I don't disagree, it does appear that that is the case. But with how many things he does do right that the majority of technicians slip up on, makes me trust his methods. However, I do agree that he probably didn't need to remove the PSU and DD to get at the LB.
It's weird that a lot of older computers run way faster now with solid state drives, it's amazing that it took this long to get solid state drives to where they need to be reliable and usable for long-term use. I sometimes wonder where do you go from that besides faster and longer lifespan. It's like for the longest time storage was the main bottleneck.
SSDs were reliable & usable for a long time. They just cost a lot more than what we were willing to pay. Now that the cost of flash memory has come down, and the price of SSDs has come down, mechanical drives will be displaced to data centre use only.
It might be just me, but I don't fully trust an SSD as they are not going to last as long as a hard drive will. Don't take new technology for granted, I don't believe a 10 year old SSD is still going to work like a 10 year old HDD will. There are still hard drives from the 90s that work so I don’t expect having a 30 year old SSD from now still working due to how SSDs function and wear.
@@10GTech you know that the lifespan of an SSD is derived from its TBW right?.... if it is a backup SSD lets say for pictures and video files and is not the main drive for the OS it should last almost indefinitely
It's so good to see that a 10-12 years old computer is totally usable after some small upgrades. Slowly, apple has killed upgradibility altogether. Imagine that the new M1 or M1x macbooks and imacs will end up in landfills in less than 5 years. So sad to see that Apple has 'inspired' the industry to go this route.
@@mecca6801 the major reason for it working is because its repairabile and upgradable. Apple has ensured that nee macbooks and imacs are so expensive to fix that it's better to buy a new one.
And they also commit that all the apple products are recycled and they just want to make it less fixable, recycle it and sell it wow what a nice strategy to make profit.
Hi Hugh! I am very familiar with the 2011 iMacs, and I wanted to make you aware of an issue that all models are affected with from the factory. The Radeon GPUs (HD 5000M and 6000M series) are prone to failure, and are guaranteed to fail eventually. I am aware you stated you could upgrade the GPU (with another officially supported version), but every compatible Radeon card for this generation has the same issues, and it is rather costly to begin with. So, I would recommend modding the iMac by installing a newer Radeon or Nvidia card, which is possible through some vBIOS flashing and patience, plus it's much cheaper! I did it to my personal 2011 27" model using an Nvidia Quadro K2100M and some research (2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade on MacRumors), and it works great! Also, keep up the great work! Your videos are always entertaining to watch while I do some computer work of my own haha! Edit: By the way, I forgot to mention that upon upgrading the GPU to something more modern, this enables you to install an unsupported OS (like MacOS Catalina) onto the 2011 model. This isn't possible with the Radeon 6000M card, mainly because it does not support GPU acceleration in newer OSes and is basically unusable.
The Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs used in the 2011 iMacs are known to fail, but the iMac in this video has the lower end Radeon HD 6750M, and it doesn't fail as often as the higher end cards used in the 27" iMac. Still important to know about, but it isn't as big of a problem with the 21.5" iMac as it is with the 27" iMac.
@@jamiechampion299 Thanks for the input! I am admittedly more familiar with the 27” model, but the computer store I worked at last year did have several 21.5” models come in with dead/failing GPUs. But yeah, I’ve seen many more 27” ones with bad GPUs. Regardless, it’s definitely a fun project to upgrade the GPU!
@@yardnuk The 27" 2011 iMac is notoriously terrible for GPU failures (along with hard drive failures), and while the 21.5" can suffer from it too it just doesn't happen as often as with the 27" from everything I've experienced as well as everything I've read online. It's good that they do use socketed GPUs though, because GPU upgrades are a good project, even if they aren't cheap. I use a 2011 27" iMac as one of my primary computers, and right now it's still running on the original Radeon HD 6970M. That card has already failed twice, but after a reflow it's been working perfectly. It's been running nearly 24/7 for about a year and a half now with no signs of failure. I've decided that with this iMac I'm just going to wait and see how long it lasts until it does finally fail for good before upgrading the GPU.
@@yardnuk So far so good! I don't treat it too kindly, that's for sure. The iMac runs three 1440p monitors (one internal, two external), and I often use it to stream my desktop PC (triple 1440p streams) through the network with Parsec. That's not a light load on the GPU at all, but it handles it alright.
11:45. For the 2019 iMac upgrade, I say go for it, it's actually not that bad, an apple watch is way more of a nightmare than an iMac. I did my Church's 2020 iMac with SSD, RAM and CPU Upgrade and it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I've only taken apart like 3 other iMac's so, while not extremely fun, not that painful the the upgrades are so worth it.
The newer iMacs really aren’t that hard to take apart. You can use the ‘pizza cutter’ type tool to cut the adhesive holding the screen on. I got mine off in less than 10 minutes with no problems at all.
Just as a friendly remeinder, this imac cost nothing to put back appart and doesn’t need special tools except for the screw driver. It can be opened with suction cups from the dollar store. This is what he meant by easy to open.
Totally. But the latest generation have soldered RAM, SSDs and Processors. Apple claim its for optimisation across hardware but it also means if something dies its a new motherboard or a new computer...
"The viewer who wished to remain anonymous..." while showing his name on the box 🙂 Edit - ah I see it's your mate Nathan's name on the box. My mistake!
