Mid 2010 iMac OS Upgrade?

[Crunchy Dragon]

I've recently acquired a 27-inch Mid 2010 iMac(EMC 2390), and was wondering if there's any way I can push it past OSX 10.7, and what the most recent version of OSX I can install is. The internet hasn't been particularly helpful, so I thought I'd ask here.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Viper9]

4 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I've recently acquired a 27-inch Mid 2010 iMac(EMC 2390), and was wondering if there's any way I can push it past OSX 10.7, and what the most recent version of OSX I can install is. The internet hasn't been particularly helpful, so I thought I'd ask here.

 

Thanks in advance!

Yes, you should be able to install up to High Sierra (10.13).

[Morgan MLGman]

Can you share the specs? Usually, it's not that hard to install an unsupported OSX version on an older device, however some problems may arise due to specific hardware configurations.

I've had that issue on a 15" 2011 MacBook Pro that I got for free, I tried getting the newest OSX Catalina when the last supported one was High Sierra. While normally it's not a big issue, in my case it was because my particular MBP has a dedicated Radeon HD 6750M which doesn't work on newer versions due to lack of drivers.

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, Morgan MLGman said:

Can you share the specs? Usually, it's not that hard to install an unsupported OSX version on an older device, however some problems may arise due to specific hardware configurations.

I've had that issue on a 15" 2011 MacBook Pro that I got for free, I tried getting the newest OSX Catalina when the last supported one was High Sierra. While normally it's not a big issue, in my case it was because my particular MBP has a dedicated Radeon HD 6750M which doesn't work on newer versions due to lack of drivers.

3.2Ghz Core i3, 4GB(2x2GB) DDR3-1333, Radeon HD 5670, 1TB HDD.

[Morgan MLGman]

6 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Radeon HD 5670

This might cause a problem to get anything above High Sierra.

Here's what you can do officially: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208969
Seems like your Mac is supported, however there are some apps already that don't work on anything else but Mojave or Catalina (which are subsequent releases after the High Sierra that you can officially upgrade to).

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, Morgan MLGman said:

This might cause a problem to get anything above High Sierra.

Here's what you can do officially: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208969
Seems like your Mac is supported, however there are some apps already that don't work on anything else but Mojave or Catalina (which are subsequent releases after the High Sierra that you can officially upgrade to.

I've now found this useful guide, which seems to state the same:

https://eshop.macsales.com/guides/Mac_OS_X_Compatibility

 

That's good to know. I'll probably pick up some more RAM for it in the coming months, 4GB is quite painful when the only browser that works properly is Chrome. Perhaps I'll even look at replacing the CPU...

 

Thanks!

[Morgan MLGman]

7 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I've now found this useful guide, which seems to state the same:

https://eshop.macsales.com/guides/Mac_OS_X_Compatibility

 

That's good to know. I'll probably pick up some more RAM for it in the coming months, 4GB is quite painful when the only browser that works properly is Chrome. Perhaps I'll even look at replacing the CPU...

 

Thanks!

Safari should work fine after the upgrade, it does on my Early 2011 MBP 15" I got a free, working one with the HD6750M, 8GB RAM, 240GB Crucial SSD and i7-2760QM and it's still quite snappy I gotta say. Can fluidly play Diablo 3 and League of Legends as well because of the fairly low resolution (1440x900)

If you decide to upgrade the OS even further than High Sierra someday, you may need to do some kind of a workaround to disable the Radeon dGPU

[Hashiba]

Hi @Crunchy Dragon, dosdude's patch website explains the limitations of the radeon card on that particular model:

 

"Known issues:
• AMD Radeon HD 5xxx/6xxx series GPU acceleration: Currently, it is not possible to get full graphics acceleration when running Mojave on a system with a Radeon HD 5xxx or 6xxx series GPU. Mojave will be almost UNUSABLE without graphics acceleration. This includes the 15" and 17" MacBook Pro systems (MacBookPro8,2 and 8,3). If you want to enable GPU acceleration on these machines, you'll need to disable the AMD GPU (This will work on MacBook Pro 8,2 and 8,3 systems ONLY. You CANNOT disable the AMD GPU in an iMac.) Weird colors will also be produced when running Mojave with one of these video cards installed/enabled"

 

source: http://dosdude1.com/mojave/#known_issues

 

and in case you are curious about the latest Catalina Patch  http://dosdude1.com/catalina/

 

Enjoy your new computer! #HighSierraFTW