New iMac disassembled 277
wild_berry writes "Found, via Ars Technica's Apple journal, Infinite Loop, a Japanese site disassembling Intel Core Duo iMac. Clint, from the Ars blog, points out that the Core Duo processor is socket-mounted, allowing for possible upgrades, unlike the IBM chips which were soldered to the PCB's. Please use the - cached pages."
Noise? (Score:4, Interesting)
May I please have more cooling rather than less? (Score:3, Interesting)
If we have to choose between quiet and cool -- and I'd rather not, but this design has a history -- I'll lean toward the machine that doesn't croak six months after I buy it. Better still, waiting six or nine months on this model in its new incarnation seems wise.
(O
Re:May I please have more cooling rather than less (Score:2)
Re:Noise? (Score:2)
A shiny white box that screams like a jet doesn't impress anyone.
Re:Noise? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Noise? (Score:5, Informative)
Just so people know.
Re:Noise? (Score:2)
Re:Noise? (Score:3, Interesting)
The interior design and layout of a computer mainboard is not driven by superficial aesthetics, but by a host of pragmatic issues. These issues include airflow and heat dissipation management, crosstalk issues between various components and/or traces on the board (ever had a laptop where you could hear the hard drive in the audio out?), placement of offboard connectors, access for upgrades, and so forth. Hardw
Re:Noise? (Score:2)
Let us not forget that Seagate has now bought-out Maxtor [slashdot.org]... So, does it really matter?
Re:Noise? (Score:4, Informative)
(Now why you aren't supposed to be able to upgrade RAM or disk in 2006 is another question.)
Re:Noise? (Score:3, Informative)
Doesn't explain the non-user upgradeable disk - though non-user upgradeable only means "officially".
Re:Noise? (Score:2)
what i don't get is why apple make life so hard for thier own techs.
Re:Noise? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather have several strategically placed fans, running at low RPM and generating very little turbulence, than having single fan sized to move enough air that everything that needs it gets enough airflow, even it a tangle of ribbon cables stand in the way.
Re:Noise? (Score:5, Informative)
Instead of the PC horror of one fan that has to suck out a large volume the whole time and runs at full blast no matter what.
Re:Noise? (Score:2, Interesting)
About the only time I hear anything from my dual G5 is when an application falls over and tries taking all of the CPU time with it.
I get a brief whoosh of sound and then the errant application is killed...
Re:Noise? (Score:3, Informative)
As others have pointed out, this is incorrect and sounds suspiciously like FUD. Intel chipsets have had temperature-controlled fans [intel.com] since at least the 845 chipset [intel.com], which was released in 2001 [anandtech.com]. From that link to Intel's site:
Re:Noise? (Score:5, Funny)
In my experience, apple fans are very noisy, especially on slashdot.
I HAVE ONE. SILENT! (Score:5, Informative)
\ Dual Core 2 ghz iMac is do damn fast it's not funny. Editing home movies while 10 apps run in background is nothing short of a delight. I'll exit fanboy mode now, but if you are thinking of Dual Core, go for it.
Re:I HAVE ONE. SILENT! (Score:2)
Re:I HAVE ONE. SILENT! (Score:2)
As soon as I find an article telling me how to get Windows running on one, I'll be buying one to dual boot. ;-)
As it is now, the only thing I use a PC for is Visual Studio (job requirement) and WoW (addiction). So it's got to be Windows at least 50% of the time.
Re:I HAVE ONE. SILENT! (Score:4, Informative)
And to the anti-fanboy like-dells-balls people out there, the above is simply a subjective review of my experience. Simple real world usage. And remember, it takes almost NO desk space and I plugged in electric, mouse and keyboard usb, and was using this thing, including registration, in 4 minutes. Have fun loading spybot/adaware/ms antispyware/clam av/avg/zonealarm just before you can even use your box. ha. the only windows I have in my life is now Virtual PC, and as I find good mac replacesments, eventually that app will go the way of the DoDo bird.
Re:Noise? (Score:5, Informative)
Further, Apple's design is to use *more* fans such that they don't need to be running at full speed (you did know that those are all variable speed blowers, right?). For example, the G5 towers that use 9 fans. None of them are running at too high a speed, keeping the entire machine quiet. Aside from a few models of machines with more audible airflow, Apple's goal is to have machines that run very quietly and are audibly unobtrusive.
