I picked up 21 computers from a garage clearing ad on craiglist last fall. 19 of the 21 were iMacs (2009-2011 21/24/27inch). Most had the screens removed, hard drives missing, no ram, a couple pieces of cover glass, most broken. After going through most of them for viability, I turned a few over to Free Geek that could not be fixed. I bought a few replacement MXM PC video cards to flash the BIOS on as upgrades. Since the weather is warming, I am finally getting around to starting the completion. Rather than removing the screen, motherboard, etc to test a video card, I decide to put a door in the back of one that was not fully repairable. The case had dents, the screen marred, and the wifi antennas were ripped out.
I traced the video card size
Then drilled the corners from the inside.
Then connected the dots on the outside
I had the option to use a plasma cutter, but did not want to melt all the plastic inside, so I used a jigsaw
And then pop-riveted a hinge onto it
Reinstalled the motherboard and screen, then flip it face down and now I can swap video cards
The temp sensor is still a little hard to reach, but much easier than removing the screen and entire motherboard to just change/test a video card. I now see there is a lot of aluminum bits in there I need to clean out before they fall onto something sparky.
I will use this to validate and test all the video cards I have before reassembling those that can be repaired. Yay, tinkering!
I traced the video card size
Then drilled the corners from the inside.
Then connected the dots on the outside
I had the option to use a plasma cutter, but did not want to melt all the plastic inside, so I used a jigsaw
And then pop-riveted a hinge onto it
Reinstalled the motherboard and screen, then flip it face down and now I can swap video cards
The temp sensor is still a little hard to reach, but much easier than removing the screen and entire motherboard to just change/test a video card. I now see there is a lot of aluminum bits in there I need to clean out before they fall onto something sparky.
I will use this to validate and test all the video cards I have before reassembling those that can be repaired. Yay, tinkering!
