parts for the G4 Lampshade iMac. I have a motherboard, power supply, optical drive, monitor, keyboard and mouse all know working at the time I took it apart. I'm willing to donate them just pay for shipping.
Win2K on an iMac?!? I've seen it all now...
Why did he remove bondi from the video's title?