iMac and eMac Index

iMac 266 (Rev. C)

Steve Jobs announced this faster, more feature laden iMac at Macworld Expo 99 in San Francisco. In addition to a 14% faster CPU and 50% larger hard drive, the 266 MHz iMac shipped in five different colors: tangerine, grape, lime, blueberry, and strawberry. There are rumors that some Bondi blue ones were built in January 1999 using the last of the Bondi cases.

The iMac 266 retains almost every feature of the Revision B iMac, but with a faster (266 MHz) processor and a larger hard drive. Missing: the mezzanine slot and infrared networking. If these are important to you, look into a Rev. A or Rev. B instead.

All this and a lower price than the earlier iMacs had, US$1,199.

For the record, Apple only refers to this as the iMac 266. However, iMac Rev. C is a name commonly applied to the 266 MHz iMac.

The iMac's firmware is stored on the same card that holds the CPU and memory chips. If firmware hasn't been updated and your iMac is acting up, swapping the CPU card from a known working iMac will usually fix things. Then update the firmware in the other iMac.

  • iMac speed tip: if you have Virtual Memory on and only 32 MB RAM, set VM to 64 MB for faster performance
  • According to Apple, iMac Update 1.2 should be installed on all iMac computers used in NetBoot client environments.
  • If you are running Mac OS 8.6, Mac OS ROM Update 1.0 should be installed. You must have 8.6 installed before running this update.
  • For more information on firmware updates, see iMac: When to Install Available Updaters.

If you have a hard drive larger than 8 GB, you should partition it so that the first partition is under 8 GB in size (for simplicity, we suggest 7 GB). Failure to do this could eventually result in an unbootable computer, as all System files must be within the first 8 GB of drive space. These Macs can work successfully with larger drives for some time, but once a System files goes outside of the first 8 GB of space, you'll have nothing but problems.

Mac OS X

If you have a hard drive over 8 GB in size, you must partition it or you will not be able to install Mac OS X. If you are creating the partition within OS X, it must be smaller than 7.4 GB as reported by Disk Utility (because sometimes a GB is billion bytes and sometimes it's 1,073,741,824 bytes); we suggest simply setting it at 7 GB to avoid having to redo the whole installation if the partition ends up bigger than specified (it happens). Mac OS X must be completely within the first 8 GB of space on your hard drive or you will not be able to run OS X.

Tray-loading iMacs cannot boot from USB drives (see Apple Knowledge Base Article #58430, USB Info and Benefits of Dual-Channel USB).

Non-Apple upgrades and peripherals (such as unsupported USB devices, replacement drives, and third-party memory) may cause problems when installing or booting into Mac OS X.

Be sure that your iMac's firmware is up to date before you install Mac OS X, and read and follow all of Apple's "Read Before You Install" instructions to increase the likelihood of getting OS X installed and running on the first try.

The classic Mac OS identifies some 64 MB memory cards as only 32 MB, however OS X will correctly identify them and use all of their memory.

NOTE: The Sonnet HARMONi upgrade card, which includes a faster CPU and FireWire, was incompatible with early versions of Mac OS X 10.4. The FireWire port would tie up 100% of CPU resources. This problem was fixed in version 10.4.7 (if not earlier). If you have a HARMONi card that's had this issue, be aware that updating to 10.4.7 or newer should fix it.

The Upgrade Box

Details

Online Resources

Suggested Accessories

Cautions

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