Good to see this update. When (if) our 2009 21.5 inch iMac with original keyboard and optical mouse fails, I may look into updating it using this video as a guide. I wish current generation Apple stuff was so easy to dismantle.
Great to see this brought back to life! When I was a teacher, I had a few labs of these and it was always satisfying to remove all the dirt and grime from the year over the summer break since the case was so easy to clean 🤤 Putting on a podcast and cleaning 50 iMacs = a very nice day.
The love of technology coming out whenever companies release it will never get old. But what’s even more nostalgic feeling, is when you look back at tech from a great era of when it was emerging. Gives you that warm fuzzy feeling inside.
My dad gave me his old iMac, I swapped out the dying hard drive for a new ssd. It was a fun little day project. I love how repairable and upgradable they were. Though I did get a small shock because I wasn't as careful as I should be around the power supply.
Another awesome video. Thanks Hugh! It goes under the radar because your talent steals the spotlight, but your editing and video and audio quality and execution is just as good. Great work man!
This was the first video of yours I’ve watched. Very nicely done. I’m a Mac addict myself as well as being a graphic designer and UA-cam creator and I love watching videos like these. I love upgrading, repairing and cleaning old Macs as well. I just recently upgraded my best friend’s 21.5” 2015 iMac hdd to an ssd. I had already done mine a year earlier so doing His was a breeze! Anyway, thanks for your videos and I’ll be watching. Take care.
Upgrading a 2011 iMac running High Sierra to 32 G of RAM is not optimal, the OS is so outdated so hardware to improve performance won't last you long as you start losing support for things such as security, and the lack of access to everyday programs, considering the fact of not updating. :]
The unfortunate part is that this Mac will probably be largely unusable fairly soon (if not already) because of the lack of OS support from Apple. I imagine Safari barely works, if at all, and multiple programs and applications are simply failing now. The one upside is that you can indeed force upgrade this Mac to one of the most recent versions of the modern OS and it still runs great, you just have to bootstrap it with another piece of software. Alternatively, you can simply turn it into a Linux machine and have a very nice AIO linux computer that probably runs fantastically.
I have a 2011 21.5" base model iMac like this one. I've upgraded the RAM to 12GB but I've been meaning to open it up to clean the inside, replace the thermal paste and upgrade the HDD to an SSD. This video certainly gave me some tips on opening it up, but it all seems quite complicated. Just have to wait and see. I'm glad iFixit exists though
Hugh, I find your videos utterly fascinating. Well done - and for crying out aloud, fix up your Dad's computer. The poor man probably paid for your education....
I repaired one of these once and I also upgraded with an ssd, but then the fan ramp up at max speed because of the lack of the temp-sensor included inside the older hdd (and not sticked outside like the odd). Thankfully a couple of tools help me out, otherwise I should have modify a pin on the sata cable responsible for the sensoring
@@g.c.9904 Ciao, c'erano delle guide su come disabilitare fisicamente il settimo pin del cavo sata (credo d'alimentazione) che era quello che si connetteva al sensore sull'hard disk. Altrimenti in modo più pratico esistono dei cavi appositi con il sensore collegato proprio per chi ha questo problema, in alternativa installa macs fan controller e abbassa le velocità delle ventole così che vadano al massimo soltanto durante il login
Great job! Something to keep in mind for next time though: it's a good idea to also replace the dry and crusty thermal pads on the graphics card's memory chips. Memory failure due to overheating is a common problem on older machines, as dry thermal pads lose the ability to conduct heat.
I like these older fixable and upgrade-able Macs. I personally run a mid-2012 MacBook Pro for my daily driver; mine runs a Core i7 and 16 GB of ram that keeps it relevant even today. I’ve upgraded my HD to a SSD and upgraded that a few more times to a now Samsung 970; I also like still having a disk drive as in the business space a lot of older software is still only legacy CDs or DVDs and some just don’t like to be converted to ISOs for storage on a flash drive. I also like the blue ray upgrade which is a drop in for about $100 and works flawlessly to allow not only watching blue rays on the road, something less relevant with the prevalence of streaming but also allows blue ray burning and re-writing which can come in handy and is actually not too bad a way to long-term back-up data. I run a modern toughbook for most work stuff but this is a great go to as there are just some things that are easier or only done on a Mac; I just wish Apple didn’t keep killing “Pro” benefits to Mac, I miss the ability of doing things on the GUI, like the old disk utility, instead of having to go back to terminal to accomplish most anything advanced anymore. The whole point in GUIs was to get away from typing, though at least resources are better and I don’t have to keep getting “syntax error” prompts like on th old Apple IIs, which is where I started with Apples. To me they’ve really been going down hill as far as professional products since maybe 2016 around T2 and IOS 11, when they crippled iPhones and iPads by removing ARP Table access and the biking to utilize network diagnostic tools.
Really good video, seems a cut above the rest. One thing though - I've found that on those older iMacs, the HDD had a special temperature sensor that was missing when replacing it with an SSD. This causes the fans to go to Max speed all the time. I've fixed this in the past with software - a fan control utility of some sort that adjusts the speed according to the other temperatures. Or was there a temperature sensor on the HDD that you could just mount on the SSD?
