I Took Apart My iMac.

The original goal was to add more memory, which is fine and relatively easy.

Later I used this same plan to upgrade the disk drive in the iMac. And most recently, I discovered that you can upgrade the "original" memory in the iMac, too. Normally you have 32M or 64M "on-board" and then you add maybe 64M or 128M or maybe even 256M if you are bold and lucky--it is not guaranteed to work. But you can also throw away that 32M original memory and put in a 128M there, too!

The original memory card lives "under" the regular memory upgrade slot, on the underside of that board which means size restrictions are more severe, but as of early 2002, you can find 128M (and sometimes 256M memory cards that will fit in there.) Using this plan (and throwing away my old 32M), I have been able to get my iMac up to 256M now which is much better, particularly when running OSX. (Of course, I could still use more Mhz or maybe a G4, but nothing helps a computer work faster than more RAM and less swapping to disk.)

Note: this page is for an "Original iMac" (mine is a Bondi-Blue colored Rev. B Original iMac). I really doubt that it is exactly the same for a newer iMac, but I really don't know. I used the official Apple instructions because, hey, I'm not afraid to void a warranty, but I just hate it when I wreck a perfectly excellent piece of equipment.