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2008 I Mac questions

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expat42451

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 25, 2013
102
0
where my backpack is
I currently am in Ecuador, have been traveling and thinking about stopping for a while. My MBP still is excellent after 1 1/2 years on the road. However I would like something a little bit different in the apartment.

Found a 2008 IMac 20" with the Core 2 duo proc for sale. The machine has a failed hard drive but other than that appears to be fine. I think it might be purchased for between $300 and $400- no keyboard or mouse or HD at that price.

Question is is it worth it? I see the same vintage machines from Mac resellers for around $450- $500+ online. I would have to put a HD in it, buy a keyboard and mouse and-- would like to dual boot Mavericks (which I run on this machine) with one of the 'nuxes.

Question- for this vintage machine what is most likely to fail. I understand it depends a lot on how its been treated but-- given that I will buy it and use it for a year- does anyone know of common failure points or are these pretty solid machines?

Finally- I read that 6 GB RAM is max but- I have heard that they will use 8. Can anyone shed light on whether this is true or not?

Thanks very much for the read and any information

Expat
 
rkaufmann87

rkaufmann87

macrumors 68000
Dec 17, 2009
1,760
39
Folsom, CA
expat42451 said:
I currently am in Ecuador, have been traveling and thinking about stopping for a while. My MBP still is excellent after 1 1/2 years on the road. However I would like something a little bit different in the apartment.

Found a 2008 IMac 20" with the Core 2 duo proc for sale. The machine has a failed hard drive but other than that appears to be fine. I think it might be purchased for between $300 and $400- no keyboard or mouse or HD at that price.

Question is is it worth it? I see the same vintage machines from Mac resellers for around $450- $500+ online. I would have to put a HD in it, buy a keyboard and mouse and-- would like to dual boot Mavericks (which I run on this machine) with one of the 'nuxes.

Question- for this vintage machine what is most likely to fail. I understand it depends a lot on how its been treated but-- given that I will buy it and use it for a year- does anyone know of common failure points or are these pretty solid machines?

Finally- I read that 6 GB RAM is max but- I have heard that they will use 8. Can anyone shed light on whether this is true or not?

Thanks very much for the read and any information

Expat
Click to expand...

IMHO for a 6 year old computer without a HD, keyboard and mouse it's worth about $200 maximum. I'd recommend looking at OWC (http://www.macsales.com) used Mac section or if you can afford it get a refurbished iMac directly from Apple.
 
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expat42451

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 25, 2013
102
0
where my backpack is
Thanks very much for the information. Looked at the page you suggested and I am prone to agree with you. Of course duty and importing will add to the price but an I Mac seems like a good fit for me during my time here....plus from reading this forum there seem to be a good number of them around- reading about conversion to SSD's.....so I get the impression they are probably pretty bullet proof.

Many thanks for the link and suggestions

Expat
 
simsaladimbamba

simsaladimbamba

Guest
Nov 28, 2010
22,670
30
located
expat42451 said:
Found a 2008 IMac 20" with the Core 2 duo proc for sale. The machine has a failed hard drive but other than that appears to be fine. I think it might be purchased for between $300 and $400- no keyboard or mouse or HD at that price.

Question is is it worth it? I see the same vintage machines from Mac resellers for around $450- $500+ online. I would have to put a HD in it, buy a keyboard and mouse and-- would like to dual boot Mavericks (which I run on this machine) with one of the 'nuxes.
Click to expand...
Does your budget allow for a 256 GB or bigger SSD?

Question- for this vintage machine what is most likely to fail. I understand it depends a lot on how its been treated but-- given that I will buy it and use it for a year- does anyone know of common failure points or are these pretty solid machines?
Click to expand...
I had a 2007 iMac, the first aluminium ones and used it for five years. After having not used it for a year, I gave it to my brother (with a 64 GB SSD inside) and works quite well.

Finally- I read that 6 GB RAM is max but- I have heard that they will use 8. Can anyone shed light on whether this is true or not?
Click to expand...
Early 2008 iMac models seem to only take 6 GB as maximum RAM. The early 2009 iMac models can take 8 GB RAM though.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/index-imac.html
 
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expat42451

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 25, 2013
102
0
where my backpack is
Thanks for the great information. The budget will stand a 256GB HD-- well possibly-- will need to see how readily available they are here at what cost-also interesting about your 2007 model still being used.

Again thanks for the reply

Expat
 
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