2011 Apple Imac 27" Screen suddenly died??

TBirdUK · 11 Jun 2021 at 21:19

Hi All

I am not very experienced with IMacs but I was using mine the other day and the screen suddenly turned off (went black) - I rebooted and could hear everything working fine - the boot sound and I assume it gets to the login, but the screen is black.

Its a 27" Imac, has green lights inside that I can see (2 of them), and that's it.

Anyone had any experience with fixing this issue?

thanks

Feek · 11 Jun 2021 at 21:21

The graphics card in that vintage iMac has a reputation for being a bit flakey. Can you try plugging a second monitor into it to see if it sparks up?

TBirdUK · 11 Jun 2021 at 21:23

ok, how do I plug a 2nd monitor, I dont seem to have the right cable (I'm mainly a PC man)?

Sorry, forgot to say thanks!

Craig_d1 · 11 Jun 2021 at 23:08

You need to plug 2nd monitor into lightning/thunderbolt port on the back...you might need to get an adaptor...lightning to dvi etc....depending on monitor connection...there are some vids on YouTube if you search, though the one I watched, you then have to go to system preferences to set up 2nd screen.

Nowt wrong with my screen....hard drive failed just after 7 years...apple refuse to replace as don't want to give a warranty on it but offered to sell me a new iMac for £2k+ instead, even though they had the part I needed...

Feek · 12 Jun 2021 at 00:08

Also worth trying SMC and PRAM resets.

TBirdUK · 12 Jun 2021 at 00:12

had a google, not sure if my wireless keyboard is connecting, is there a way to do the reset with a wired PC keyboard (does another key work as the command and option keys?

Craig_d1 · 12 Jun 2021 at 08:43

i used a wired keyboard on mine as wanted the numbers key on right side..just plugged it in and it worked straight away. It was a wired apple keyboard someone at work gave me, but worked same as wireless

found below online
Macs work just fine with non-Apple keyboards. Alt becomes option, and the Windows key becomes the command key. And if you want to rearrange them, you can easily do so in the System Preferences:

Donnie Fisher · 12 Jun 2021 at 11:18

As Feek says, if you read up on the 27" iMac from that era, the AMD card has a reputation of flaking out. It was something I experienced in person as well ... which is a shame, cause I loved my machine. The upshot is its not something that can be fixed without significant effort. IIRC, the root cause is the chip loosing its connections to the board ( or internally ). Something which worked for me for short spell was to rip out the GPU and shove it in the oven to soften and re-flow the solder a little. The GPU is a seperate little card ( MXM format i think ), so can be removed from the rest of the machine. For me it fixed my issues for a while ... but the problem returned and eventually the card died completely.

The initial thought is then "just get another card". Problem is, that the problem with the card seems to be widespread and its failure an inevitability, rather than possibility. So working ones are getting rarer and rarer.

The next thought then is "fit another, newer card, its an industry standard format". Trouble with that is that the AMD card was generally the top line card at the time for a model at the end of its life, and after that they moved to a different design (and also moved to nVidia cards ). Due to Apple locking down hardware, they didn't release an nVidia card which h,ad a compatible bios. There was some diy work done to fudge an nVidia card to work ( macrumors forum ), but it seems a ton of work for whats an old machine these days.

TBirdUK · 13 Jun 2021 at 14:55

thanks all for the info, if I cant find an adapter and try another monitor to check if its the screen of the card, then I'll give up. I did notice at the time there was strong sun on the back of the machine (home office and had left curtains open as the sun moved round)when it stopped, so suspect the GPU overheated.....