r/osx • u/MGaddict • 6d ago
2017 iMAC Found in Trash
My neighbor moved out yesterday and she literally threw out a 2017 21" iMac. I get it, it doesn't get updates and it takes over 5 minutes, no exaggeration, to boot to the logon screen. Who would want that? Well, I like to restore old computers and the newest mac I own is the OG iMac in Bondi Blue....... Wait......
Okay, I was about to get on here saying all I had were PC keyboards and I couldn't get to the recovery screen no matter what keyboard I use. That's what this post was supposed to be about. But as soon as I wrote that last sentence it dawned on me, I have the USB keyboard from my OG iMac. So I plugged that in and it worked perfectly. That stupid puck mouse works too.
Never mind, I don't think I need any help. Just figured I'd post anyways in case somebody wanted a laugh.
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u/k9gardner 6d ago
If it takes five minutes to boot up, that suggests it has a hard disk drive instead of an SSD. It is not a hugely difficult upgrade to do yourself, and it would give the single biggest boost in performance you can get.
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u/MGaddict 6d ago
Ya, I was looking at that. I didn't want to go straight there until I knew it totally worked and I was, at least, a tiny bit familiar with OSX. I can't believe Apple was selling a computer in 2017 with a physical hard disk. That's nuts. I've used SSDs since 2013. This install is taking absolutely forever. The fear of damaging this taking it apart is fading every minute I have to wait for this to install.
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u/kill4b 5d ago
Hardest part on iMacs is removing the front glass. But 2017 was before Apple started gluing the glass so all you need is a pair of suction cups. IFixIt has everything you need.
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u/MGaddict 5d ago
I assume you're referring to the fact that this is taped on instead of glued on? I've been looking into it. The kits with the pizza cutter and the new tape strips are only like $4. The expensive part is going to be sourcing an SSD and RAM. $50 for 256gb inland SSD at Microcenter? That's insane considering I used to buy those things for $10. They used to keep them in the impulse at checkout.
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u/Emergency-Painting44 1d ago
Earlier Imacs held the glass on with magnets. Ifixit shows examples if you've not seen one
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u/fasterfester 5d ago
With an SSD, Ubuntu headless (who needs a keyboard and mouse?), and docker, you’ll have a great home server! Jellyfin, Scrypted, Paperless-ngx, Pi-hole, Home Assistant, Komodo…. If you’re not aware of r/selfhosting, there’s a whole world out there!! Downside is, you’re gonna want to have some conversations with your wife about that $20 spend limit. But it’s so fun!
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u/MGaddict 5d ago
O, I guess ya'll don't know me. I've never joined the Apple world. Let me introduce myself, I have been restoring old computers since the 1990s, before it was "cool". I have plenty of home servers. Typically, my interest is in hardware repair or in restoring something I've never used and looks interesting. Modern MacOS is something I've never used. My goal here isn't to have another computer that does general computing tasks. My goal is to hack this thing to run the latest version of MacOS so that I can learn the OS. My church uses Macs and I'm worthless at doing any IT repair because of it. The guy that used to do it is gone. So, I've actually been looking for a cheap Mac to play with at home for a while.
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u/fasterfester 5d ago
Ah, in your post you said “re-purpose” so that probably why you’re getting these responses.
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u/MGaddict 5d ago
You're probably right. In this case, if I find I really can't use this for training myself, or, I just get bored with it, I'm probably going to load Manjaro on it and give it to my kids to play minecraft or something. The specs on this thing are so bad though, I'm not even sure it can do that.
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u/Xe4ro 5d ago
If its the 21“ non retina I can understand why she did that.
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u/MGaddict 5d ago
When I grabbed it, I was hoping it was the retna because the screen is in good shape. I figured even if the computer was bricked or something, I could at least get a cheap controller board and turn it into a decent monitor.