I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Re:Noise? (Score:2)
Re:Silence is overrated (Score:2)
Arts and Crafts time (Score:2, Informative)
Clint, from the Ars blog, points out that the Core Duo processor is socket-mounted, allowing for possible upgrades, unlike the IBM chips which were soldered to the PCB's.
I's possible to upgrade a soldered chip...just takes a soldering iron, a little skill, and a lot of paitence.
(A commercial-grade desoldering tool is also useful.)
Re:Arts and Crafts time (Score:3, Interesting)
(A commercial-grade desoldering tool is also useful.)
I haven't upgraded a CPU for like
My good ole' 486 wasn't worth upgrading with Pentium Overdrive, my A
Re:Arts and Crafts time (Score:2)
Re:Arts and Crafts time (Score:2)
Re:Arts and Crafts time (Score:2)
But then you've got an old mobo + CPU + RAM just begging to be thrown inside of an old chassis and hooked up to an old HD... and then you notice that for hardly any dollars, your old, secondary machine can have a faster processor.
Re:Arts and Crafts time (Score:3, Insightful)
To me, computers are so damned fast now if you actually *need* to upgrade, you probably need to just get a new computer. Everything about these new Macs breathes cutting edge, from the new PC slot on the MacB
Re:Arts and Crafts time (Score:2)
No, you can't desolder [lsilogic.com] an BPGA chip, without desoldering all other components on the same PCB. Forget the idea.
It'd be 1/100 of the cost to simply buy a new pc...
Re:Arts and Crafts time (Score:2)
No, you can't desolder an BPGA chip, without desoldering all other components on the same PCB. Forget the idea.
Funny...I've done it (granted it was a 386 back in the day, but it's certainly possible).
It'd be 1/100 of the cost to simply buy a new pc...
I merely claimed it was possible. I mentioned nothing about it being cost-effective...
Re:Arts and Crafts time (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Arts and Crafts time (Score:2)
Re:Arts and Crafts time (Score:2)
The 80386 was never a BPGA footprint. It was a regular 0.100" PGA, which no, is not impossible but still unbelievably difficult on a multilayer board where you have heavy copper pour for the ground and power planes.
Fast-forward to today, where the pin spacing has shrunk to sub-millimeter pitch and the number of pins has jumped by a factor of 7x. I have personally desoldered 0.5mm pitch TQFP devices and hand-soldered the same and it's not difficult with "prosumer" equipment (Weller iron with a superfine
Re:Arts and Crafts time (Score:3, Informative)
I's possible to upgrade a soldered chip...just takes a soldering iron, a little skill, and a lot of paitence.
As someone who does this as part of his job -- you're full of shit. I would love to see you desolder a 900-and-some-odd pin chip (or are these uBGA?) without causing damage to the board, even with professional equipment. It's simply not worth the time or energy. If this thing is an actual pinned chip it's even more difficult than with a uBGA. And let's not forget the x-ray equipment required
Re:Arts and Crafts time (Score:4, Funny)
"Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time." - Stephen Wright
No Disassemble (Score:4, Funny)
or something
T.
Re:No Disassemble (Score:5, Funny)
Nope, sorry, dead.
Re:No Disassemble (Score:2)
NO
KILL
I
shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle
Cache of the caches? (Score:2, Funny)
Anyone have caches of the cached pages??
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Nerd porn! (Score:5, Funny)
Sigh... if only the cached site wasn't so slow.
socketed chips (Score:5, Informative)
Re:socketed chips (Score:3, Interesting)
Coral Cache of the actual article (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Coral Cache of the actual article (Score:2)
Thanks,
-Jar.
Re:Coral Cache of the actual article (Score:2)
Re:Coral Cache of the actual article (Score:5, Funny)
But what if I'm an engineer at Dell?
Re:Coral Cache of the actual article (Score:5, Funny)
Then the question becomes
"What the hell are you still doing at work? It's like midnight in New Delhi!"
Easy disassembly = cool (Score:5, Insightful)
On the flip side, there are Mac designs like the eMac, which require significant disassembly [blogspot.com] to upgrade the drives. And to upgrade the CPU, your only real choice is to overclock with your soldering iron. And you have to deal with the high voltage CRT.