Thanks for the video; it was indispensable when disassembling our 2010 iMac that needed an SSD upgrade; and the tip about re-applying thermal paste and replacing the NVRAM battery was well received (I likely would have overlooked it).
Beautiful upgrade video. The 2011 27" may be the last of the upgradeable iMacs, but it remains a long lived classic. Kept postponing the upgrade of a 2011 iMac 27". Last year finally got around to looking for parts. But like John Cunningham, found a used spec'd out (no SSD but new hard drive) 2011 with minor blemishes, for under $200. Sooo I sense not one but two hard drive upgrades in the future. Hoping two doesn't become three.
The 2011 27" is a nice machine, and it can be pretty cheap these days thanks to the crippling GPU failures they suffer from. I got mine for free from a customer who didn't need the machine back, and after reflowing the GPU twice it's now one of my primary computers.
Great job. It may be worth looking to replace those surface mount electrolytic capacitors before they start leaking and damaging the system board. Maybe use ceramic replacements. Recapping the power supply may also increase longevity.
It's always insane to me how, in the iMac, they don't have an external AC Power Plug... but instead have an internal power supply taking up needless space and adding extreme risk to anyone inside looking to upgrade. Like... Apple... Just have an external power supply in the AC Power Adapter - save your entire supply chain the trouble... Bonus points: If the supply is damaged by a power surge... you don't have to dismantle the whole system to get at it.
I have 2011 27 inch iMac and enjoyed using it for 12 years. last month its HDD failed so I cracked open the iMac and replaced it with SSD. Ever since new SSD upgrade, It's serving me well as Plex Server.
Always nice to see someone upgrade an iMac. What I did noticed is that you replace the hdd and use the standard cable. Since the original hdd have a build in temperature sensor, and the ssd have not, didn’t affect the fans speed?
Each drive that I use in my PC (both HDDs and SSDs) have a temperature sensor built in. If the iMac is using S.M.A.R.T. (which it probably is) it will pull the temperature from the new SSD and should work properly. Would like to hear from someone who uses a iMac with upgraded drive, but that's my guess.
@@Kornel1100 These iMacs don't use S.M.A.R.T. data for their drive temperature readings. I know for a fact that the 27" 2011 iMac requires the use of a replacement thermal sensor or fan control software when using non-stock drives, but I'm not sure why one wasn't installed in this video. The 21.5" iMacs I've worked on have also needed them.
To prevent a shock, you should wear a wristband connected to earth; wearing nothing you could damage the motherboard. I had it once, when I touched the power supply of the computer, and everything in the building was short-circuited.
That Is very dangerous advice, you shouldn't be grounded when handling power supplies, since when you're not grounded the current has nowhere to flow. Put on your wristband after removing the power supply
As a 2017 iMac owner, I don't recommend the 2019 upgrade. 1. The after market adhesive strips aren't as durable as Apple's. They will fail, and need to be re-applied every once in a while, which is very nerve wrecking. 2. Alignment issue and I haven't seen one talking about this. I attached my panel ever so slightly to the right. It isn't noticeable visually, but you can definitely feel it by putting your fingers on the side.
Bro, I have pretty much that same imac, mines a 21"..got mine from a school that was Throwing them away..It had an i3 in it as it was a special version made for schools..the usual versions had i5 and i7's...anyway, i wasnt sure if the board would work with an i7 and getting Any advice or confirmation from forums was futile.. so i did it anyway and it worked fine..used an i7 2600s ..dont try and use the straight 2600 at 3.4ghz becuz it will run too hot in that chassis...also bumped ram from 4gb to 16gb and an ssd of course.. i run highsierra and capitan dual boot on it and love it..such a cool and perfectly capable little machine even today.. well worth fixing up.
I got a 2010 21.5” iMac for free about a year ago. Core i3-540, 4GB RAM, and upgraded from a seemingly dead 500GB hard drive to a 240GB SSD. I used that thing to play Roblox since it was much better than even my other PCs at it likely due to its dedicated graphics. I’m gonna upgrade the RAM in it soon to 8GB. I’ve gotten a new PC that’s better than it at running games, so I’ve been using that. Ironically, the hard drive still works. I use it in a Dell Optiplex 3010 running Linux.
It feels like it was yesterday when I've had to do the same exact upgrades on one of these macs (except for the screen)... Wait! it WAS yesterday! :D LOL. Thanks for the great video ;)
Since you are talking about electrocuting yourself my biggest advice is to disconnect the power and then hold down the power button even though it isn't connected to remove voltage from those capacitors.
Hi Hugh, can you please do a Kindle Oasis 3rd gen battery replacement? I would like to see how it can be done, and I think you are the best person to ask advice from in this topic. Love your videos!
huh those antenna cables were mounted in the backwards order, ch2 had 0 stripes and ch0 had 2, also there was no need to remove the power supply to remove the whole logic board
I have a 2012 iMac edition I got given for free and was wondering if you could make a video on one of these if you ever get the chance on how to upgrade the Ram and anything else inside this computer that can be upgraded if you haven't already done an upgrade video on one of these. This is the version with the screen that's glued onto place. Great video btw.
