Seven year old iMac connection to cable

I have a seven year old iMac. A friend would like it for her son, who has no computer but would like to connect to Optimum online. Is that possible considering the age of the computer?

Shouldn't be a problem if the Optimum Online modem is an Ethernet modem - connected to a computer via an Ethernet connection which the modem should be.
Apple included an Ethernet port on Macs before the majority of users knew what it was for and well before PC manufacturer's followed suit.
Is OS X installed on this iMac and if so, which version? It shouldn't make any difference as long as the Built-in Ethernet network port configuration is active.

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9 year old iMac G5 needs replacing.

My nine year old imac is starting to go wrong and i would like advice on which new model to purchase. I am 80 and need a desk top which is not too different from my present model. Any help would be appreciated please as the shop assistant knew nothing! Thank you.

Brenda.S wrote:
My nine year old imac is starting to go wrong and i would like advice on which new model to purchase. I am 80 and need a desk top which is not too different from my present model. Any help would be appreciated please as the shop assistant knew nothing! Thank you.
Sadly the latest iMacs are as different to a G5 as it is possible to be:
1. A non-intuitive operating system (Mavericks) that does not compare to what you are used to with Tiger 10.4.11.
2. None of your applications that run on a G5 can run on a new Intel-based iMac. They will all have to be updated, i.e. re-purchased.
3. Nothing you may have connected to your G5 can connect to a new iMac: they do not have firewire, they do not have a built-in superdrive for CDs or DVDs so you can only install software via the internet. None of your existing accessories will work as is.
My personal recommendation would be to stick with your G5 and tell us more about how it is letting you down so that we can try to help you fix it.
I will ask the Hosts to move this thread to the PPC iMac forum where those of us who still use them hang out!

ITunes 11.0.4 - why can't I access to browse music, podcasts, or anything else in the iTunes store? I'm running X10.8.5 on a 2-year old iMac. I've had access previously, and done nothing to change anything.

Why can't I access to browse music, podcasts, or anything else in the iTunes store now? I'm running iTunes 11.0.4 X10.8.5 on a 2-year old iMac. I've had access previously, and done nothing to upgrade or change anything since I last could access everything in the store.

Hi Mary,
I'm sorry to hear you are having issues with the iTunes Store. If you are having issues connecting or logging in, you may find the troubleshooting steps outlined in the following articles helpful:
Can't connect to the iTunes Store - Apple Support
iTunes: Advanced iTunes Store troubleshooting - Apple Support
Sincerely,
- Brenden

New Mac Mini slower than my 4 years old iMac

My Intel iMac (20" display) four years old is out of order (I think the Power Supply was gone), and I bought the new entry level Mac Mini.
When I started using it I noticed that it's much slower in several tasks than my old iMac (when restarting, when opening applications, when working with an app with another appl in the background, etc. etc.). I was concerned about this, but then I asked some friends that have Mac minis and they said that it's normal.
Why? Why a computer with a new i5 Intel processor can be slower than a four years old iMac Core 2 Duo? Is it because of the slow drive (5200 rpm)? Or what is the explanation? If this is normal for the mini, I'll try to fix my old iMac as soon as possible.

Don't downgrade to Lion. For what it's worth, my experience with Lion and Mountain Lion has been almost the exact opposite than what CaptH reported: I find ML to be much faster and more reliable, both on my late-2012 Mini and my mid-2007 iMac.
Your perceived speed issues are almost certainly a result of the slower-spinning hard drive in the Mini as Shootist007 pointed out earlier. Go ahead and disable Spotlight if you want to, but once the indexing is complete (which can take a few hours – or even a few days if you have a lot of data) it shouldn't be a problem unless you are continually connecting different large external drives.
Get the latest Combo Updater and install that. If you have some minor OS issue, that should solve it. Do a normal Software Update / check the Mac App Store for updates after you install the Combo Updater. Get it here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1640
If you continue to be bugged by the slower speed, see if your local Apple Store will allow you to exchange it and a little extra money for an equivalent model with a Fusion Drive. Or go to Other World Computing and purchase their kit to add a second drive, and use it to add an SSD in the second drive bay:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIYIMM11D2/
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/OWC.INSTANT.481.2
Also, RAM is super-duper-uber-cheap right now. If your Mini has only the stock 4gb of RAM, you might be pleasantly surprised by the improved performance by doubling that. I have 16gb in my Mini, it cost me well less than a hundred bucks, and it makes everything better including graphics performance. But if you don't do something to work around that slow 5400rpm hard drive, it will always be the bottleneck in your system.

5 year old iMac, screen stays black on startup.

