OT - computers - should I repair this iMac?
 

I have a circa 2011 27" iMac that I willed to my youngest son when it died the first time and I upgraded. At the time, 1.5 years ago, the hard drive died and I replaced it with a 500Gb SSD drive and it worked fantastically. Well, now it died again and I'm told the video card and control board are fried. It will be about a $700 repair. Intended use is fairly light. My son does a lot of 3D printing, some games and internet stuff. A few graphic art projects but nothing heavy. Occasional schoolwork, but he has a school issued laptop for that.

Options I'm considering:

#1 - fix it and wait for the display to die and agonize over that expensive repair. Most attractive angle to this is we get to ride the SSD drive for it's life span which will be anywhere from another 3-10 years. My wife MacBook Air SSD is 8 years old and going strong.

#2 - My son wants a PC to open up more gaming options. I am lukewarm at best to this idea, primarily as I'm the house IT guy, I have to figure out how to work a PC again as well as AV software, integrating with our household Appleverse, etc. I can probably get something in the $500-600 range

#3 - new Mac mini 128Gb drive. I'd be in about $900 with a display

#4 - most intriguing to me - older version Mac mini and move the iMac SSD to the Mini (if that can be done). Performance wise it would likely be a lateral move (which is OK) and I figure cost might be somewhere in the $500 range.

What do you computer hardware literate folks think?

sell it for parts and get a new one. lipstick on a pig at this point.

iMacs are turbocharged laptops attached to a screen... with lots of proprietary parts.

Without knowing exactly which one you're talking about... some of them had heat dissipation issues which leads to the boards failing. I bought my Mom an iMac around that time period and the same thing happened IIRC, but a long time ago. Her use was exceedingly light. If you threw that machine on the desk of a software developer or a 3D artist they'd probably melt it down a lot faster.

Apple is heavily biased towards thin designs & designs with minimal fan noise.

You could probably come up with some some kind of saying, "Thin, Quiet, Reliable, High-Performance: Pick no more than 3". Apple has frequently gone for thin, quiet, and high performance and screwed up the reliability part.

I would not spend the money to fix it at this point.. if it was a homebuilt/mom & pop store PC that would be a $<100 part to replace it if you could find a compatible board (and they are generally easy to find). The only reason it's $700 is cause Apple is the only one with the boards and that's what they want to charge. (And the construction of an iMac makes the labor more difficult.)

Stick a fork in it, it's done ;)

I don't know if this helps, but I have a 2010 27' imac that I'm trashing. The screen has a crack, but, as far as I know, internals all work. If anything from it would help, it's yours. It's literal trash.

I also have 16gb ram for that computer, new in box.

OK, so that’s 3 firm “no” on option 1:) I appreciate the responses.

FWIW, I looked at prices on random graphics cards and motherboards and the prices I was quoted didn’t seem far out of line. As far as reliability of the Mac, I’ve been pleased. That one was my first one and I got 6+ years of hiccup free use before hard drive went.

That is intriguing. Let me do some research.

Option #2

Keep in mind, i wouldn't know how to get to those parts...so there might be some cost in taking it to a guy who does? I could just ship the whole thing to you...not sure what that would cost though.

The iPhone came out in 2007. 2011 was the first year Siri was included on the iPhone 4s with 512MB RAM. Most phones now have 8x as much. Your phone probably has more RAM than the 2011 iMac you're trying to salvage.

#2 Yeah, for the budget you're setting, I'd pick up a new PC. Your IT maintenance can be simple. Create an image after you're done installing everything. Then reformat and restore the image when things go wrong. That's what I do with my parents' computers. Look at intel NUCs. I'm about to build one for my mom actually.

Also, you can get an external virus/malware hardware like a bitdefender box or run software on your router (also helps with all the phones/tablets you have).

You can easily install the SSD into a new computer. There's no reason you need to "keep" the dead iMac. You can use the SSD in the NUC (different models support M2 (BEK) vs. 2.5" (BEH))

Regarding #4, until the recent Mac Mini, most Minis weren't user serviceable. Lookup ifixit. Its not worth an old Mac Mini you can't upgrade yourself.

Btw, there's no reason you can't use your iMac as a 2nd monitor for another Mac. Apparently the thunderbolt port should allow being used as an input.

iMacs of that generation are pretty easy to fix, or easy for me to fix. I've fixed plenty over the years.

If the hard drive is broken, replace it with an SSD, very easy swap.

If the video card is broken, finding a donor card is going to be hard. Apple made ATI/AMD use their proprietary EFI (firmware) to run the card. You can use others, but it's going to be a workaround.

If the motherboard breaks, you will have to source a replacement, but it's not that hard to replace, maybe an hour tops.

As a person who plays video games and since this is for your son, I vote for the PC as it does provide more options.

And maybe let your son build one himself? It would be a good project to do it together. Do some research and get a system that could at least be upgraded for 5 years.

Windows 10 Pro key can be bought legally for cheap.


Another more adventurous path is build a Hackingtosh. Do some research and build a PC that is compatible with MacOS. You can literally have a Dual-Boot Mac Pro for 1/3 of the cost.

Mac mini. Decouple your processor from your display. Does your iMac have a Thunderbolt port? Can you use the old iMac as a monitor for a Mac Mini?

I'm sorta in a similar situation. I've got an old iMac with what I've been told is a bad GPU. On bootup the thing just goes into an endless bootup loop. I also have an old Mac Mini with what I believe is a bad power supply. That part is about $60 so I'm thinking I might try and replace it. $60 isn't too much to be out if the problem turns out to be something else. But $700 would be way too much for me to spend on fixing something 9 yrs old.

@ weaponsgrade - that’s exactly what this one is doing - endless boot loop. The service guy (Apple dealer/computer shop at the local university) couldn’t get it running properly without swapping out both the control board and video card.

I did look into the hackintosh concept and though intriguing, not something I’m ready to take on right now. But maybe something to tinker with down the road using the SSD. I’m leaning towards a 2014 Mac Mini right now. Lateral move or slight upgrade in processor . I strolled through Best Buy today and just wasn’t inspired looking at PC collection there. Memories of my old experiences with Dell Inspiron and HP Pavilion made me feel queasy.

Also I did look into just using the display on the old Mac, but everything I found on line looked that it had to be booted up to use.