The outer glass came off with the suction cups without a problem, but then it immediately became service-hostile. So opening up the 2011 iMac to repair the video card was hardly my first rodeo in that regard. In my view you really do need to set a count-down clock from purchase date to the last day of the AppleCare contract, because after that they might as well be considered disposable. But the latest iMacs (and I presume MacBooks) that use glue for assembly are getting to be a bridge too far. I have also worked on laptops, which understandably require tightly-packed components and certain non-servicable parts. But then there were some lemons from the Spindler years (I can’t even remember all the model numbers), and the newer aluminum iMacs that used every trick available to conceal their construction. Some of the best machines along the line were the wonderful Mac IIci (one screw held almost everything in place), NeXT Stations, and the entirely reasonable white PowerPC iMacs. Now I have opened up and worked on just about every generation of Mac, starting with a Radius 68020 coprocessor upgrade on a Mac SE to a complete dismantling of a G4 PowerMac down to the bare chassis. I had nothing to lose at that point, so I opened up the machine and followed the iFixit procedure on an iPad. Any cold-solder cracks would theoretically mend themselves. This is an interesting if completely risky process of removing the card and putting it in a pre-heated oven for ten minutes to melt the existing solder enough so that it can literally re-flow across the connections. (The fans were spinning up more and more as it aged.) The solution was to either buy a replacement video card, which is economically unjustified, or to ‘re-flow’ the solder on the existing card. I’m still holding out for a refreshed Mac Pro (‘Waiting For Godot’) but in the meantime I want this machine to keep going.Īfter some online research I learned that certain components on the video card could become unsoldered if enough heat built up inside, which seemed to be the case for my machine. Needless to say it was well past the Applecare contract so I was on my own for repairs. It has served me quite well but this past September the video card failed. When the slim ‘supermodel’ iMacs came out I assessed their design and specs but instead bought a refurbed 2011 i7 model (the last iMac with an optical drive), in part for potential serviceability versus dealing with the glued-on screen of the later models. "The downsides of the iMac 5K are several: Inferior cooling ability and increased noise under loads that would make a Mac Pro barely audible the iMac 5K is not suitable for sustained loads and not likely to survive sustained loads for the years I would expect a Mac Pro to chug along easily." See also Clean Dust Off Computer Innards for Longer Service Life. SEND FEEDBACK Related: 4K and 5K display, Don H, GPU, iMac, iMac 5K, Mac Pro, Other World Computing, reader comment, videoĪ fascinating essay on the viability of the Apple iMac for reliable longer term use.
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