Those 2011 iMacs live forever. Unfortunately Apple doesn’t allow upgrades to big sur and higher, so you miss out on upgrades from O365. Mine is a 12,1 with 250 gig ssd + 500 gig hdd and 16 gig ram. And win 10 😜
Careful about just putting a glob of thermal compound on a GPU. They don't have an IHS, so you can get hot cores if the pressure of the bracket doesn't spread the compound evenly.
Last iMac gen to be RAM upgrade friendly with bottom port. Probably the reason mine died maybe as in vid, mine got to where it didn't want to boot up. Used to just let it stay on and go to sleep mode. Stayed working fine doing that.
Running as soon as you said 2011, I knew it was a 21.5 inch. Pretty much every 27 inch right now is either DOA, or looking for a graphics card that you can’t get. Same with the 15 inch 2011 MacBook Pro.
i've opened quite a few newer style iMac's now and they're all pretty painless to open, just use a pizza cutter style opener and run it around the sides. easy as pizza!
@@stephensnell5707 Yes, everyone should exercise caution when opening devices and looking at tare downs/disassembly videos will tell you what and where to be careful of. I have destroyed my fair share of Surface screens :P
Mac? Upgraded? Apple's going to fire some internal design engineer over this one. Everything is supposed to be soldered to the mainboard, non-upgradable.
Awesome video if a iMac comes to my shop i will try to fix it. I had a mentor of sorts who fix computers so i got my aspirations from him. And fix laptops ever since.
My 2011 has been sitting since 2015 because it had a power surge and the hard drive was completely full and wouldn’t reboot. This gives me hope I can get it back running again!!
Hugh, There is no need to remove the power supply or the DVD drive. The logic board can be removed with these left in place
Oh
But its convenient and much less dangerous
Probably he is doing it to clean if theres any dirt or something....even i do so
Oh ok mr.perfect 😺😂
I don't disagree, it does appear that that is the case. But with how many things he does do right that the majority of technicians slip up on, makes me trust his methods.
However, I do agree that he probably didn't need to remove the PSU and DD to get at the LB.
It's weird that a lot of older computers run way faster now with solid state drives, it's amazing that it took this long to get solid state drives to where they need to be reliable and usable for long-term use. I sometimes wonder where do you go from that besides faster and longer lifespan. It's like for the longest time storage was the main bottleneck.
SSDs were reliable & usable for a long time. They just cost a lot more than what we were willing to pay. Now that the cost of flash memory has come down, and the price of SSDs has come down, mechanical drives will be displaced to data centre use only.
On computers 7+ years old i recommend installing Linux Mint on it. It’s more lightweight than Windows and everything should run faster.
It might be just me, but I don't fully trust an SSD as they are not going to last as long as a hard drive will. Don't take new technology for granted, I don't believe a 10 year old SSD is still going to work like a 10 year old HDD will. There are still hard drives from the 90s that work so I don’t expect having a 30 year old SSD from now still working due to how SSDs function and wear.
@@DuskHorizon some consumers might still need mechanical drives for long-term storage as well, not just data centers
@@10GTech you know that the lifespan of an SSD is derived from its TBW right?.... if it is a backup SSD lets say for pictures and video files and is not the main drive for the OS it should last almost indefinitely
It's so good to see that a 10-12 years old computer is totally usable after some small upgrades. Slowly, apple has killed upgradibility altogether. Imagine that the new M1 or M1x macbooks and imacs will end up in landfills in less than 5 years. So sad to see that Apple has 'inspired' the industry to go this route.
i agree, that 5 year thing is total BS, my 2013 macpro tower is still working!
@@mecca6801 the major reason for it working is because its repairabile and upgradable.
Apple has ensured that nee macbooks and imacs are so expensive to fix that it's better to buy a new one.
And they also commit that all the apple products are recycled and they just want to make it less fixable, recycle it and sell it wow what a nice strategy to make profit.
M1’s certainly won’t end up in landfills in 5 years
@@utkarshdharmadhikari6816 Sad reality.
Hi Hugh! I am very familiar with the 2011 iMacs, and I wanted to make you aware of an issue that all models are affected with from the factory. The Radeon GPUs (HD 5000M and 6000M series) are prone to failure, and are guaranteed to fail eventually. I am aware you stated you could upgrade the GPU (with another officially supported version), but every compatible Radeon card for this generation has the same issues, and it is rather costly to begin with. So, I would recommend modding the iMac by installing a newer Radeon or Nvidia card, which is possible through some vBIOS flashing and patience, plus it's much cheaper! I did it to my personal 2011 27" model using an Nvidia Quadro K2100M and some research (2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade on MacRumors), and it works great! Also, keep up the great work! Your videos are always entertaining to watch while I do some computer work of my own haha!
Edit: By the way, I forgot to mention that upon upgrading the GPU to something more modern, this enables you to install an unsupported OS (like MacOS Catalina) onto the 2011 model. This isn't possible with the Radeon 6000M card, mainly because it does not support GPU acceleration in newer OSes and is basically unusable.
The Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs used in the 2011 iMacs are known to fail, but the iMac in this video has the lower end Radeon HD 6750M, and it doesn't fail as often as the higher end cards used in the 27" iMac. Still important to know about, but it isn't as big of a problem with the 21.5" iMac as it is with the 27" iMac.
