Is a 27' IMAC in mid-2011 worth it in 2022?

[ferggue]

Hello friends!

This is my first post, sorry if it's not in the right place.
I have a query, a friend of mine offers me his old IMAC, model 2011 mid 27' for $35 usd, it's not much money really. The computer itself turns on but freezes, surely the hard drive is broken and it has to be replaced with a new one, an SSD, which would imply another investment of $30 usd (480gb) + the work, which I can do myself since I have very well with hardware issues.

My question is if it is worth the work and investment anyway, for what? Does anyone have experience using an old IMAC and what is it for?

I'm attracted to the big 27' screen and the fact that it's a Mac (I never had one, always a Windows PC) but certainly if the computer doesn't work for me, I don't know, it would just gather dust. It attracts me to do it simply as a project.

I work with the Adobe package and I also do analog to digital video digitization. I don't think it's there for editing, but maybe it will help me to digitize (it has a firewire 800 input, which is useful to me, although a single one isn't that good either, at least 2 inputs would be better)

Here the specifications iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) - Technical Specifications

I hear opinions about it!

Thank you very much!

Fernando

 

[ferrarr]

For $35 USD, I consider it worth it.

You wouldn't need to install a new drive immediately. You can use an external Firewire drive (or USB) and install the OS onto that to boot it up. If the optical drive works you can get Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) and install the OS from there. Or if you have access to another Mac, from that era, you can download a different version of Mac OS X here.

FYI: The maximum ram for that year iMac is 32GB.
Firewire devices can be daisy chained.

And here's a website with repair guides for most Macs,

Fixing the world, one gizmo at a time. | iFixit News

It will allow you to see the steps needed to replace the drive in the 2011 imc.

 

[pigoo3]

Easy answer. Check eBay and see how much 2011 27" iMac's are selling for. Trust me...it's more than the $35 purchase price & cost of a replacement hard drive or SSD. Definitely worth it if the freezing issue is hard drive/SSD related.

But to be honest...a bad HD or SSD usually doesn't cause freezing...usually you just get the flashing folder icon with a ? on it if the HD or SSD is bad.

More info on when the freezing happens would be helpful.

Worst case scenario. Could sell it for parts.

Nick

 

[Raz0rEdge]

My bet is that you have a potential logicboard issue, and if you have to replace that, then it's totally not worth it. And agreed, a HDD failure wouldn't cause freezing, it just wouldn't boot.

 

[Howard Brazee]

Another thing to note, your 2011 Mac can be used as a monitor: How To Use an iMac as a Monitor for a PC.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Another thing to note, your 2011 Mac can be used as a monitor: How To Use an iMac as a Monitor for a PC.

A separate monitor is best. Why waste the energy of operating an iMac and then putting it into target display mode to use as a separate monitor. I did this with my 2009 iMac and it's a pain.

This is only useful in a pinch, so much so that Apple got rid of it with the newer iMac models.

 

[Howard Brazee]

A separate monitor is best. Why waste the energy of operating an iMac and then putting it into target display mode to use as a separate monitor. I did this with my 2009 iMac and it's a pain.

This is only useful in a pinch, so much so that Apple got rid of it with the newer iMac models.

A lot of expensive things are best. But sometimes cheap is necessary.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

This is a 27" 2K monitor for less than $200.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VRX8WL9/?tag=macforums0e4-20

Also, the OP is looking to purchase the iMac as the ONLY Mac, which negates its use as an external monitor since it won't work with PCs anyway.

 

[ferggue]

For $35 USD, I consider it worth it.

You wouldn't need to install a new drive immediately. You can use an external Firewire drive (or USB) and install the OS onto that to boot it up. If the optical drive works you can get Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) and install the OS from there. Or if you have access to another Mac, from that era, you can download a different version of Mac OS X here.

FYI: The maximum ram for that year iMac is 32GB.
Firewire devices can be daisy chained.

And here's a website with repair guides for most Macs,

Fixing the world, one gizmo at a time. | iFixit News

It will allow you to see the steps needed to replace the drive in the 2011 imc.

What do you mean you can daisy chain Firewire? How could I simultaneously stream from two mini-dv cameras via the firewire port? I do this on my Windows PC with a 4 port FireWire PCI card.