I always liked internal Mac design, but older Macs, although somewhat elegant on the inside, were very difficult to upgrade. Sometimes you open up an old Mac and you go "woah, it is shocking that they made it so fancy on the inside of this computer". No wonder they sold the translucent iMacs. But that pretty inside was designed for ease of factory assembly, not for ease of upgrades.
Re:Easy disassembly = cool (Score:2, Informative)
That is assuming of course you can go without the system for two days. You could always do it in less and just be careful.
Re:Easy disassembly = cool (Score:2)
Re:Easy disassembly = cool (Score:2)
The tech is probably doing what I used to do; Take the clip end of a resistive antistatic strap, clip it to a screwdriver. Slip cuff side tight over grounded metal workbench. With fingers well away from the blade of the screwdriver, slip it under the cup till you hear
Re:Easy disassembly = cool (Score:2)
Re:Easy disassembly = cool (Score:2)
Beats getting to any laptop I've ever had to work on
Re:Easy disassembly = cool (Score:2)
Re:Easy disassembly = cool (Score:2)
Diagnostic Lights? (Score:4, Interesting)
Inner beauty (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, maybe it's a nitpicky point, but just something that occurred to me when I saw the pictures.
Which Intel CPU is it, exactly? (Score:2)
Re:Which Intel CPU is it, exactly? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Which Intel CPU is it, exactly? (Score:2, Informative)
Its not Apple exclusive.
Can't tell you about the speed because I don't have one (yet
Re:Which Intel CPU is it, exactly? (Score:2, Informative)
Ars, are you looking? (Score:5, Interesting)
Will these things come up in target disk mode? Can you boot from a firewire device?
People seem to mod me down for this, but it is critically important to me to know whether or not I can still do ye olde CCC, keep a dmg around, and restore as needed.
Supports Apple Boot Features (Score:3, Informative)
See http://www.macworld.com/2006/01/features/intelfaq
(particularly the bottom of the page "Does this mean that Open Firmware is dead?")
Intel Motherboard (Score:2, Informative)
What about buying a powerpc mac now? (Score:2)
Looks a real mutha to clean (Score:3, Interesting)
Faked? (Score:5, Interesting)
Background:
I have one personal iMac G5 20", and five work iMac G5 20"s all within the serial number range affected by bad capacitors and bad power supplies. A coworker also has a personal iMac G50 20" within the affected range.
Out of these seven machines, three have already killed one motherboard and a power supply. Two of these machines have burned at least two motherboards.
So yeah, I have a damn good idea of what the innards of an iMac G5 20" looks like. Because of this I am having a hard time coming to terms with these pictures. They look shoddy as hell, like they are pictures of a pre-production mule or mockup. Tear open any Apple product from the last 5 years and you will notice the fanatical attention to detail in the way the hardware components are laid out. They are very clean and pretty. The iMac G5 20" is extremely well laid up, everything is tucked in, there are no lose wires, and there is basically no space left unused.
Either these pics are a PS job, or somebody leaked pictures from older test mules. There is no way in hell that Apple is going to sell something that looks so messy.
Re:Faked? (Score:3, Informative)
Not likely (Score:2)
Macs have a long history of addin CPU cards, and clock modifying chips. I'm sure that upgrades will be available. However in recent years there have been major breaking changes (FSB speeds, Dual Core, x64) between lines of chips every year or so. So, to upgrade to the latest and greatest might require a new motherboard anyway.
Only time will tell
Will OS X 10.4 still work on PowerBooks? (Score:2)
Re:Will OS X 10.4 still work on PowerBooks? (Score:2)
Probably 99% of mac Owners are using PPC machines. I wouldnt expect them to dump PPC support any time soon. Steve Job's old c
Re:Will OS X 10.4 still work on PowerBooks? (Score:2)
Intel chipsets used (Score:5, Interesting)
Other interesting hardware features can be discovered by browsing the output of system_profiler, kextstat, and ioreg [appleintelfaq.com].
Of note:
- Full 802.11a support is present [appleinsider.com], though unadvertised, as well as 802.11b/g
- Intel High Definition Audio [intel.com] is used
- the iMac's optical drive does have dual layer support, unlike the ultra slimline 9mm drive used in the MacBook Pro
- the iSight is USB
- a TPM entry is present in ioreg [appleintelfaq.com]
- com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X is an active kernel extension
Trusted Platform Module (Score:4, Informative)
Re:but, where is the socket? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Is apple the new google? (Score:2)
Don't want to see so many Apple articles? Then find different material and submit it yourself.