@@jamiechampion299 Thanks for the input! I am admittedly more familiar with the 27” model, but the computer store I worked at last year did have several 21.5” models come in with dead/failing GPUs. But yeah, I’ve seen many more 27” ones with bad GPUs. Regardless, it’s definitely a fun project to upgrade the GPU!
@@yardnuk The 27" 2011 iMac is notoriously terrible for GPU failures (along with hard drive failures), and while the 21.5" can suffer from it too it just doesn't happen as often as with the 27" from everything I've experienced as well as everything I've read online. It's good that they do use socketed GPUs though, because GPU upgrades are a good project, even if they aren't cheap.
I use a 2011 27" iMac as one of my primary computers, and right now it's still running on the original Radeon HD 6970M. That card has already failed twice, but after a reflow it's been working perfectly. It's been running nearly 24/7 for about a year and a half now with no signs of failure. I've decided that with this iMac I'm just going to wait and see how long it lasts until it does finally fail for good before upgrading the GPU.
@@jamiechampion299 I mean, as long as you can keep it alive, that’s awesome!
@@yardnuk So far so good! I don't treat it too kindly, that's for sure. The iMac runs three 1440p monitors (one internal, two external), and I often use it to stream my desktop PC (triple 1440p streams) through the network with Parsec. That's not a light load on the GPU at all, but it handles it alright.
11:45. For the 2019 iMac upgrade, I say go for it, it's actually not that bad, an apple watch is way more of a nightmare than an iMac. I did my Church's 2020 iMac with SSD, RAM and CPU Upgrade and it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I've only taken apart like 3 other iMac's so, while not extremely fun, not that painful the the upgrades are so worth it.
The newer iMacs really aren’t that hard to take apart. You can use the ‘pizza cutter’ type tool to cut the adhesive holding the screen on. I got mine off in less than 10 minutes with no problems at all.
Just as a friendly remeinder, this imac cost nothing to put back appart and doesn’t need special tools except for the screw driver. It can be opened with suction cups from the dollar store. This is what he meant by easy to open.
@@TheAntho199 I had a 2011 27” and I didn’t even need a suction cup to get the glass off. You can do it with your fingernails.
@@Fhwgads11 lol yes
sure but what if the screen is cracked?
Totally. But the latest generation have soldered RAM, SSDs and Processors. Apple claim its for optimisation across hardware but it also means if something dies its a new motherboard or a new computer...
“The viewer who wishes to remain anonymous” The box: “From Nathan Silveright”
He shipped it he didn't donate it
That's his friend who shipped it, not the original viewer.
That is Psiweveri. He is another UA-camr who fixes stuff in australia
@@yuvvrajkperson psivewri you mean?
Someone didn’t listen to the video lol
"The viewer who wished to remain anonymous..." while showing his name on the box 🙂
Edit - ah I see it's your mate Nathan's name on the box. My mistake!
Came here to post this too
I thought the same thing and now my comment is the most liked on here lol
BRO I THOUGHT THE SAME TOO
Friend: “Hey, is the iMac upgradable?”
Me: “Depends on how much you value your screen.” 🤷🏼♂️
lmao
linus tech tips is typing...
From my experience, yeah this is it, I almost died on my first try cuz it didn’t come back on, only a black screen.
@@naraydaniels7832 Holy crap that’s horrifying!
@@naraydaniels7832 mostly graphics failure
0:37 'The viewer who wished to remain anonymous' :)
Nathan, we support you.
Thought the same. 👍👍😂😂
nathan is his buddy who shipped it for him
That smooth "we're done" at the end of restoration is all I can ask for for a good night's sleep
I agree
Good to see this update. When (if) our 2009 21.5 inch iMac with original keyboard and optical mouse fails, I may look into updating it using this video as a guide. I wish current generation Apple stuff was so easy to dismantle.
Great to see this brought back to life! When I was a teacher, I had a few labs of these and it was always satisfying to remove all the dirt and grime from the year over the summer break since the case was so easy to clean 🤤
Putting on a podcast and cleaning 50 iMacs = a very nice day.
The love of technology coming out whenever companies release it will never get old. But what’s even more nostalgic feeling, is when you look back at tech from a great era of when it was emerging. Gives you that warm fuzzy feeling inside.
My dad gave me his old iMac, I swapped out the dying hard drive for a new ssd. It was a fun little day project. I love how repairable and upgradable they were. Though I did get a small shock because I wasn't as careful as I should be around the power supply.
Another awesome video. Thanks Hugh! It goes under the radar because your talent steals the spotlight, but your editing and video and audio quality and execution is just as good. Great work man!
Good job removing the cmos battery, your the only one to point that out!
YAY the iMac restoration videos are back!!! Keep up the great work Hugh! :)
Still have my iMac Mid 2011 (i5, 8G, 6770M), watching this video on it. Lovely.
Hi guys, welcome back to another Hugh Jeffreys video😁
Hugh guys welcome back to another hi jefferys video
Hi video another back welcome to Hugh Jeffreys guys
The real Hugh Jeffery
This was the first video of yours I’ve watched. Very nicely done. I’m a Mac addict myself as well as being a graphic designer and UA-cam creator and I love watching videos like these.