This 5 year old iMac makes the seek optical drive sound when switched on, but does not chime, but I can hear the hard drive going afterwards.
The screen just stays black, not a flicker.
The problem is that it is located in a small pretty isolated town in NE Brazil, I will be going back out there later in the summer so if anyone has any helpful ideas it would be most welcome. Fortunately we have a full CCC clone of the hard drive and a working MBP so we haven't lost anything, but it would be very good to have it working again.
Does it have a socket for an external monitor, I really cannot remember, as I have not seen it since November, I know the old round iMacs had one.
The nearest Mac store is probably in Rio or Sao Paulo which are a good day travelling by car and plane so there is no chance of getting it there.
Any useful thoughts? I will be pleased to hear them, anything to try we can probably do over a week or so.
Many thanks in advance

Yes it shouldn't be that difficult. You can tell her to try some basic resets too, they won't hurt and might help. First is try resetting the SMC and PRAM. It's OK to do these multiple times, also trying to restarting in Safe Mode may work. For the SMC and PRAM resets I will print the instructions below. To do a Safe Mode restart, hold down the Shift Key when the startup tone is heard, if she can see a progress bar appear release Shift key and let it fully boot. Then restart normally to test. If the screen is still black then the LCD or the graphics card has probably failed. In that case it's probably best to just replace the whole computer as the expense of repair will be difficult to justify.
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and ALL peripherals.
Wait 15 seconds.
Attach the computers power cable.
Wait another 5 seconds and press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

What are the best ways to keep my 4 year old iMac going?

I want to put off having to buy a new desktop iMac as long as possible so, while I'm using my 4+ years old iMac, what are the things I should (or should NOT) do to look after it? I know that temperature and humidity must be avoided but here in England (UK) it rarely gets too hot, so what else I should be aware of? Any advice would be much appreciated.

See:
Mac Maintenance Quick Assist,
Mac OS X speed FAQ,
Speeding up Macs,
How to Speed up Macs, ,
Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance,
Essential Mac Maintenance: Get set up,
Essential Mac Maintenance: Rev up your routines,
Maintaining OS X,
Five Mac maintenance myths and
Myths of required versus not required maintenance for Mac OS X for information.

How do I erase ALL data on my 8 year old iMac 10.6.8?

I'd like to erase ALL data on my 8 year old iMac 10.6.8 before hauling it off to electornics recycling. I have the original Snow Leopard start up disc but need help in it's use for this purpose. Any help would be appreciated. Richard

Sorry RK I was having trouble posting the pertinent Snow Leopard article earlier, but looks like the OP got there without it.
Humm... it still won't let me post it.

We have a 4 year old iMac 24 inch. My hard drive died and we have a new hard drive now, but all that the fixit shop put on it was the Snow Leopard OS; can I ask Apple for a download of our other many software programs to reload them? Does it cost to do

We have a 4 year old iMac 24 inch. The hard drive died and we had a new hard drive installed. They only installed the Snow Leopard OS on it, and there were many software programs that came with the iMac originally.. now missing. Does anyone know whether Apple will resupply these? I do have an Apple installation disc but have upgraded from the original Leopard to Snow Leopard... so the OS is not quite the same. Ideas? Thanks!

No bootable bakup/clone or Time Machine backup? No initial install discs? If no to both of those, call 1-800-MY-APPLE and request replacement discs for that machine. They're available for a nominal S&H charge.

What's the best way to transfer everything from my 5-year-old iMac to my 1-year-old iMac?

What's the best way to transfer everything from my 5-year-old iMac to my 1-year-old iMac?
I'm doing role reversal with these two. The newer imac is becoming our business computer, the older one will be our personal computer from now on until it gives out. For the record, I have Carbonite on the business unit. Should be a no-brainer, right? (Which is precisely why I'm asking!)
Thanks for whatever timely and accurate advise you may have.

Thanks. I stumbled across migration assistant later that afternoon in a google search. Just finished using it today to do the deed. Appreciate your quick response!

My 6-year-old iMac is painfully slow after I installed Mavericks, despite increasing ram to 4 GB. Any help out there?.

My 6 year old iMac is painfully slow after I installed Mavericks, despite upgrading to 4 GB of Ram. Everything stops and I see the spinning beachball way too frequently. Any suggestions or solutions?

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try the action that you're having trouble with again. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

HT1904 How do I set up my Ipad to stop my seven year old grandson from buying ad ons for "Minecraft"? I have set it so a password is needed to purchase any item but "Minecraft" still nibbles $1.50 here and another 1.35 there every time he uses my IPAD.

