Is my DH's mac in its death throes? {:•(

[marzipanni]

It's an iMac G5 with 1.8 GHZ, 1 GB RAM. (Yeah, an oldie, but has been a goodie)
Symptoms: "beachball" spins and spins; can't get "force quit" window to pop up, or get any of the drop-downs to work.

Any ideas?

[NV Whino]

1. You need more RAM

You' eh probably upgraded applications over the years, which are increasingly memory intensive, and you haven't added any RAM to compensate.

I had the same problem with 4gigs of RAM. Added 4 more—no more beach ball. You can probably have up to 8 gigs.

[marzipanni]

2. Thanks, but we are not very computer savvy, and son is at college...LOL

Do you have a similar computer?
I just watched a short video on YouTube "Adding memory to an IMac G5". The guy removed two cards and put two in, so I gather the new ones were more powerful. I get a pair of them at a place like Fry's? It's pretty old, maybe we should add
4 GB and see how it goes.

[NV Whino]

3. There are generally two slots

You probably have 2-500 mg cards. You would buy 2-2 gig cards. I had a G-4, which is similar. Shouldn't be too hard to install RAM.

I had a Mac Mini 2009 version and had to have a tech install that. The new Minis are much easier. All the old guys were easy. Go for it.

You'll need all that information that you can get when you hit the Apple button and go to "about this Mac." Serial number, too.