KC Forums

Hi,
I've picked a 2008 iMac of a friend, and the GPU seems to be dead. The Mac starts on safe mode, but when I started in normal/verbose mode, the screen goes white after the loading bar progress to the first half (and the mouse appears on the white screen after 15 min). I think the GPU is partially dead (the mac , so I thought I can replace the GPU, but a replacement GPU is too expensive, and second-hand machine cost the same amount. What can I do with this machine?

GPU failure is very common with this model of iMac I'm afraid. It even happened to me, but I was lucky enough to find a reasonably priced replacement.

Sadly, outside of that, I'm not sure much can be done. The custom form factor is too limited to transplant any other kind of GPU. Probably the most interesting thing you could do is a "monitor mod" where you gut it and convert it into a regular monitor, so you can re-use the screen on newer computers. You could even take that a step further and transplant a modern Mac mini/Raspberry Pi in there.

I had a computer when I was younger. 2011 iMac. Beautiful machine. One day, shut off and had these weird purple lines on the screen. It was so sad. Hopefully if I get good at electronics repair I can try to fix it some day in the distance future. I think it was a GPU thing on mine as well. Hopefully you can get yours fixed.