Official Retina 5k iMac Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Clinton McClure]

I'm curious about the iMac. Can you exceed Apple's maximum stated RAM capacity like you could with the MacBook Pros? Apple officially said my MBP could only handle 8GB but I'm using 16GB with no ill effects.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I'm curious about the iMac. Can you exceed Apple's maximum stated RAM capacity like you could with the MacBook Pros? Apple officially said my MBP could only handle 8GB but I'm using 16GB with no ill effects.

Good question, one I don't have an answer too.

While it may seem I'm slow to do anything with my new iMac, it's because my wife, who made it all possible, has kept me busy with various xmas activities. So I haven't put in the new memory, nor reinstalled photoshop, or installed the external blu ray drive.

I never occurred to me before, but since there are 4 memory slots, I'm a bi surprised the mac doesn't require 4x8gb chips to get to the max 32gb.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

32GB is the BOMB!

I have so much stuff that starts at startup it's amazing.

I have iStats Menu running in my upper menu bar and the memory
bar never rises -- even when running Photoshop.

It's amazing, however, that I still get the spinning ball once in awhile.
That was something pointed out in one of the reviews of this iMac
(I think THE VERGE).

 

[Johnny Angell]

Ron, you're running with two 16gb chips, aren't you?

Since the migration, I've not done any further work on the new mac, xmas has just kept me too busy. Xmas morning we ended up in the animal emergency clinic with one of our cats who has bladder stones/crystals. They were causing her much pain along with many bloody urinations. took her to our vet today and now have surgery scheduled for her on Wednesday.

Now, I'm going out to jog off some of my holiday fat!

Even though my time on the mac has been minimal, I do know I'm loving this thing. And, amazingly, I think I'm going to like the trackpad this time around.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Johnny,

Yes, running with two 16GB chips. I believe I linked the B&H page
earlier in this thread.

You will absolutely love the trackpad. I have no desire to ever go
back to a mouse again.

Glad you are enjoying your new Mac. Hope your cat is doing better.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Dave,

Thanks for replying. It's early morning and I am getting ready for
work so I don't have much reply time.

Johnny,

Here is the link to the memory. You need to order two of these:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/889298-REG/crucial_ct2k8g3s160bm_16gb_2x8_204p_sodimm.html

I did my migration using an external drive and SuperDuper

The optical drive is indeed the SuperDrive

I sold my old iMac to Gazelle (2012 27" i7) for $949. They don't seem to care about the memory when
calculating costs. So, I suppose, it's an "okay" price. You could sell privately but that's always a hassle.
If you don't have a box to ship it to them, use the box your new iMac arrives in. That's what I did.

My preferences are a wireless keyboard and a trackpad is a must. I love the trackpad. Will never go back
to a mouse. It's not like a laptop trackpad.

Let us know what you end up ordering (list all the specs). Good luck on your purchase.

I just gotta pay more attention to what I'm doing. The link you provided if for two 8gb chips per item, not one 16gb chip. I presume that is what you ordered and installed. I just revisited the link and it does go to what they've shipped me. As long as it's the right stuff, it's fine with me. 32gb is the max and I'llhave 32 gb in there.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Yeah, should be 4 x 8GB chips

 

[Johnny Angell]

Thanks.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Memory has been installed with no problems. Now I've got these two useless 4gb memory chips.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Getting to the point where I need to think about selling my old iMac. Are there any built-in utilities that will erase the hard drive and reset it to factory specs? Since there's a lot a personal data on my old iMac I think I'd like to run something that will rewrite every bit on the HD. Anyone run across anything like this?

 

[Clinton McClure]

http://www.mactip.net/how-to-securely-wipe-your-mac-hard-drive-before-selling-it/

 

[Clinton McClure]

The above link will walk you step-by-step through a secure HDD wipe. It's how I wiped my wife's old MacBook Pro before selling it to Gazelle.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Thanks, Clinton.

 

[Christian Behrens]

When you're wiping your drive, only select to write over it once, everything else is a complete waste of time.

-Christian

 

[Johnny Angell]

I have installed all my extra periphials for my iMac...the external hard drive and blu-ray drive, the media card reader, the usb hub. All are working fine. I've uninstalled and reinstalled Photoshop CS 6 with no problems. Most amazing of all is that this morning I tried running Win 7 under parallels 9 (I have 10, haven't installed it yet) and it worked. Windows fired up, didn't raise any licensing issues which surprised me. I ran MS Word and that ran fine too. Didn't say there was any problem.


When I bring up windows, everything on the screen is smaller than I like. The resolution it defaulted to was 5120x2880. I tried the next available resolution and that was 2560x1600. That creates icons and text, etc, bigger than I would like. I'm wondering why there aren't other resolutions available between those two.


I do notice that in the screen resolution box, there's a drop-down for the display and all that is available is ?Generic Non-PnP Monitor" and the details show it's a Parallels monitor. Windows doesn't know it's an apple monitor. I wonder if that isn't part of the problem?

 

[KeithAP]

5K iMacs are in Apple's refurb store if anyone is interested.


-Keith

 

[Johnny Angell]

The above link will walk you step-by-step through a secure HDD wipe. It's how I wiped my wife's old MacBook Pro before selling it to Gazelle.

Well I've started the process. Got to the point where I selected the recovery disk (10.10.1) and it also wanted my wifi password. Now it's been sitting at the grey Apple screen for at least 5 minutes. Not budging so far. Is that length of time normal?


Also the mouse has not yet connected. Good thing my keyboard is wired.

 

[Johnny Angell]

After an Hour, just sitting there on the grey screen. Doesn't look good.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Turned off the iMac, turned on, this time I ignored the wifi option and that made a difference. Making some progress no. It estmated 3 minutes to zero out a 2 tb disk. Har Har Har.

 

[Johnny Angell]

The zero out of the HD must have taken 4 hours last night. Now I'm starting the OS X Yosemite install this morning. I guess it's not using what's on the recovery disk and is going to download it. The estimate is 16 hours plus. I've seen this before with Apple downloads. I sure hope the time frame changes.


I had to sign in with my Apple ID and I will be selling this computer and already have a buyer. Since I'm downloading the OS with my Apple ID, does that effect the future owner?