How do I stop my seven year old grandson from being able to purchase add ons for "minecraft"
We thought we had set all the right stops to have passwods for all purchases but they do not seem to work. Every time he comes over a plays games I end up with a bill for bits and pieces he seems to buy whilst playing the game.
He swears he does not buy anything and he has been threatened with a ban if he does. Yet every time he plays "minecraft" I end up with an invoice for some extra that has been bought whilst he is playing.
As I said we have tried all of the Apple security ideas but the invoice keep comeing.
Please help.

Have you got Settings > General > Restrictions > In-App Purchases set 'off' - that should stop all in-app purchases. And what have you got 'Require Password' set to on the Restrictions screen (I can't remember what version of iOS that setting came in with, so you may not have it) ?

Four-year-old iMac and Mountain Lion

My wife has a four-year-old iMac that has been horrendously slow for the last couple of years. This has been true with nearly all the programs, but especially Word for Mac and Outlook (both part of Microsoft Office for Mac) -- even when only three or four programs are open at a time. Click Outlook, for example, and you can wait a minute and half for it to open while it checks identities.
I just upgraded the machine to Mountain Lion hoping that might solve some problems but the situation is even worse now. She clicked on Message last night as I was standing there and I finally gave up waiting and walked away. Frankly, the speed of the machine under both Lion and now, worse, Mountain Lion is driving us crazy.
So, what to do?
Should I be doing some sort of in-depth analysis of the the current machine? (A little background: three months after buying it, it had a problem and Apple Service ended up replacing the screen and the motherboard.)
Or should I just buy a new iMac and forget about this machine ever being fast enough?
Here are the specs on the current iMac:
Model Name:                    iMac
Model Identifier:              iMac8,1
Processor Name:              Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:              3.06 GHz
Number Of Processors:   1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache:                           6 MB
Memory:                            4 GB
Bus Speed:                         1.07 GHz
Thank you for any advice.
Don

Your computer is on the very low end of systems which are supported by Mountain Lion. Anything newer than Snow Leopard will likely hurt performance rather than help it.
When your computer is freezing up, it is probably loading data from the disk into RAM. You can't put any more RAM into the machine, but you can have the hard drive upgraded to an SSD. That's quite a bit of money to pour into a five-year-old machine, but it's a lot cheaper than getting a new computer.
One other option is to back up your files, wipe everything, and start over. Install the applications one at a time until things start to slow down. You may have an application that is sitting in the background and using up system resources.

A four year old iMac

Good Morning,
How can I unlock the Recovery HD on my 4-5 year old iMac? Below are the steps I have gone through.
Just about when the extra extended warranty was about to run out the iMac Superdrive quit. I thought I had a few months left of extended warranty but I did not!
Last week this iMac was running slow, pages would take forever to load.
I decided to put as many of my files on an external hard drive.
Then I rebooted holding down the command and R key opening Disk Utility and secure erase my hard drive. This took a few hours.
After this was completed I got out of Disk Utilities and went above and clicked on Reinstall OS X which was OS X Mountain Lion clicked continue, clicked agree before installing OS X Mountain Lion. Now this window came up "OS X Mountain Lion select the disk where you want to install OS X.
Recovery HD 650 MB total. 155.5 ava or Macintosh HD 319.21 GB total.318.79 GB. Then I noticed that only the Macintosh HD was my install choice because the Recovery HD was paled out and I could not click on it.
When I did click on the paled out Recovery HD it would tel me that "This Disk is Locked".
Now I clicked on Macintosh HD and pressed install, now I put in my Apple ID and Password and pressed Sign In.
Then a window appeared "This item is temporarily unavailable. Try again later. Well, I must have done this at least ten times.
I phoned Apple and they told me that this Mac OS X Mountain Lion is no longer available in the Apps Store.
I should click on the Recovery HD icon and install. This is where it reads "This disk is locked."
I would really like to use this iMac.
Any ideas?
Thank you.
Abi

Hi Babowa,
I just rebooted holding the Command + Option + R, erased Macintosh HD.
Below is what I see on the Disk Utility after the erase.
Mount Point : /Volumes/Macintosh HD
Format : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Owners Enabled ; Yes
Number of Folders : 3
Capacity : 319.21 GB (319,213,174,784 Bytes)
Available : 318.79 GB (318,788,182,784)
Used : 425 MB (424,992,768 Bytes)
Number of Files : 2
I still can't go any further.
If only my internal SuperDive was working I could put in the original CD.
Please any advice and I will try to make this iMac work!
I hate to throw it out.
Abi

I have a one-year old iMac and Safari will NOT remember bookmarks I try to add. Any suggestions?

I have a one-year old iMac and Safari will NOT remember bookmarks I try to add. Any suggestions?

Launch the Terminal application by entering the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Copy or drag -- do not type -- the line below into the Terminal window, then press return:
ls -Oel Library/Safari
Copy any lines of output that appear below what you entered and paste them into a reply to this message.

