20" iMac G4 1.25!

[Huxley]

It's a long story how I came to get this machine, but the end result is that I'm posting this from my 'new' 20" iMac G4 1.25gHz! Her previous owner had loved her, but badly mistreated her - ciggy smoke everywhere, lotsa dust, some broken cables, bad RAM and HDD, etc. etc. etc. He ended up buying a new 20" iMac (the new design), and asked if I knew of a good home for the carcass of his G4 machine. Of course, I said "MINE!"

It's taken hours (and I'm not done yet!), but I just got her back up and running - tons of small fixes inside the machine (stripped screws, swapped out the HDD and DVD drives for better, faster ones, added RAM, spliced back together some torn cables, etc.), but she's just purring along.

Sweeeet.



Huxley

PS Her once pristine white case is now yucky yellow in patches from the smoke in her old home - any tips on how to remove those stains? I've got a vision of this machine sitting, all by itself, on a white marble pedestal by my front door, playing an iPhoto slideshow of all our recent pictures. The yellow stains don't factor into my fantasy, so any help would be great!

 

[Quadraman]

Nobody ever gives me G4's.

Smoke staining is really hard to get rid of. A late friend of mine was a very heavy smoker and all his computers turned yellow-brown within a few months. If it doesn't come off, you can always try painting the base an attractive color to hide the stains, or do something creative like gluing dried macaroni or pebbles to it. [] ]'>

 

[IPNixon]

Dude, nice score! The iMac G4s ROCK. (I've got a 17" 1.25 one myself)

Why don't you try a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser on an inconspicuous spot of the case (Maybe on the back near the ports?) and see if it gets it off well?

 

[MultiFinder]

Mr. Clean Magic Erasers truly are magic. They can clean up nearly anything.

 

[funkytoad]

Mr. Clean Magic Erasers truly are magic. They can clean up nearly anything.

So true!

 

[Huxley]

Thanks for the high-fives and the cleaning tips, guys! It's fun to be able to take a machine that was headed straight for the landfill and get her up-and-running again - is this what it's like for car guys who rescue some old junker and turn it into a restored masterpiece?

Anyway, I posted a question over at the apple.com forums, but I'm not getting any answers, so I'll just paste my question below and see if you folks have any thoughts:

I'm the happy new caretaker of a formerly DOA 20" iMac G4 1.25gHz. The machine was in a million pieces when I took 'er home yesterday, but several hours spent reassembling the system (and adding a spare 250gb hard drive and a 16x DVD-DL drive repurposed from an OWC external device) have done wonders - she's up and running like a champ, and I'm having fun tinkering!

Of course, I did make one big mistake: since the screen was very dirty/dusty, I grabbed a can of compressed air and blew all the dust out - except a large amount of the dust that was ON the screen is now IN the screen! I seem to have blown quite a bit of dust behind the clear cover over the LCD itself, and even more bizarrely, I also managed to get a bunch of dust BEHIND the LCD! Now I've got this strange impression of "depth" on the screen - one layer of dust, the image on the LCD, and then another layer of dust behind the image - trust me, it's weird!

So, any ideas? I noticed a couple of Torx screws on the bottom-edge of the display - if I remove those screws, will I be able to get enough access to the LCD panel to remove (or use the compressed air again) all the dust?

Any ideas or suggestions would be great!

Huxley

 

[Patrickool93]

afaik Compressed air is bad to use on LCDs because of all the chemicals used to propel the air.

 

[Huxley]

afaik Compressed air is bad to use on LCDs because of all the chemicals used to propel the air.

Sheesh, now you tell me - where were you the other night?!

:-D

Huxley