Easy answer. Check eBay and see how much 2011 27" iMac's are selling for. Trust me...it's more than the $35 purchase price & cost of a replacement hard drive or SSD. Definitely worth it if the freezing issue is hard drive/SSD related.

But to be honest...a bad HD or SSD usually doesn't cause freezing...usually you just get the flashing folder icon with a ? on it if the HD or SSD is bad.

More info on when the freezing happens would be helpful.

Worst case scenario. Could sell it for parts.

Nick

My friend told me that when he turns it on it doesn't load the operating system, just a gray screen.
Then it goes into safe mode to install a new operating system from the flash drive but freezes when the installation is done. That's why he presumes it's the hard drive.

Another thing to note, your 2011 Mac can be used as a monitor: How To Use an iMac as a Monitor for a PC.

This interests me

 

[ferrarr]

What I meant was that if a device (external drive) has 2 firewire ports, then you could plug that device into the iMac port, and also plug a separate device into the 2nd firewire port on the external drive, thus making a daisy chain.

With only one port on each device, then you can't daisy chain those devices.

 

[techiesteve]

Bear in mind the most common failure on the 2011 27" iMac is the video card. When failing the most common faults are wide coloured vertical bars, but can also be black screens, grey screens, continually rebooting or freezing when attempting to load a macOS.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I'm with Steve and the others here. The freezing issue is certainly a sign of a hardware issue, not the HDD. Kudos for being interesting in dipping your toes into the Mac world, but you'd just be throwing away money on this particular iMac and it ultimately would just sour you on it all.

 

[pigoo3]

Remember...it's only $35 bucks.!

Honestly it's a fun low-cost project. If it can be made operable again...cool. If not...sell it for more than $35 on eBay!.

Very easy to spend more than $35 on dinner for two. And 24 hours later that $35 is down the toilet (literally).

Nick

 

[ferggue]

Thanks to everyone for your replies. I already have the Imac with me, I will comment on my progress or questions.

Is it possible to install the operating system on a pendrive? to check the correct operation of the logic card and the video card. By default, the problem would be the HDD.

 

[pigoo3]

Is it possible to install the operating system on a pendrive? to check the correct operation of the logic card and the video card.

Yes. Lots of procedures out there on how to do it. Sometimes exact procedure depends on the macOS version you wish to work with.

Nick

 

[ferggue]

any hint?
It turns on, it makes a welcome sound, the apple appears and then it goes blank. I hear the hard drive make some noise.

Video example

 

[pigoo3]

any hint?
It turns on, it makes a welcome sound, the apple appears and then it goes blank. I hear the hard drive make some noise.

At this point what are you trying to do?

Nick

 

[ferrarr]

Start here, you should be able to get to Internet Recovery, and from there install a version of macOS that your iMac supports, onto any USB drive that is big (GB) enough to support it, not limited to pen/USB/thumb drives.

Use macOS Recovery on an Intel-based Mac

If you are given the option, I recommend you start with El Capitan or High Sierra if the iMac supports it.

 

[ferggue]

Start here, you should be able to get to Internet Recovery, and from there install a version of macOS that your iMac supports, onto any USB drive that is big (GB) enough to support it, not limited to pen/USB/thumb drives.

Use macOS Recovery on an Intel-based Mac

If you are given the option, I recommend you start with El Capitan or High Sierra if the iMac supports it.

I am trying to recover the operating system but I am not successful. It is connected to the internet cable.

If I turn on the imac and do nothing, it just shows the apple logo with a spinning loading circle and then a blank screen.

Combinations of internet recovery options work for me, where the spinning globe appears on the screen but after loading it does nothing, the screen goes blank.

The option that works for me is to hold alt, but only a hard drive called "recovery" comes up, I click on it and then nothing happens, again blank screen.

Sometimes I can enter the options window with command + R, I tried to enter time machine and it did not load anything, the option to reinstall the Lion Operating System did not work either, the internet help did not work either, and if I was able to enter the partition options but didn't know what to do there.

 

[ferggue]

UPDATE:

Finally after trying several times I was able to enter the option to install the O.S. Lion.
I select the disk to install but it asks me for an Apple ID. I created an account since I didn't have one, but for some reason it doesn't recognize it, it tells me that my username or password are incorrect but I'm sure they are correct.

Every time I try to log in I get an SMS with a code but I have nowhere to enter it. I tried to enter the code as password but it doesn't work.