Alan Carroll of macUpgrades in Bethesda supplies the following answer to these questions. (Disclosure: he's my husband. He does all my Mac tech support, which is very convenient.)
--Constance Warner > Subject: [CGUYS] Buying First MAC > > I am planning to purchase an iMac for my wife. I have only owned PC's > since jobs was in the garage, and have a few hardware questions. > > 1.looks like 2 memory slots. does std DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300 ) ram fit, > or is it something that is mac only? > 1a. can I put a 2g in one slot and a 1g in the other and the machine > will be happy and run on 3g? You can install up to 3GB of PC2-5300 SO-DIMMs. > > 2.can one change/ug the video card or add memory to it, or is it unique, > and hardwired someplace weird? > such as, can one remove the nvidia 128 and put in an ati 256? The base model ships with 128MB video RAM, the others ship with 256MB. The video card is part of the motherboard. > > 3.Is the hd a standard one, and can one pull the existing and put in a > larger one? You can install any SATA drive but it will need to be done by someone with the proper equipment. It is not user installable. > > 4.have heard Leapord(?) will be out in oct. how realistic are apple > release dates and how buggy are typical initial releases? will there be > enough thrill to wait? Leopard is due sometime in October. I expect it to ship in October. There are some very nice features. I would wait since the iMacs are often backordered anyway. ************************************************************************ * ==> QUICK LIST-COMMAND REFERENCE - Put the following commands in <== * ==> the body of an email & send 'em to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <== * Join the list: SUBSCRIBE COMPUTERGUYS-L Your Name * Too much mail? Try Daily Digests command: SET COMPUTERGUYS-L DIGEST * Tired of the List? Unsubscribe command: SIGNOFF COMPUTERGUYS-L * New address? From OLD address send: CHANGE COMPUTERGUYS-L YourNewAddress * Need more help? Send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************ * List archive at www.mail-archive.com/computerguys-l@listserv.aol.com/ * RSS at www.mail-archive.com/computerguys-l@listserv.aol.com/maillist.xml * Messages bearing the header "X-No-Archive: yes" will not be archived ************************************************************************