I love upgrading, repairing and cleaning old Macs as well. I just recently upgraded my best friend’s 21.5” 2015 iMac hdd to an ssd. I had already done mine a year earlier so doing His was a breeze!
Anyway, thanks for your videos and I’ll be watching. Take care.
I have a 2011 27” iMac. I’ve updated it to an SSD and 32 G of RAM, running High Sierra. It still is a fine computer.
Upgrading a 2011 iMac running High Sierra to 32 G of RAM is not optimal, the OS is so outdated so hardware to improve performance won't last you long as you start losing support for things such as security, and the lack of access to everyday programs, considering the fact of not updating. :]
@@riotix1196 - it’s just fine. My MacBook Air M1 is my daily driver.
@@riotix1196 no one cares about "security" ........ use Linux if you do
The unfortunate part is that this Mac will probably be largely unusable fairly soon (if not already) because of the lack of OS support from Apple. I imagine Safari barely works, if at all, and multiple programs and applications are simply failing now. The one upside is that you can indeed force upgrade this Mac to one of the most recent versions of the modern OS and it still runs great, you just have to bootstrap it with another piece of software. Alternatively, you can simply turn it into a Linux machine and have a very nice AIO linux computer that probably runs fantastically.
I have a 2019 4K iMac and I'm planning to upgrade it. I would love to see your vid doing the same thing!
the viewer who wanted to be anonymous......shows the name 😂 btw love your vids
Nathan shipped it from the anonymous guy to Hugh.
@@jingledfriskies5048 ohhh my bad
@@dott1x154 np bro
The last decent imac without glue in the screen and modular
I have a 2011 21.5" base model iMac like this one. I've upgraded the RAM to 12GB but I've been meaning to open it up to clean the inside, replace the thermal paste and upgrade the HDD to an SSD. This video certainly gave me some tips on opening it up, but it all seems quite complicated. Just have to wait and see. I'm glad iFixit exists though
Hugh, I find your videos utterly fascinating. Well done - and for crying out aloud, fix up your Dad's computer. The poor man probably paid for your education....
After being a keen watcher of Louis Rossmann, it's kinda weird to see an iMac that's so easy to service!
this is some real upgrade ability as much as possible for something like this i wish companies still did this
life hack with those old imacs, if you just bridge the pins for the temperature sensors it'll make the fans not run at full speed :)
I repaired one of these once and I also upgraded with an ssd, but then the fan ramp up at max speed because of the lack of the temp-sensor included inside the older hdd (and not sticked outside like the odd). Thankfully a couple of tools help me out, otherwise I should have modify a pin on the sata cable responsible for the sensoring
Posso chiederti come hai risolto? Ho lo stesso problema e non sono propriamente del mestiere...
@@g.c.9904 Ciao, c'erano delle guide su come disabilitare fisicamente il settimo pin del cavo sata (credo d'alimentazione) che era quello che si connetteva al sensore sull'hard disk. Altrimenti in modo più pratico esistono dei cavi appositi con il sensore collegato proprio per chi ha questo problema, in alternativa installa macs fan controller e abbassa le velocità delle ventole così che vadano al massimo soltanto durante il login
@@GaetanoEsse Spettacolo! Grazie mille, sei stato gentilissimo
@@g.c.9904 Ma figurati, è il minimo aiutarsi in ste situazioni 💪
Great job!
Something to keep in mind for next time though: it's a good idea to also replace the dry and crusty thermal pads on the graphics card's memory chips. Memory failure due to overheating is a common problem on older machines, as dry thermal pads lose the ability to conduct heat.
I like these older fixable and upgrade-able Macs. I personally run a mid-2012 MacBook Pro for my daily driver; mine runs a Core i7 and 16 GB of ram that keeps it relevant even today. I’ve upgraded my HD to a SSD and upgraded that a few more times to a now Samsung 970; I also like still having a disk drive as in the business space a lot of older software is still only legacy CDs or DVDs and some just don’t like to be converted to ISOs for storage on a flash drive. I also like the blue ray upgrade which is a drop in for about $100 and works flawlessly to allow not only watching blue rays on the road, something less relevant with the prevalence of streaming but also allows blue ray burning and re-writing which can come in handy and is actually not too bad a way to long-term back-up data. I run a modern toughbook for most work stuff but this is a great go to as there are just some things that are easier or only done on a Mac; I just wish Apple didn’t keep killing “Pro” benefits to Mac, I miss the ability of doing things on the GUI, like the old disk utility, instead of having to go back to terminal to accomplish most anything advanced anymore. The whole point in GUIs was to get away from typing, though at least resources are better and I don’t have to keep getting “syntax error” prompts like on th old Apple IIs, which is where I started with Apples. To me they’ve really been going down hill as far as professional products since maybe 2016 around T2 and IOS 11, when they crippled iPhones and iPads by removing ARP Table access and the biking to utilize network diagnostic tools.
Really good video, seems a cut above the rest.
One thing though - I've found that on those older iMacs, the HDD had a special temperature sensor that was missing when replacing it with an SSD. This causes the fans to go to Max speed all the time. I've fixed this in the past with software - a fan control utility of some sort that adjusts the speed according to the other temperatures. Or was there a temperature sensor on the HDD that you could just mount on the SSD?
Brave... fully reassembling without another quick test
living 12000 miles away from you and still feel like next door, like very much watching you work greetings from Germany ...
