The video card tends to go out on these. Replacing the motherboard is the main solution to that, though there is also success with heating the motherboard so that the solder connecting the card to the board will reflow and make the connection again... Update: ...and when that is the problem, there will be nothing showing up on an external display, either..

I've got my iMac 333 running fine on 10.4.11 with 512mb of RAM installed... Had to take out the hard drive and use another Mac to install it on that drive, due to 10.4 only coming on a DVD. But heck, I now have a scavenged DVD-ROM/CD-RW from a 550 Powerbook, running in there just fine. It can read and process data DVD's (such as installation disks), but the computer is not able to play DVD movies. ...and for 9.2, a quick browser is Classilla, which is basically a mobile browser which loads things very quickly... Thing of browsing the internet on your phone, but with a mouse, a real keyboard and decent-sized screen...

Using a wireless bridge to pick up the wi-fi signal and then feeding it in through the ethernet port has seemed to be a much more stable (and quicker!) way to go than any of the USB dongles I tried... I know that some routers can be turned into wireless bridges (receivers) by using DD-WRT firmware in them... They become much more versatile that way! The only problem I find is the limitation of the iMac to process all the junk that's added into today's web pages... That can gum things up so quickly.

Yeah... it's hard to just "throw these out"... More fun to upgrade them in every possible way, especially now when the upgrade parts that we used to drool over as being too expensive can be so cheaply obtained at a Goodwill computer store or other computer recycling store.... I mean, yes, they are dinosaurs, but dinosaurs are cool! Years ago, I did the firmware upgrade on a slot-loading iMac that had been temporarily wrecked by a premature OS X installation. It involved jumpering certain connectors on the video cable and then hooking up to an external monitor looking for things on a severely disabled screen in order to open up the firmware package... Can't remember exactly what I did, or where one can find the info, but at least this gives an idea of what is involved... If it's a slot loader, there may be the additional complication of an analog video part frying internally from the heat that was supposed to be convecting out of the machine...(sorry, it's been so long that I forgot the name of that part -...

When I upgraded the DVD-ROM/CD-RW in my G4 550mHz Powerbook with a DVD-RW, I put that DVD-ROM/CD-RW into my tray loading iMac 333mHz. The result? The ol' 333 is now a slot-loader and can burn CDs as well as read DVDs, though I haven't been able to get it to play movies. However, it can read DVD install disks such as OS 10.4, which it happily runs much better on than the OS 10.1 that I had previously put in there. Oh yes, I have 512mb of RAM in it as well. That helps a lot!