October 18th, 1999
| [1:45 PM] Clock Your iMac's Or iBook's G3 Up A Notch
Danbo from The Mac Treasure Tracing Club, an Asian Mac web site, wrote to tell us that Mystic Room, another Asian Mac site, has figured out how to bump the clock speed of iMac DVs and iBooks. According to Mystic Room, the motherboard will support speeds as high as 1 GHz on the iMac DV, thought it is unlikely that any shipping iMacs come with G3s that could operate at those speeds. Heat factors will probably have a major impact on top speeds as well. The process involves making changes to components on your motherboard, so it is not for the faint of heart. Please note that this process would probably void your warranty with Apple and could seriously damage your iMac, perhaps making it unusable. For that reason, The Mac Observer recommends that you do not attempt this process, nor have we tested it in any fashion. However, we know that performance junkies and the curious will want to check it out just like we did! :-) The site is in frames, so we can't link directly to the pertinent page. These are instructions for finding the right page. Click on the English link at the bottom of the page. When the new frame comes up, click on the "Macintosh Tune Up" Link, and then the iMac DV link at the bottom of the list of Mac computers. That is the page with images and instructions for doing this. The site has tips for tweaking your G4 as well. Apple was unavailable for comment as of press time. The Mac Observer Spin: Being able to fiddle with your Mac at the hardware level is one thing that is less easy than it is on the PC front. Of course, that very aspect of the Mac is one of the things that makes it attractive to many Mac users. With the iMac DV making iMacs truly powerful machines for the first time, they are most likely becoming more attractive to those looking for high performance. The urge to tweak that performance in order to get the last ounce of processor juice will be great for many. |