EEVblog2 - Dumpster Diving - 27" Apple iMac WOW!

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

To know exactly what iMac that is and all its characteristics, 1) Goto applications/utilities/system profiler and copy the model identifier, it's something like "iMac11,3" or "iMac13,2" or something, and 2) download MacTracker and paste there the identifier.

[rrinker]

 The CPU and the spinny hard disk from that time may bot be the duck's guts, but 20MB RAM is not shabby at all, and a 27" LCD was a pretty big deal at the time.
 SSDs make everything more gooder. I am positively annoyed when working with any machine that doesn't have an SSD these days, everything takes forever, it seems. Only thing I have without an SSD is my server (SSDs may not be ridiculously expensive these days, but 14TB worth of them are! Plus I rarely reboot the thing).

[HAnilsen]

I recommend changing to an SSD. Any standard SATA SSD will work, but you'll need to buy a temperature sensor, otherwise your iMac will run the fans at full speed. This is the temperature kit for your model.
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIDIMACHDD09/

Should you like to run a hard drive AND an SSD in your iMac, here's a kit that allows both. (In that case you don't need the temperature sensor kit since you're using the original hard drive sensor, unless you're replacing the hard drive too)
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIYIM27SSD10/

If you want to install macOS on a brand new hard drive/SSD you'll need to create a bootable USB drive. Here's the procedure for doing that.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Here's how you install macOS.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

[Electro Detective]

For what DJ stated in the video he needs it for, he shouldn't spend a cent or break a sweat on a working freebie that appears to only require a disk wipe,

and a new install of a Mac OS that is compatible with his multimeter software, which may not be the latest High Sierra   

Once DJ sees how Macs 'just work' and pretty much not much more as far as flexibility, user control and hardware access goes,
I am confident he won't consider leaving the Windows camp any time soon   

[EEVblog]

For what DJ stated in the video he needs it for, he shouldn't spend a cent or break a sweat on a working freebie that appears to only require a disk wipe,

and a new install of a Mac OS that is compatible with his multimeter software, which may not be the latest High Sierra   

Once DJ sees how Macs 'just work' and pretty much not much more as far as flexibility, user control and hardware access goes,
I am confident he won't consider leaving the Windows camp any time soon   

All correct.
And as far as using a Mac for editing and rendering etc goes, this is an 8 year old Mac and the latest version is apparently just over twice as fast. Hopeless. I'll take my current editing machine any day of the week.
I have the latest version of High Sierra installed, presumably the same as all other macs.

[kripton2035]

I'm afraid it was in the dumpster for some reason : mostly there imacs had graphic card problems (more on the 2011 model)
you will get mosaics, or black screen soon.
if it had 20Gb of RAM, it was to someone using it intensively.
if you send me the serial number in PM, I can check if it has already been for repair somewhere.


oh and yes the best thing to do is install an ssd to replace the 7200rpm drive. only if the graphic card is still ok...

[Electro Detective]

FWIW I've brought back a few of those suss screen Macs from DOA City,
the owners needing a cheap temp solution don't mind giving the unit a love tap or two if/when the screen blanks out occasionally due to graphics card
or cold/hot and  iffy internal connector issues,
rather than buying a new Mac, or blowing big dollars getting the sucker disassembled and or re-mobo'D       at the price of a new Mac


If this 27' has 20 gigs of ram it may be a 16 gig and the original 4 gig stick in it,

assuming the original 2 x 2 gig sticks were Ebay'd and who knows what's in there now  =

The ram should be easy as pie to get to IIRC with the correct jewellers screwdriver and tactical tongue angle     (very important)

There should be a compartment perforated grill thingie below the s@xy screen, maybe a Youtube video is the way to go on that 


Anyways, you may do better trying just the one stick, either the 16 or 4 (I would go the 4 first) but not both. 

If one ram is double sided and the other single, and the Mac hardware version can't cope with a 16 and 4 combo too well anyway, it's worth a try if it still boots/runs slow 


Now that High Sierra is on there, reboot the Mac, wait for the chime (DONG...) and immediately hold down the Alt key and see what boot and recovery options there are,
most likely you may be able to get into the 'Disk Utility' and suss out the hard disk,
with options for Repair, erase, security wipe,
and a fresh install option with all previous stuff gone.

