At least $200 to be exact. I should have known to use Utitlities Repair Disc every few months or so to repair corrupt discs, the reason behind slow performance on iTunes and Word.
I should have known my version of the 2008 iMac takes only 4 gigs of RAM, not 8.
I should have known that based on my iMac's RAM limitations, Lion was too hungry to use as an operating system.
Had I studied Mac forums, I would have known all these things. Instead, I took my iMac to the MacMall by my house and let their techs tell me all these things.
They charged me $235 for memory and install. And another $60 for scanning my hard-drive and putting in latest version of Snow Leopard. Another $35 for shipping and tax. That's a total of $330.
I could have bought the RAM for about $65 and the Snow Leopard for $70 for a total of $135.
Ignorance hurts, my man. And you lose Man Points.
Final Thoughts:
From now on, when I buy a new computer, I'm going to load it with as much RAM as possible from the very beginning.
My 2006 iMac is running Lion right now...
Posted by: KI6H | July 06, 2012 at 11:23 AM
Your 2008 iMac can handle up to 6GB of RAM, by utilizing a 4GB module in one memory slot, and a 2GB module in the other. I've found Lion runs well with 6GB of RAM on the older hardware such as your iMac. You will lose the ability for both memory channels to be used in parallel at one time with this configuration, but the added benefits of the extra RAM outweigh that one disadvantage with most computing tasks.
A great resource for finding out what specifications your Mac has is http://everymac.com. They have almost every Mac ever released documented there.
You might want to think about updating to Mountain Lion when it comes out later this summer. As someone who has access to the developer previews, without getting into specifics, it's much snappier on some of the older hardware than Lion was - they've clearly done some optimizing of code with the new OS.
If you decide to upgrade to a new iMac soon, the newest models handle up to 32 GB.
Posted by: Ted | July 06, 2012 at 02:16 PM
Software Defined Radio: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/how-software-defined-radio-could-revolutionize-wireless/
Posted by: A. Black | July 06, 2012 at 02:45 PM
"Upgrading" your OS, whether Mac or PC, is always a mixed bag. My late '07 MacBook (plastic) runs Lion okay with 4G of memory, but that being said, the practical benefit is rather slight in routine use.
With more of what I do with my computers (Mac at home, PC at work) becoming Web-based, I'm finding that the software I use and the platform it runs on are becoming less critical.
Posted by: Jack Marshall | July 07, 2012 at 06:13 AM
You know, I've never heard anybody complain "This is a nice computer, but darn it, it just has too much memory."
Posted by: Bill | July 07, 2012 at 08:39 AM