Is the iMac borked?

[mark66]

Hi,

Our 2009 24" iMac has taken a turn for the worse. The screen is showing constant graphical corruption and it won't start up properly, displaying a message "Your computer restarted because of a problem. Press a key or wait a few seconds to continue starting up.", it then restarts and goes into a loop.

I'm pretty sure the graphical corruption came first and it was only after attempting a few power downs and restarts that it developed the error message and went into the loop.

Any suggestions of things to try? Thinking the logic board could be borked?

 

[GeX]

is it a base model or does it have an ATI or NVIDIA graphics upgrade? If it does.. https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+24-Inch+EMC+2267+Graphics+Card+Replacement/13765

 

[mark66]

Hi,

Thanks for the link - very useful.

The card is a Nvidia 7800GS and it seems like GPU failure is quite common in these iMacs of all card types. In fact it seems I am very lucky for it to have made 9 years! Going to give the oven bake method a go (20 minutes @ 200'c), nothing to loose and it will be immensely satisfying if it fixes it!

 

[Combat squirrel]

Hi,

Thanks for the link - very useful.

The card is a Nvidia 7800GS and it seems like GPU failure is quite common in these iMacs of all card types. In fact it seems I am very lucky for it to have made 9 years! Going to give the oven bake method a go (20 minutes @ 200'c), nothing to loose and it will be immensely satisfying if it fixes it!

It's likely to temp fix it - but it will not be a perminant fix - a few weeks if that I am afraid.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

House insurance? Or buy a board from eBay. They are a doddle to fix. I’ve repaired quite a few with board swap outs. Be careful if you remove the screen though they are fragile and about £300 to buy!

Or give Apple a go take it in for repair and get a quote.

 

[Madgeordie2004]

Apple or the AASP wont be able to fix due to its age, it'll be classed as obsolete. Another good site for parts in thebookyard.com.

Best of luck.

 

[zooankski]

It's likely to temp fix it - but it will not be a perminant fix - a few weeks if that I am afraid.

I baked the graphics card in my old iMac 4 times!.Generally speaking it would work for a few months though. On the 4th go i decided that this was the last time and i would swap the card out so with nothing to lose i gave it an extra 10 minutes . It came out of the oven a nice shade of brown but never failed again as long as i owned it (18 months)

 

[mistersprinkles]

Hi,

Thanks for the link - very useful.

The card is a Nvidia 7800GS and it seems like GPU failure is quite common in these iMacs of all card types. In fact it seems I am very lucky for it to have made 9 years! Going to give the oven bake method a go (20 minutes @ 200'c), nothing to loose and it will be immensely satisfying if it fixes it!

Sadly the 7000 series Nvidia chips had a high failure rate. You were lucky to get nearly a decade out of it, especially in a toasty environment like an imac.
I don't think it'll be worth bothering with a repair unless you wan to take the DIY route and even then I'm not sure if the graphics module is discrete or part of the logic board. I'd imagine it'd all be BGA to save money in production.

You can pick up imacs a few years newer than the one you have on the cheap, or spring for one of the 2017 models which are very nice. I'm using one right now

RIP imac.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

It came out of the oven a nice shade of brown but never failed again as long as i owned it (18 months)

Was it wrapped in aluminium foil (curious about the brown colour)?

 

[zooankski]

Was it wrapped in aluminium foil (curious about the brown colour)?

Nope, i used 4 old motherboard standoff's to support it on a baking tray. I just gave it a few too many minutes

 

[Deleted member 138126]

I suspect wrapping in foil is what helps avoid the browning.

 

[zooankski]

It wasn't brown until the final time and the extra long bake. I did not want anything touching the components either so no chance of anything moving as the solder re-flowed.