iMac upgrade worth it?

[bgibbz]

Hello,

 

So I have a 2009 iMac with a dead HD, 4gb of ddr3-1066 ram, a 3.33 ghz core 2 duo, a Radeon 4670 gpu with 256mb gddr3, all on a 21.5" 1080p IPS display. Spending 100$, I can upgrade the ram from 4gb to 8gb and replace the hard drive with the same 1tb WD caviar black that was factory installed. I have no use for this Mac so I was planning on selling it after upgrading it, is it worth it to do those upgrades? I don't think it will sell of it has a dead hard drive, and the ram upgrade was just because I don't think el'capitan will run very well on 4gb, but I could probably install mountain lion or something on it. Anyways, is there even a buying market for a Mac this old? Thanks in advance!

[21rkosta]

El capitan will not run on a mac older than 2o12 and there is a very small buying market, id reccomend trashing it/giving it to a company like goodwill or freegeek

 

[bgibbz]

3 minutes ago, 21rkosta said:

El capitan will not run on a mac older than 2o12 and there is a very small buying market, id reccomend trashing it/giving it to a company like goodwill or freegeek

 

Good to know, thanks! I'l probably end up dropping at free geek, there one not to far from me. 

[Zodiark1593]

1 minute ago, bgibbz said:

Good to know, thanks! I'l probably end up dropping at free geek, there one not to far from me. 

El Capitan Will run on your system.

 

I strongly recommend dropping in an SSD to make the best use of your system though. After that, you should have a pretty zippy machine there.

[21rkosta]

@zodiark1593 well there might be some way to make it possible but considering mac El Captian is not supported on any macs pre 2012 it would run pretty shit (and also he seems to have no need for it as you can see he allready has a primary pc that is niiiiice)

[Zodiark1593]

20 minutes ago, 21rkosta said:

@zodiark1593 well there might be some way to make it possible but considering mac El Captian is not supported on any macs pre 2012 it would run pretty shit (and also he seems to have no need for it as you can see he allready has a primary pc that is niiiiice)

For basic use, a 3.33 GHz Core 2 Duo is nothing to sneeze at. And El Capitan is officially supported on iMacs as far back as 2007.

 

https://support.apple.com/kb/SP728?locale=en_US

[TheBestUserName]

4 hours ago, bgibbz said:

Good to know, thanks! I'l probably end up dropping at free geek, there one not to far from me. 

As some have already stated, that other guy is wrong. El Capitan will run on your computer. 4GB would be fine, but its overhead is comparable to Windows 10.  Meaning, they're roughly the same performance on the same hardware. 

 

Unless you seriously have no use for it, the repairs you cited would make it worth keeping as a general-purpose machine.. other than video games obviously. 

 

You'd probably get $300-350 if you sold it with the 1TB drive and 8GB ram.  Having El Cap won't make a difference. OS X is free. 

 

Edit //  I just remembered the 2009 models have a temperature sensor cable on the HDD. There are ways of dealing with it, but a straight swap with your average drive from Newegg would result in one of the three cooling fans running nonstop.  Fan speed software controllers is the cheapest way to handle it. 

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2308+Hard+Drive+Replacement/1766 Step 10. I've repaired many of those models. It's not difficult. The suction cups aren't necessary. You could use your fingernails on the edges. You'd just want to pull on the corners to keep it from flexing. 

[Kimmers]

If El Cap runs on your iMac, then I say go for the repair. If you get an SSD like someone recommended then that iMac will zip through every day tasks.

[bgibbz]

6 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

El Capitan Will run on your system.

 

I strongly recommend dropping in an SSD to make the best use of your system though. After that, you should have a pretty zippy machine there.

I probably would do that, but I have a more powerful daily driver, and I have never been hugely into macs, so I'm probably going to just get rid of it. 

[bgibbz]

2 hours ago, TheBestUserName said:

 

 

Edit //  I just remembered the 2009 models have a temperature sensor cable on the HDD. There are ways of dealing with it, but a straight swap with your average drive from Newegg would result in one of the three cooling fans running nonstop.  Fan speed software controllers is the cheapest way to handle it. 

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2308+Hard+Drive+Replacement/1766 Step 10. I've repaired many of those models. It's not difficult. The suction cups aren't necessary. You could use your fingernails on the edges. You'd just want to pull on the corners to keep it from flexing. 

Yeah I have taken apart the iMac before. I am aware of the sensor, that's why I was planning on replacing the drive with the identical model number. Good suggestion on the fan speed software to deal with this issue though, I definatly hadn't thought of that. If I do decide to keep it and put a ssd in it, that should be a good way of dealing with the fan. 

[21rkosta]

Oh wow, well i guess everybodys wrong sometimes lol