Quote:
Originally Posted by appledude
So my story is complicated - Last summer I did a OWC 3TB hard drive replacement and added 16 gb memory to a late 2009 iMac. Soon was very happy doing PT 12.5 and Premier Pro with two monitors.
Three months later got screen freezes and soon it would not boot up. Took it to an authorized Mac repair shop. The new hard drive was bad, the video card failed and I broke the LCD connector off the logic board (I opened it up again just to look). I returned the hard drive but did not trust it because of the failure rates for the 3 TB Toshiba that came in the OWC kit. So bought an Samsung 850 EVO 500gb ($150). The shop ordered a refurb video card. When I asked what refurb meant they said that the chip on the card was replaced. There is apparently not much else on the card that can go bad. The first one they got failed the stress test (24 hour video test). The next one was good. The video card cost me $350, they charged me $80 to solder the connector (he told me he has done it more than once).
This post is from that 2009 iMac. It boots in 30 seconds with the SSD and runs great and would make a great VE pro machine. It is very snappy. So the total cost was $650. Probably more than its worth but a lot less than a new machine. I did hand it down to wife as an upgrade to her 24-inch core duo and I got an iMac pro with my bonus from work. The thing could last another 9 years for her and is way more than she needs.
So my advice is let an authorized Mac service center do it. You'll probably get a 90 warranty also.
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To save you the trouble of searching for my saga on this know this: in my conversations with Apple support they couldn't guarantee a new card. Replacing that big chip on the video card isn't easy and it's too easy to get it wrong under even the best of circumstances. I do not want a refurb card - too many things that can go wrong. It's either new or nothing.
Oh yeah - Apple wanted $700+ to do the job. That I took it to a shop that wasn't Apple certified didn't sit well with them.
Right now I'm balancing between letting the old iMac just sit versus maxing out my 2012 cheesegrater or getting another 2012 cheesegrater & monitor from OWC.