I just purchased a one year old iMac. How do I create a brand new admin account?

I just purchased a one year old iMac. How do I create a brand new admin account?

The first thing to do with a second-hand computer is to erase the internal drive and install a clean copy of OS X. You—not the original owner—must do that. How you do it depends on the model, and on whether you already own another Mac. If you're not sure of the model, enter the serial number on this page. Then find the model on this page to see what OS version was originally installed.
It's unsafe, and may be unlawful, to use a computer with software installed by a previous owner.
1a. If you don't own another Mac
If the machine shipped with OS X 10.4 or 10.5, you need a boxed and shrink-wrapped retail Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) installation disc from the Apple Store or a reputable reseller—not from eBay or anything of the kind. If the machine is very old and has less than 1 GB of memory, you'll need to add more in order to install 10.6. Preferably, install as much memory as it can take, according to the technical specifications.
If the machine shipped with OS X 10.6, you need the installation media that came with it: gray installation discs, or a USB flash drive for a MacBook Air. You should have received those media from the original owner, but if you didn't, order replacements from Apple. A retail disc, or the gray discs from another model, will not work.
To start up from an optical disc or a flash drive, insert it, then restart the computer and hold down the C key at the startup chime. Release the key when you see the gray Apple logo on the screen.
If the machine shipped with OS X 10.7 or later, you don't need media. It should start up in Internet Recovery mode when you hold down the key combination option-command-R at the startup chime. Release the keys when you see a spinning globe.
Some models shipped with OS X 10.6 and received a firmware update after 10.7 was released, enabling them to use Internet Recovery. If you have one of those models, you may not be able to reinstall 10.6 even from the original discs, and Internet Recovery may not work either without the original owner's Apple ID. In that case, contact Apple Support, or take the machine to an Apple Store or another authorized service provider to have the OS installed.
1b. If you do own another Mac
If you already own another Mac that was upgraded in the App Store to the version of OS X that you want to install, and if the new Mac is compatible with it, then you can install it. Use Recovery Disk Assistant to prepare a USB device, then start up the new Mac from it by holding down the C key at the startup chime. Alternatively, if you have a Time Machine backup of OS X 10.7.3 or later on an external hard drive (not a Time Capsule or other network device), you can start from that by holding down the option key and selecting it from the row of icons that appears. Note that if your other Mac was never upgraded in the App Store, you can't use this method.
2. Partition and install OS X
If you see a lock screen when trying to start up from installation media or in Recovery mode, then a firmware password was set by the previous owner, or the machine was remotely locked via iCloud. You'll either have to contact the owner or take the machine to an Apple Store or another service provider to be unlocked. You may be asked for proof of ownership.
Launch Disk Utility and select the icon of the internal drive—not any of the volume icons nested beneath it. In the Partition tab, select the default options: a GUID partition table with one data volume in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. This operation will permanently remove all existing data on the drive.
After partitioning, quit Disk Utility and run the OS X Installer. If you're installing a version of OS X acquired from the App Store, you will need the Apple ID and password that you used. When the installation is done, the system will automatically restart into the Setup Assistant, which will prompt you to transfer the data from another Mac, its backups, or from a Windows computer. If you have any data to transfer, this is usually the best time to do it.
Then run Software Update and install all available system updates from Apple. To upgrade to a major version of OS X newer than 10.6, get it from the Mac App Store. Note that you can't keep an upgraded version that was installed by the original owner. He or she can't legally transfer it to you, and without the Apple ID you won't be able to update it in Software Update or reinstall, if that becomes necessary. The same goes for any App Store products that the previous owner installed—you have to repurchase them.
3. Other issues
If the original owner "accepted" the bundled iLife applications (iPhoto, iMovie, and Garage Band) in the App Store so that he or she could update them, then they're irrevocably linked to that Apple ID and you won't be able to download them without buying them. Reportedly, Mac App Store Customer Service has sometimes issued redemption codes for these apps to second owners who asked.
If the previous owner didn't deauthorize the computer in the iTunes Store under his Apple ID, you wont be able to authorize it immediately under your ID. In that case, you'll either have to wait up to 90 days or contact iTunes Support.
When trying to create a new iCloud account, you might get a failure message: "Account limit reached." Apple imposes a lifetime limit of three iCloud account setups per device. Erasing the device does not reset the limit. You can still use an iCloud account that was created on another device, but you won't be able to create a new one. Contact iCloud Support for more information. The setup limit doesn't apply to Apple ID accounts used for other services, such as the iTunes and Mac App Stores, or iMessage. You can create as many of those accounts as you like.

Seven year old iMac connection to cable

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