Re:Is apple the new google? (Score:2)
Re:Is apple the new google? (Score:2)
Re:Yeech (Score:3, Funny)
I mean, it speaks to *me*, but I doubt it speaks to, say, my mom.
Re:There's also the "form" factor (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:There's also the "form" factor (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a programmer. OS X has some of the best tools I've ever used, and it gives me access to both tools I used before (most of the unixy goodness like the scripting languages and simple, focused command line tools) and now continue to use, and to some completely awesome new tools (Cocoa). This isn't me being a zealot (I'm presumably much more annoying when I'm a zealot), it's just facts.
It's true that lots of people who are 'in an artistic field' appreciate Macs too, because it's what they've been using all these years. But I, as a programmer, find that I write apps much easier and that the other tools in my toolbox are plenty and good. I like the industrial design (swap out with 'pwetty boxes' if you seriously think they're the same thing) as much as anyone, but aside from a fleeting fascination with it, it's not why I bought it - I bought it because of an awesome OS and some very good tools. And so far, I have not been let down.
Re:There's also the "form" factor (Score:2)
If so, it's not obsolete.
A powerbook G4 1.5Ghz is more than adequate for software development. Just because there's something better out there doesn't make your machine any less worthwhile. I have a 5 year old G4 tower running at 533mhz (x2) and I think it's just great. It plays WoW (graphics turned way down), it runs XCode, and I still have room to pop in more RAM if I want it. Yes, I'll probably upgrade at some point in 2006, but mostly for the sake of a few ga
Re:There's also the "form" factor (Score:2)
Can your computer do what you want it to? If so, it's not obsolete.
Yes, that was kind of my point, hence the reference to the parent.
Re:Free development tools..... (Score:2)
Re:There's also the "form" factor (Score:2)
Back when PC came in big ugly white tower boxes the Mac with its shinny metal case lookd attractive--now it just looks obsolete.
Re:Pics are nice, but what about battery life? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pics are nice, but what about battery life? (Score:3, Informative)
Of course that could change for the final production models.
iMac battery life (Score:5, Funny)
Couple of nanoseconds.
KFG
Re:Pics are nice, but what about battery life? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pics are nice, but what about battery life? (Score:2)
The new cores are better than the Pentium 4 cores. Which is amusing, since they are basically tweaked Pentium 3 cores. And the Pentium 3 is basically a tweaked Pentium 2. And the Pentium 2 is a tweaked Pentium Pro.
When did the Pentium Pro come out? 1994 or so? It's amazing that a design that is 12 years old is still the best Intel can do. Either the Pentium Pro designers were brilliant, or the Pentium 4 designers were idiots.
Re:Pics are nice, but what about battery life? (Score:2)
Say what? (Score:3, Informative)
I guess the top schools aren't taking very many bright students these days, sigh. OSX is absolutely a preemtive multitasking OS. It's built atop the Mach kernel which is preemptive.
Perhaps you're thinking of MacOS 9 and below which were cooperative. Either way, get your facts straight, esp i
It's not even a top 40 school (Score:2)
On the website for Russel and Norvig's AI textbook they have a list [berkeley.edu] of schools that use their book, and at the bottom is a list of the top 40 CS programs in the US. (Their point being that 39 of the 40 use their book, and the one that doesn't also doesn't teach AI. But that's beside the point here.) Rockhust College is not on the top 40 list.
Plus yeah, way off base about OS X. Wow.
p.s. I went to #39. (Not that it matters.)
Re:OSX whats the big deal (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:OSX whats the big deal (Score:2)
Re:OSX whats the big deal (Score:4, Funny)
Re:OSX whats the big deal (Score:2)
Actually, it is. Were you thinking of MacOS9, perhaps? Or, do you have a different definition of pre-emptive multitasking?
just curious...
Re:OSX whats the big deal (Score:3, Funny)
No, OS X, built on the Mach kernal, does have pre-emptive multi-tasking. Think of it as an evolutionary improvement over past versions of...
Oops! Sorry Kansas.