[ale] OT New thread -new iMacs- Joe's question

[aaron]

On Wednesday 01 March 2006 04:27, Sean Kilpatrick wrote:
> On Tuesday 28 February 2006 22:46, Joe Knapka wrote:
> | Point taken about the RAM, though.  How hard are Apple 
> | products to work on,
> | compared to PCs?
> 
> Don't know about the new ones, but I had to all but destroy an
> older one to get the hard drive out of it. Unless something has
> drastically changed, they are a damned sight harder to open up
> than a conventional PC.
> 
> Sean

The ease of getting into a Mac case varies greatly by model and generation,
as well as knowing the little tricks of HOW they open. A lot of the Mac case 
designs have been really clever:

Older Power Mac 68k cases didn't even need a screw driver and EVERYTHING, like 
the the drive bay mounting rails, snapped or hinged into place.  I believe 
that was "the case" with the upright Power Mac G3 boxes as well.  I know the 
newer "built like a tank" stainless steel power Mac G5 cases are single hand 
latch to open the side cover and the 4 large, internal CPU fans then hinge 
open to give you easy access to the memory and PCI slots; the SATA drive bays 
are also easily accessed and have snap mount rails.

The older "all in one" eMac's are a pain.  Removing the bottom panel is a only 
matter of a couple of screws and the HD and mem slots are accessible after 
that,  but puzzling it all back together takes a bit of magic. I think with 
the newer 17" eMac G4s (like mine), everything is accessible upon removing
4 hex key button screws and lifting off the main housing.

Adding memory to one of the flat panel iMac G5's was an easy 2 screw 
operation. The older iMac "lamp" style cases are probably a bit more 
challenging.

The point with iMac, Mini, and eMac models is that, besides adding memory, 
there isn't much internal expansion to do. Only the top of the line Power 
Macs have had card expansion slots. For the past several years, the 
assumption from Apple seems to have been that you can connect all the storage 
or peripherals you needed through the USB and/or FireWire ports, and that has 
pretty much been "the case".

peace
aaron