2006 iMac Hard Drive Noise

I had a (Late) 2006 iMac, which I binned at the end of last year. It was still working fine, though it started to get some weird screen pixel things.

7 years is a good life for any computer. A new one -- or even a second hand one from 2010 or 11 -- will absolutely smoke the 2006 in capabilities and speed.

Your iMac can't run anything later than 10.6 and can only handle 2Gb of RAM. Even if you put a 512Gb SSD in it, it's going to be limited by the RAM and the fact that it can't run the latest software.

That having been said, you might want to try taking it to bits anyway. That's always fun (as is putting it back together), and you're not risking anything. It's unlikely to command much on eBay.

I swapped the HDD out in a 2006 iMac, you'll need to disable the HDD thermal sensor (easy, just short it out). Lot's of foil shielding in that iMac.

An SSD will give it a noticeable performance boost. You'll need a 2.5 to 3.5 drive bracket.