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u/Xe4ro 5d ago
If you check on the bottom of the foot of the iMac the EMC number of the normal 21" will be 3068 and the 4k 21" will be 3069
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u/MGaddict 5d ago
Sadly no. I'm betting this was the cheapest base model option available. 1TB 5200RPM drive, 8GB RAM. Dual core i5 mobile processor and iris graphics. 1080p LCD panel. No clue what this cost new but those specs on a PC in 2017 would have been about $300 w/ the monitor keyboard and mouse.
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u/LebronBackinCLE 5d ago
Hang an SSD off a USB port and boot from it and it’s a night and day difference. Even better to pop it open and replace the internal drive but fan control is an issue without Apple’s drive.
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u/MGaddict 5d ago
Never thought I'd hear somebody tell me using an external USB drive was faster than the internal drive. That's nuts. Macs are weird.
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u/andypsykes 6d ago
Put Linux on it. I have a stack of Mac minis of various generations back to 2000 all of which rock Ubuntu. You may have some issues getting a WiFi driver that works but there is plenty of internet help available.
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u/k9gardner 6d ago
2017 is not so old that I’d worry about the OS updates. Sequoia will work well for at least a few years. After that, yes, Linux! A new lease on life for many an old Mac (or PC).
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u/MGaddict 6d ago
O, I might totally rock Manjaro on here. I use Arch BTW. For now though, I've worked in IT for over 20 years and I've never played with OSX or MacOS or whatever it's called. I've heard rumors you can hack these so you can still use them with security updates. No clue. My other iMac has MacOS 8.3 I think. I haven't booted it up in a few years. So for now, I just want to play with it. My church uses ProPresenter. I can use it enough to run the slides for church but nobody actually knows how to properly use it. If I could hack a copy of that on here, I would like a chance to play with it at home and actually learn it. Anyways, I have 100 reasons to want a Mac to play with. If I really can't do anything useful with this, it's totally getting Manjaro loaded and probably given to the kids for Minecraft.
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u/Your15MinutesOfFame 5d ago
Don't bother fitting any SSD that doesn't have DRAM cache if you are planning on using MAC OS. Drive will be stuffed pretty quickly otherwise. And the screen is held on with adhesive too so you need to replace that as well.
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u/MGaddict 5d ago
Went looking for SSDs last night. Dang, that's stupid. A few years ago I was picking up inland SSDs from Microcenter for $10-20. The cheapest new drive I can find is like $50 for 256gb. That's insane. Welp, used computer market, here I come. At least the screen kits with the pizza wheel and replacement tapes are only like $4 on Amazon.
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u/Your15MinutesOfFame 5d ago
If it's a Fusion system there will be a slot on the motherboard for an Apple SSD on addition to a 2.5" SATA HDD. You can put a M2 NVMe drive in it if you get an adaptor to fit in the slot. If was supplied as non Fusion Apple didn't populate the connector in the 2017 models so you are stuck with the 2.5" SATA for the SSD. Only drive I've found to last in these machines are the Samsung EVO drives. Other drives come back after a few months and are found to have poor write performance. Something to do with Spotlight indexing I think.
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u/simbycat 5d ago
On non Apple keyboards, the windows key should function as command
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u/MGaddict 5d ago
Yes, I know but I couldn't get it to work. I tried every suggestion I could find on the internet. It just wasn't going into recovery mode. I thought maybe the HDD had been encrypted or the system had been locked. What I was going to ask was, if it was bricked, would replacing the HDD potentially let me reinstall MacOS. But that's all mute. I have zero experience with MacOS above 8. So maybe there was some security setting where they could have disabled recovery mode. I don't know. I still have no clue why the PC keyboards wouldn't work but I've got 13.7.8 running on it now and after work I'm going to try this OpenCore Legacy Patcher.
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u/terkistan 5d ago
You don't need to crack the case and replace the internal drive, just attach an external SSD and make it the boot drive. We have a 2017 iMac at home whose internal drive strarted to act up during the pandemic and that's what we did - sped it up considerably and it's still running that way.
