[kenreau]

Looking for suggestions with what to do with a 2006 iMac "Intel Core Duo" (20-Inch).  It needs work...over the past few months it has been having difficulty with freezing up and beach balling, in addition to not powering up and booting up ~50% of the time.  Along the way, I suspected it was the oem hard drive going out.  It now does not start up / power up at all which leads me to think it may be a power supply problem.

I did a few google repair searches and pulling the monitor screen glass appears a little tricky (special tools, etc.).  I've built computers and upgraded numerous mac minis and lap tops, so working on them typically doesn't bother me.  Is it really worth any time or expense to attempt to fix this 9 year old machine?  I was contemplating just putting in a small SSD and upgrading the RAM for a internet web surfing machine for an inlaw.  The OS reportedly can be upgraded to Mavericks.  Now that the power supply may also be in need of repair, I decided to cut my losses.

I decided to just toss it on Craigslist as-is for $100, then lowered it to $80 and after two weeks someone just offered me $50.  Problem is the machine will not power on, so I can't even wipe my data from the hard drive. Ugh.

I don't currently need a boat anchor, or large door stop.  Donate it to Goodwill?  Toss in the electronics recycle bin?

I thought briefly about retrofitting the new Raspberry Pi 2 in it, but wondered if the imac display monitor could be tapped into.

Thanks
Kenreau

[GentleBender]

 It is not hard to pull the screen off. Check out ifixit.com and the suction cups aren't expensive plus the guides are pretty good. At least you could pull the drive out. Amazon may even offer them, I just got the logic board removal tool for $6 last week to upgrade my Mac mini 2011 with SSDs.

[Crimson]

Are you sure you don't need an anchor? 

Either that, or experiment with it. Whatever you do, I'd recommend securing the HD data.

[Photon46]

I wouldn't think $50 is worth the risk of someone with possible dishonorable intentions getting hold of your hard drive.

[JRace]

Getting the screen off is the easy part.
Accessing the internal parts (PSU and Hard drive, RAM, optical drive) is very easy...if you don't want to put it back together.

I would open er up and salvage what you can,
Hard Drive
RAM
Optical Drive

It is very difficult to reuse the screen with an alt. computer.

[MtnHam]

Dump it. Salvage what interests you, but time to move on.

[kenreau]

Thanks, guys, all good advice.

Thankfully, this early model doesn't require the suction cups to remove the sceen, but only a credit card slipped in to undo two clips.  Regardless, it looks like a p.i.t.a.  I'll wait and pull it apart this weekend and at least pull my old hard drive and investigate the power supply.  I did see a number of power supplies on eBay for $40, so this may be salvageable for not too much scratch. 

Thanks!
Kenreau

[planet10]

On this older Mac the front white bezel comes off. It is the newer aluminum body iMacs that have the glass lift off for access.

I have taken dozens of these to the Sally Ann (they get the $5 recycle fee) for disposal. It is possible it is a power supply, but these often have a failure of the connections of one of the glue chips on the motherboard. Even the cost of a power supply is pushing ye resale of one of these. I'd recycle it. The speakers are fairly easy to pull out. You might want to pull it apartto grab those, have a look and pull your HD out.

dave

[jarcher]

I resurrected my 2007 24' iMac last year, but it was just a bad HD (and I had a time machine back up).  Actually the DVD had stopped working as well, and despite sourcing an original, it still doesn't work.

Opening it up and putting it back together was a bit of a PITA - and in some cases needed a helper - but the parts cost was low (just a $100 for a HD).  Felt nice not to toss it for just a $100 investment.  And I'm using it now to type this.

But if your's is a case of a bad power supply, getting the part + more than anything the time investment may not be worth it. A replacement used iMac, macbook or mac mini can be had for just a few hundred bucks.  And if you have a time machine back-up, you can be back on your feet in an hour.

I think the probability some evil doer is going to rifle through your HD is low.  If really worried, put the iMac on a large garden trash bag, take a hammer to it & the HD, and dump at your local county e-waste facility.  $50 for it is not worth it, not for the security risk, but the time waste in the transaction.