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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Imac G3 Won't Install Firmware Update

burf90 - Sep 27, 2005 - 6:35 pm

Hi. First the background/general system info. My father has an iMac with a slot-loading CD drive. Specs are: 350 MHz PowerPC G3 processor, 512K backside level 2 cache, 100 MHz system bus, 512 MB ram (maxed out). 6 GB hard drive. His system is currently running on OS 9.1 and my goal is to upgrade to Panther. I am hoping that Panther has more efficient memory control and will solve some issues he's having loading certain web pages, printing, lockups, etc. I've tinkered with the memory settings until I'm ready to scream and nothing helps. I've also rebuilt the desktop, but saw no improvement. I ran the disk utility that comes with the OS and it says the hard drive, file system, etc., is fine. Nothing new was installed on his system anywhere near the time frame that this started. It's been going on for several months.

Now for the problem... I read that I have to update the firmware before I upgrade the OS to Panther. I downloaded the firmware update from the Apple website and ran the installer. The installer starts up fine and tells me to click the "Shutdown" button and then do the thing with the paperclip, etc. The problem is that after I click the "Shutdown" button, the computer never shuts down. It blanks to just his desktop background and looks like it will turn off any second, but never does. No error messages, either. If I then turn it off manually and try following the rest of the instructions, I get the long beep, but the system starts up normally and doesn't appear to update anything.

I've tried to look at the system settings to see if his system is already using the newer version of the firmware, but I can't figure out where to find that info.

One last question (as if this isn't long enough already): Do I HAVE to upgrade from 9.1 to 9.2.1 to 9.2.2, etc., or can I upgrade directly from 9.1 to Panther? My father DOES want to be able to use his OS 9 programs, so he will need to leave 9 on the HD and run Classic mode. The Panther discs I have are version 10.3.2.

Thanks in advance for your help. I can put together and/or troubleshoot a Windows PC in my sleep, but this little iMac is giving me nightmares. That's not meant to be a Mac bash. It's a great machine and has served my father long and faithfully for a long time, but I just don't know enough about it to solve some of the issues I've come up against.

DeltaMac - Sep 27, 2005 - 7:35 pm

You can check in the Apple System profiler for the current BootROM version. It's listed near the bottom of the first page.
Try booting the iMac with extensions OFF (hold the shift key down during boot) Then run the updater. You should be able to so a normal shut down then.

OS X does not upgrade OS 9, it's an additional install - you are not replacing OS 9, as long as you do not choose to erase the drive when installing OS X, everything about OS 9 will remain as it was.

another note: you will find that 512MB is not the maximum. You can use 512MB in each slot for a total of 1024MB, if you want to. 512MB will be fine with Panther.
You must make sure about the firmware update BEFORE attempting to install OS X.
- Dale

burf90 - Sep 27, 2005 - 9:07 pm

Thanks for the quick reply. I checked the system profiler and the BootROM version is listed as 1.2f2, the ROM revision is $77D.45F6 and the Mac OS ROM File Version is 6.1, none of which sounds remotely like the 4.1.9 which I'm supposed to be installing. :\ I assume that the Apple site knows what its doing, though, so I'll go ahead and try to update the firmware with the extensions off.

As for not having to upgrade to OS 9.2.1, etc., that's great news. I didn't think I had to do all that from the update instructions on Apple's site, but another answer I spotted on this site made me wonder. (I probably just misunderstood what the user was trying to do.)

Even better news about the possibility of increasing the RAM to 1 GB. The original specs for the iMac did say that each slot could only hold up to 256 MB of RAM. Is that just because it was made before the memory chips grew so large?

Thanks again for your time and help!

burf90 - Sep 27, 2005 - 9:24 pm

Just a quick update. Booting without extensions did the trick and the firmware update is now successfully installed. Thanks again for your help, Dale. This is a great site! I'll probably be back when I run into something unexpected installing Panther...

DeltaMac - Sep 27, 2005 - 10:42 pm

Part of what you get with the firmware update - That old firmware is probably the oldest firmware that I have seen, One of the results of that update is so the logic board will recognize the 512 MB chips. I doubt you could get that to work before. Apple is sometimes cautious with their maximum memory ratings, and some (not all) Macs can have more memory installed than Apple's specs say.

One area that you could have a problem - that small hard drive may quickly run out of space. The OS X install can use 2-3 GB of hard drive space. That can leave you with needing to be careful that you do not fill up the hard drive, as that can cause real problems. I would recommend that you consider replacing with a larger hard drive, unless you are willing to monitor the free space each time you use the computer. Do not allow the free space to drop below 500 MB. On your hard drive, 1.5 GB would be a good free space amount. This will be hard to keep. Good luck
- Dale

burf90 - Sep 27, 2005 - 11:25 pm

Thanks for the hard drive advice. We bought a 160 GB USB external hard drive so we could backup the existing drive easily. It seems to works fine, so my plan is to move most of the non-Apple applications (games, etc.) to the external drive. I currently have 3 GB free on the 6 GB drive and can probably free up close to another GB before the upgrade. I'm hoping that will do it. If not, we may have to get a larger drive. We'll play that one by ear.

As for the ancient firmware... My bad. I guess it just never occurred to me that it needed to be updated. Truthfully, I'd never even heard of firmware before I read the preinstallation instructions for Panther. I was probably lucky that I didn't have any problems updating 9.0.4 (?) to 9.1 a couple of years ago.

Also, I've been reading that OS X may not recognize non-Apple RAM. The new firmware seems to be fine with the RAM chips we have, but I may have to buy some new RAM anyway, if OS X decides to get picky.

Thanks again!

DeltaMac - Sep 27, 2005 - 11:35 pm

You didn't need to know about firmware, nothing is greatly affected until OS X.

You don't need to expect problems with your RAM. OS X is known to be sensitive to RAM that has marginal specifications (works with OS 9, but fails with OS X) I have some economy memory chips that I bought shortly after I began using OS X about 4 years ago, and no problems whatsoever. Your experience could be different....
One thing you can do after upgrading is run some software that will remove the unused foreign language support files - there can be a huge amount in a standard install, I usually remove about 700 MB, but have seen over 1 GB!
Download here; http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/13031
this is one example. Open and scroll through the list, selecting everything except English, and then it goes to work.

- Dale

burf90 - Sep 28, 2005 - 1:00 am

Cool! Thanks! That should help immensely in keeping a decent amount of space on the drive. Fortunately, my dad doesn't use his computer for anything too fancy, so he's never even come close to filling his hard drive. Even so, I've had to move quite a bit off to free up enough space to be sure the install goes smoothly.

BTW, his iMac doesn't have firewire, which is why we're going with Panther, instead of Tiger. Is there anything you can think of that's firewire related that I can remove, too? Not much point in having it there if he can't use it.