Thanks for the video; it was indispensable when disassembling our 2010 iMac that needed an SSD upgrade; and the tip about re-applying thermal paste and replacing the NVRAM battery was well received (I likely would have overlooked it).
Beautiful upgrade video. The 2011 27" may be the last of the upgradeable iMacs, but it remains a long lived classic.
Kept postponing the upgrade of a 2011 iMac 27". Last year finally got around to looking for parts. But like John Cunningham, found a used spec'd out (no SSD but new hard drive) 2011 with minor blemishes, for under $200. Sooo I sense not one but two hard drive upgrades in the future. Hoping two doesn't become three.
The 2011 27" is a nice machine, and it can be pretty cheap these days thanks to the crippling GPU failures they suffer from. I got mine for free from a customer who didn't need the machine back, and after reflowing the GPU twice it's now one of my primary computers.
Great job. It may be worth looking to replace those surface mount electrolytic capacitors before they start leaking and damaging the system board. Maybe use ceramic replacements. Recapping the power supply may also increase longevity.
i think my school has a few of these imacs in addition to the newer ones, the design has held up shockingly well for how old it is
It's always insane to me how, in the iMac, they don't have an external AC Power Plug... but instead have an internal power supply taking up needless space and adding extreme risk to anyone inside looking to upgrade.
Like... Apple... Just have an external power supply in the AC Power Adapter - save your entire supply chain the trouble... Bonus points: If the supply is damaged by a power surge... you don't have to dismantle the whole system to get at it.
please do the 2019 imac video it would be so entertaining because i love when my favorite tech youtubers to computer things every once in a while
I'm using the same iMac right now!
iMac 27-Inch, Mid-2011
Intel Core i5-2500S (2.7GHz, 4 cores)
16GB 1333MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon HD6770M 512MB
1TB HDD
The best part of this upload for me is free subscriber donation and friends helping friends making this possible and it does still look Cool
Nexus 7 Unboxing:
Then: DetroitBORG
Now: Psivewri
Dude is consistent. Get a notification that a new video has been uploaded every Saturday at 7PM. Well done 👍
I recommend replacing those thermal pad in one go. It's cheap and improve performance under load.
I would love to see someone completely spec out the 2019 I Mac!
Please do it dude
11:45 Please do the 2019 iMac upgrade! I'd love to watch it, since I do plan to do the same thing with mine.
Its always a good day when hugh uploads love his videos.
I have 2011 27 inch iMac and enjoyed using it for 12 years. last month its HDD failed so I cracked open the iMac and replaced it with SSD. Ever since new SSD upgrade, It's serving me well as Plex Server.
Always nice to see someone upgrade an iMac. What I did noticed is that you replace the hdd and use the standard cable. Since the original hdd have a build in temperature sensor, and the ssd have not, didn’t affect the fans speed?
SSDs have temperature sensors as well.
Each drive that I use in my PC (both HDDs and SSDs) have a temperature sensor built in. If the iMac is using S.M.A.R.T. (which it probably is) it will pull the temperature from the new SSD and should work properly. Would like to hear from someone who uses a iMac with upgraded drive, but that's my guess.
@@Kornel1100 These iMacs don't use S.M.A.R.T. data for their drive temperature readings. I know for a fact that the 27" 2011 iMac requires the use of a replacement thermal sensor or fan control software when using non-stock drives, but I'm not sure why one wasn't installed in this video. The 21.5" iMacs I've worked on have also needed them.
@@jamiechampion299 that’s what I thought
so kind of the guy who donated all the things
Apple should be ashamed of itself, by not making the newer ones repairable like this one. Damn.
Nice this 2011 iMac now.
Good work in upgrading this.
To prevent a shock, you should wear a wristband connected to earth; wearing nothing you could damage the motherboard.
I had it once, when I touched the power supply of the computer, and everything in the building was short-circuited.
That Is very dangerous advice, you shouldn't be grounded when handling power supplies, since when you're not grounded the current has nowhere to flow. Put on your wristband after removing the power supply
As a 2017 iMac owner, I don't recommend the 2019 upgrade.
1. The after market adhesive strips aren't as durable as Apple's. They will fail, and need to be re-applied every once in a while, which is very nerve wrecking.
2. Alignment issue and I haven't seen one talking about this. I attached my panel ever so slightly to the right. It isn't noticeable visually, but you can definitely feel it by putting your fingers on the side.
Just a little suggestion. Can you put all the price of the parts you bought and the total cost of the repairs when you do videos?
Hi Hugh, ive just been given one of these with the same fault. Great video and i will be following it as a guide as you are very thorough. cheers
Bro, I have pretty much that same imac, mines a 21"..got mine from a school that was Throwing them away..It had an i3 in it as it was a special version made for schools..the usual versions had i5 and i7's...anyway, i wasnt sure if the board would work with an i7 and getting Any advice or confirmation from forums was futile.. so i did it anyway and it worked fine..used an i7 2600s ..dont try and use the straight 2600 at 3.4ghz becuz it will run too hot in that chassis...also bumped ram from 4gb to 16gb and an ssd of course.. i run highsierra and capitan dual boot on it and love it..such a cool and perfectly capable little machine even today.. well worth fixing up.