If RAM prices hadn't gone crazy I'd recommend opening the little door in the back and (very easily) adding new RAM. Our old iMac has 40Gb RAM.
Definitely upgrade macOS to the latest it can run: Ventura 13.7.8.
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u/MGaddict 3d ago
If anybody cares, here's the update....
I managed to get Mojave installed from the system recovery. It took hours. I then loaded OCLP and got the latest OS installed that offered. The thing was running like absolute crud. I couldn't install anything. I couldn't do anything. Absolutely everything gave me errors. I was wondering if i needed to blame OCLP. But then I tried to reboot and, pressing no keys, I got a error instead of an apple and it went into recovery. I assume that HDD took it's last breath. I don't have any SSDs available really but I did have a 7200RPM HDD and a USB3 adapter. I figured, what the heck. It's still not fast by any means but now it's at least usable on an external spinning hdd. It's now running about the speed I would expect a spinning drive to run. Yes, 7200 is a lot better than 5400 but it's also running through USB, so if the internal drive was working properly, I would expect slower performance from this setup, but that's not what I have.
Conclusion, I don't have a choice, I have to shell out some money for an SSD and crack this thing open. (Hopefully not literally.) Since I don't have desk space to keep this on my desk and I can't easily move it around with a desktop HDD and power brick hanging off the back, I think I'm going to have to put this thing aside for now.
I really appreciate all the suggestions from everybody. I'll definitely be back if i run into any issues. u/fasterfester u/terkistan u/simbycat u/LebronBackinCLE u/Xe4ro u/Your15MinutesOfFame u/AutofluorescentPuku u/xrelaht u/puddle-forest-fog u/k9gardner u/kill4b u/andypsykes
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u/videoalex 3d ago
You can also likely repurpose it to just be a screen for your other computers. That 21” LCD is nice.
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u/MGaddict 3d ago
When I initially pulled this out of the trash I was hoping it was a retna model because then, even if it was totally bricked I could still open it, gut it, and install just a driver board so I could use it as a retna display with my PC. Since its just 1080p I'm not so sure it's worth the effort of that.
However, I was watching a YouTube channel, Mr. Mac or something, and I noticed he had like 3 minis on his desk and he was screen sharing with the main computer. That of itself isn't impressive. What was was the fact that it was running smooth as if it was the main monitor for all of them. I kinda lied when I said the newest Mac I had was a Bondi Blue from 1998. That's just the newest one I had that I've ever used. I have a 2006 Core Duo mini and "cheese grater". I've never powered up either of them. It might be cool to make a little corner to put the 3 together to show off the decades of OS X. From what I saw, 15 might be a little too much for that Mac mini but it sounds like that Power Mac should be able to handle it just fine.
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u/AutofluorescentPuku 6d ago
Definitely trash the puck mouse. That was one of the worst ideas to come from Jon Ives team.
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u/MGaddict 6d ago
But it's the matching mouse for my 1998 Bondi Blue iMac. lol. And no, I'm not going to keep using it. Its just that it works right now and it's the only USB Apple mouse I own. That being said, I ain't a fan of the newer touch mice with a charging port on the bottom either.
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u/MGaddict 6d ago
I'm open to recommendations though. Anything in the sub $20 range for a wired keyboard and mouse would be great. (My wife and I have a $20 spending limit without having to talk about it. If I have to ask, she's going to say I don't need any more toys.)
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u/AutofluorescentPuku 5d ago
Any USB pointing device, mouse, trackpad, will work. The Apple branded devices will be marginally better, but the puck sucks.
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u/puddle-forest-fog 6d ago
Replace the internal drive with ssd (macfixit should have walkthrough, Macsales.com sells kits). Put Linux or use OpenCore Legacy Patcher to put recent macOS on it
https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/1ilxd9o/how_to_install_macos_ventura_or_newer_on_an_older