[Harb]

I have over 30 Macs of every size shape and model.........We do a lot, and I mean a lot of Video editing, and I would never go back to PC again..........Our slowest Mac is magnitudes better than our PC's which are now all stacked in the store room (And for the record, all the PC's were custom built for what we do.

[Electro Detective]

If the PCs aren't performing, they either aren't set up right, and or bogged down with bloatware or silly updates gone south

Macs are a 'PC' with their own OS, makes you wonder why they dumped their previous OS and 'Apple' hardware.

A properly tuned average PC can leave most Macs in the dust with most apps, been there.

The Macs rely on simplicity from their users using a few behaving apps, and less browser issues, plus loads of ram and SSD drives to get them 'moving',

end of story   

[PartialDischarge]

Macs are a 'PC' with their own OS

Not only is the hardware properly integrated in a Mac but here is the news, the OS is nowadays the most important part of any computer/phone/tablet, although I understand that every Windows and Android user wants to quicky leave this fact aside. So while I enjoy an amazing APFS you are still stuck with NTFS, what about memory management? where do I start.... just try not booting a PC everyday and keep it running without reboots for a couple of months like I do with my macbook pro.

I've been a PC sufferer and a Mac user tooooooooo long to know the differences and I'm not going back.

end of story.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

begin("Mac vs PC flame war");

[Brumby]

end;

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

And as far as using a Mac for editing and rendering etc goes, this is an 8 year old Mac and the latest version is apparently just over twice as fast. Hopeless. I'll take my current editing machine any day of the week.

Dave, don't you know that in a Mac, with the proper software, the CPU benchmark has ~ nothing to do with video rendering speeds? It's the GPU that matters most... (and I/O speeds too => SSD)

[Mr. Scram]

Dave, don't you know that in a Mac, with the proper software, the CPU benchmark has ~ nothing to do with video rendering speeds? It's the GPU that matters most... (and I/O speeds too => SSD)

The GPU in any remotely recent AIO Mac was amemic at best, even at the time of release.

[Bud]

Dunno about MAC but on PC i did not notice killer speed improvement using SSD. Performance test software may show you something but in daily use i saw no noticable improvement. Beside maybe lower power consumption and being silent - no.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Dave, don't you know that in a Mac, with the proper software, the CPU benchmark has ~ nothing to do with video rendering speeds? It's the GPU that matters most... (and I/O speeds too => SSD)

The GPU in any remotely recent AIO Mac was amemic at best, even at the time of release.

Yes, anemic for playing games but not necessarily so much for video encoding/decoding tasks.

[Mr. Scram]

Dunno about MAC but on PC i did not notice killer speed improvement using SSD. Performance test software may show you something but in daily use i saw no noticable improvement. Beside maybe lower power consumption and being silent - no.

There's a huge improvement. Boot times drop to a handful of seconds and starting programs is pretty much instant. Something like starting Photoshop can take minutes on a traditional HDD and seconds when using an SSD. It's very obvious when you're used to an SSD and have to use a system without one.

[Fungus]

I was gonna comment on that but I bit my tongue instead. It HAS to be a troll.

[Monkeh]

And as far as using a Mac for editing and rendering etc goes, this is an 8 year old Mac and the latest version is apparently just over twice as fast. Hopeless. I'll take my current editing machine any day of the week.

Dave, don't you know that in a Mac, with the proper software, the CPU benchmark has ~ nothing to do with video rendering speeds? It's the GPU that matters most... (and I/O speeds too => SSD)

What, you mean using GPU acceleration on a Mac works just like using GPU acceleration on a PC?

I'm shocked.

[Electro Detective]

Dunno about MAC but on PC i did not notice killer speed improvement using SSD.

Performance test software may show you something but in daily use i saw no noticable improvement.

Beside maybe lower power consumption and being silent - no.

There's a huge improvement. Boot times drop to a handful of seconds and starting programs is pretty much instant.
Something like starting Photoshop can take minutes on a traditional HDD and seconds when using an SSD.
It's very obvious when you're used to an SSD and have to use a system without one.

umm...yeah, I'm sorta with Bud on that,
besides the quick boot times and app startups, I don't really see much if any improvement when actually using the apps
Processor speed and memory handling are still king to get work done IMO, regardless of whizzbang hard drive speeds
Losing a lot of useless background processes helps too 

and yes I've played with 4200, 5400, 7200, 10k and 15k drives in all flavours and SSDs.