These videos never disappoints!😃❤️
You mean dissapoint
Minor correction Hugh, the anonymous donor lives in SA, it was spotless when packaged & didn't include a Nexus tablet. 😉
Dats u?
@@FS--ew3se Shhhhhhh!! 😉
I got a 2010 21.5” iMac for free about a year ago.
Core i3-540, 4GB RAM, and upgraded from a seemingly dead 500GB hard drive to a 240GB SSD.
I used that thing to play Roblox since it was much better than even my other PCs at it likely due to its dedicated graphics.
I’m gonna upgrade the RAM in it soon to 8GB. I’ve gotten a new PC that’s better than it at running games, so I’ve been using that.
Ironically, the hard drive still works. I use it in a Dell Optiplex 3010 running Linux.
Its astonishing to see this man edit all his videos on a computer almost 10 years old!
It feels like it was yesterday when I've had to do the same exact upgrades on one of these macs (except for the screen)... Wait! it WAS yesterday! :D LOL. Thanks for the great video ;)
Since you are talking about electrocuting yourself my biggest advice is to disconnect the power and then hold down the power button even though it isn't connected to remove voltage from those capacitors.
Very handy I've still got the same update. I took it apart for fun after your video.
Well done with the restoration 🔥🔥
Hi Hugh, can you please do a Kindle Oasis 3rd gen battery replacement? I would like to see how it can be done, and I think you are the best person to ask advice from in this topic. Love your videos!
I Never Actually Knew That There Was A Infrared Reciever Behind The Apple Logo, Cool
this channel is literally an addiction to me, i love watching people fixing things
huh those antenna cables were mounted in the backwards order, ch2 had 0 stripes and ch0 had 2, also there was no need to remove the power supply to remove the whole logic board
My uncle gave me his imac that also had a gpu problem, i took it out, baked it and it was working once again
towards the end I was waiting for the "so there we have it" but he said "so this is it" 😆
I have a 2012 iMac edition I got given for free and was wondering if you could make a video on one of these if you ever get the chance on how to upgrade the Ram and anything else inside this computer that can be upgraded if you haven't already done an upgrade video on one of these. This is the version with the screen that's glued onto place. Great video btw.
Not everyday you get to see hugh repair an iMac
Nice retro all in one computer bring me good memories
Those 2011 iMacs live forever. Unfortunately Apple doesn’t allow upgrades to big sur and higher, so you miss out on upgrades from O365. Mine is a 12,1 with 250 gig ssd + 500 gig hdd and 16 gig ram. And win 10 😜
Careful about just putting a glob of thermal compound on a GPU. They don't have an IHS, so you can get hot cores if the pressure of the bracket doesn't spread the compound evenly.
Last iMac gen to be RAM upgrade friendly with bottom port. Probably the reason mine died maybe as in vid, mine got to where it didn't want to boot up. Used to just let it stay on and go to sleep mode. Stayed working fine doing that.
10:49 "...the fans even SPUN".
I'd love to see a video about the 2019 Mac you mentioned!
Running as soon as you said 2011, I knew it was a 21.5 inch. Pretty much every 27 inch right now is either DOA, or looking for a graphics card that you can’t get. Same with the 15 inch 2011 MacBook Pro.
I can watch your repair videos all day.
If thermal paste on GPU was in such bad condition you always should change thermal pads on RAM. One of them was really crusty. ;P
It's always a pleasure watching your videos
your videos helps me sleep. thanks
0:39 "Who wishes to be anonymous..." and there is a note on the package with his name.
Wait you've uploaded this at 00:00(in CET)
i've opened quite a few newer style iMac's now and they're all pretty painless to open, just use a pizza cutter style opener and run it around the sides. easy as pizza!
Do be careful with that as with modern Laptops it can pontentially cut right through the screen
@@stephensnell5707 Yes, everyone should exercise caution when opening devices and looking at tare downs/disassembly videos will tell you what and where to be careful of. I have destroyed my fair share of Surface screens :P
Yes please spec out a 2019 iMac!! That'd be so cool!
Nice professional steps, with explanations. Appreciate Quality UA-cam channels (too many Hacks, lacking Bench skills & Basic knowledge).
Mac?
Upgraded?
Apple's going to fire some internal design engineer over this one. Everything is supposed to be soldered to the mainboard, non-upgradable.
Awesome video if a iMac comes to my shop i will try to fix it. I had a mentor of sorts who fix computers so i got my aspirations from him. And fix laptops ever since.
0:36 - wanted to remain anonymous - WELP, that is out the window. You even said that while showing his name on the front of the box!!
My 2011 has been sitting since 2015 because it had a power surge and the hard drive was completely full and wouldn’t reboot.
This gives me hope I can get it back running again!!
You data would have more than likely have been non recoverable
@@stephensnell5707 was able to pull the data off it! Seems the HD was too full to perform a reboot when it had the surge?
That Nexus 7 tablet box takes me back...
When I clicked on the video and watched "Wait... I can't upgrade my mac!?!??!!?"
This is going to be mega helpful when I take this project up!
As far as I remember, lower power ‘s’ series cpus are only mandatory for 21.5”
So much for keeping your friend Nathan anonymous you showed his full name on the box! lmaoo