Boring 7200 RPMs still work for me    
till a box of cheap large capacity unloved model SSDs pop up on Ebay or Officeworks     



cough...if we're going to sort of 'go there'... if Mac shiny hardware and spinning beachballs of death OS are so-o-o great, then why do serious high performance Mac OS users go Hackintosh?   

And no, being a cheapskate isn't an answer, although in a few cases it probably began that way   


In case viewers missed it, DJ specified a working Mac that will most likely sit in the corner of the lab somewhere till it's needed for the multimeter software.
And once it's all geared up and working, I strongly suggest at that point to sacrifice about an hour to go into the Mac detailed 'Preferences', get familiar with it,
take hard copy notes of changes/selections, and lose ALL the auto sneaky update BS,
and a Time Machine (think 'System Restore'-ish type of program) save of Before and After this is done,
and then disable the Time Machine auto function, so it doesn't eventually auto delete all that precautionary work as old images   =>     


FWIW if he ever decides to jump Windows ship in say... 150 15 years time... better off to give Linux a shot first rather than get Mackered   


By then, owning a Mac may be 'Subscription Based',

the 'subscriber' fitted with an i-Collar  (electronic tracking collar) on their neck, in case they do a runner on the lifetime payments   

[thm_w]

There's a huge improvement. Boot times drop to a handful of seconds and starting programs is pretty much instant. Something like starting Photoshop can take minutes on a traditional HDD and seconds when using an SSD. It's very obvious when you're used to an SSD and have to use a system without one.

You are right, just add him to your ignore list as I have, you won't waste time or thought for no benefit.

[tooki]

The magnets around the edge of the screen are what holds it together.

No, really. That's how allergic they are to visible screws. 

I've got no idea where to pull to get one apart but that's a clue.

(don't take your degausser near it when it's in a vertical position...)

What’s wrong with using magnets? I love using magnets in projects. It’s a great way to have invisible fasteners while avoiding adhesives.

[tooki]

For what DJ stated in the video he needs it for, he shouldn't spend a cent or break a sweat on a working freebie that appears to only require a disk wipe,

and a new install of a Mac OS that is compatible with his multimeter software, which may not be the latest High Sierra   

Once DJ sees how Macs 'just work' and pretty much not much more as far as flexibility, user control and hardware access goes,
I am confident he won't consider leaving the Windows camp any time soon   

All correct.
And as far as using a Mac for editing and rendering etc goes, this is an 8 year old Mac and the latest version is apparently just over twice as fast. Hopeless. I'll take my current editing machine any day of the week.
I have the latest version of High Sierra installed, presumably the same as all other macs.

Bear in mind that Apple’s video editing software has, for years and years now, relied on GPU acceleration to largely eliminate rendering altogether. In the end it has to be output to h.264, which is where you’d really see this machine’s age. (I’m pretty sure an ‘09 iMac does not have hardware h.264 encoding in the GPU.) But that’s the hands-off part; almost all the stuff you do in front of the screen interactively should be real-time, or storage-bound.

[tooki]

An SSD should be a nice upgrade.

Can’t tell you why, but the performance boost you get from an SSD upgrade in these machines is stellar compared to regular PCs.
I am still running an early 2008 Mac Pro dual Xeon with 32Gb RAM as my main machine and a mid 2009 i7 Macbook Pro 13'' with 16Gb RAM for taking to customers and even 3D visualization while traveling.
Both where to be considered EOL with the old hard drives, but dropping in an SSD gave them an incredible boost. Did not even consider getting something newer in the past couple of years!

I’m still using my 2008 Mac Pro as well. 26GB RAM, upgraded storage, and a much more recent GPU (haven’t even bothered flashing it, it’s a big-standard AMD card intended for a PC), and it runs great.

The only real limitation is that it doesn’t support the newest OS any more, and I’ve been too lazy to hack it, as many have done.

[frozenfrogz]

The only real limitation is that it doesn’t support the newest OS any more, and I’ve been too lazy to hack it, as many have done.

I am also still on 10.11.6 and Parallels with W7 x64 - since everything I need is running fine, I do not see a reason why I should update to Sierra or High Sierra at the moment. In the current setup I have a bunch of extra kernel modules etc. and I am not willing to deal with the new issues to be faced in 10.12 / .13 right now