20" iMac 2.4 C2D 800mhz model - Ubergrade time!

[farrance]

Hey guys and girls.. first time posting under a name, long time viewer.

I was recently given a 20" iMac off of my girlfriends family for dirt cheap, it's in an insanely good condition considering its age and it has all the same hardware as it came out of the apple store..

My only gripe is, without sounding selfish. It's sluggish, you can really tell how old it is.

I'm interesting in looking into methods and upgrades in order to bring it up to speed a bit. I'm a photographer and I do a heck of alot of work in lightroom I also do some video work.

Aside from the RAM, which is going to be going in literally as fast as humanely possible, I was wondering which other methods to try. SSD's and such.

I've looked into a few things and I noticed that apparently some SSD's have backwards compatibility problems and that they can cause fans to run at very high speeds?

Also, is it possible to put 8GB of RAM in, not just 4GB?

Another also! Is it possible to have an SSD AND a HDD? That would be ideal if it was at all possible. The speed of the ssd for the programmes and the capacity of the HDD would be perfect.. mmmmm

Any information would be amazing, I'm looking forward to being part of this forum!



The short story of my post is this!
I have a 20" 2.4GHz iMac and I want it to be as fast as it possibly can be. SSD's, a bajillion RAM. Whatever it takes, I need the info!

 

[farrance]

TTT!

Someone must have the information I crave! My last boot up of Snow Leopard 10.6.7 took 1:43 seconds!

 

[Badger^2]

whats your budget?

spending anymore than say -- $200 -- would be a waste of money.

Id would boost the ram to 4 gigs and drop in a 1TB 7200 RPM drive. beyond that -- meh.

800 mhz is the system bus, irrelevant for what anyone really needs to know.

this is it: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/stats/imac-core-2-duo-2.4-20-inch-aluminum-specs.html

and dude, bumping your post after 2 hours is extremely bad form.

 

[farrance]

Ahh.. Apologies to the forum then :/

Well.. I just wanna be able to have it running at maximum speed! If 4GB is the max then thats okay, it's the SSD I wanna try and shove in first!

 

[DarthMoops]

I have an old 2.16 C2D 667MHz 20" w/ 2GB that boots up much faster than that and runs the apps I need fine.

Did you try a clean install of Snow Leopard?

I'd suggest forgetting the SSD and looking for a 7200 rpm drive. More space, lower price, and plenty fast enough.

 

[Badger^2]

Ahh.. Apologies to the forum then :/

Well.. I just wanna be able to have it running at maximum speed! If 4GB is the max then thats okay, it's the SSD I wanna try and shove in first!

Theres no second bay for a SSD like newer iMacs.

So that means either replacing the hard drive or optical drive. Since the optical drive is most likely only SATA I, any good SSD would be hampered by that connection. You could replace the main drive, but then you are limited to the SSD as your main storage. As long as you plan on spending $500 on a 256 gig SSD... then of course all of your libraries need to be external. Which means for fast access, FW800, which costs more as well.

technically it will go to 6 gigs of ram, but the cost of 4 gigs is about 1/2

and LR does NOT benefit from a SSD: http://barefeats.com/wst10c4.html

and for photography -- the 20" iMacs have notoriously horrible screen colors. banding, bad viewing angles -- they are a cheap ass TN panel.

I would scrap the tthought of "upgrading" it.

If you have $500 to drop into it, then you should sell it for $500-600 and then add your other $500 and buy a brand new 21" 2.5 i5 for $1020

oh, and this is the correct link to you macs specs: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/stats/imac-core-2-duo-2.4-20-inch-aluminum-specs.html

 

[excommie]

Since the optical drive is most likely only SATA I, any good SSD would be hampered by that connection.

Optical is using PATA, not SATA

 

[Badger^2]

Optical is using PATA, not SATA

Thanks for the correction.

 

[farrance]

Thanks ever so much for your help!

From what you have all said, it looks like the 21.5" iMac is the way to go. I was just told by another member on here that you can actually fit an SSD to a 21.5" iMac by using a piece of a 27" or something like that!

Here the link to what they sent me;
http://blog.chargedpc.com/2011/05/2011-imac-ssd-install-guide.html

Whats the deal with most iMacs having problems with tempurature sensors everytime you change them? I keep hearing that get brought up whenever asking about hard drives?

 

[Badger^2]

Whats the deal with most iMacs having problems with tempurature sensors everytime you change them? I keep hearing that get brought up whenever asking about hard drives?

Because internal drives on iMacs are not a "DIY" part.

 

[DarthMoops]

the 20" iMacs have notoriously horrible screen colors. banding, bad viewing angles

It's funny you say that, I've had none of the screen issues plaguing recent iMacs (plus it's matte).

 

[Badger^2]

It's funny you say that, I've had none of the screen issues plaguing recent iMacs (plus it's matte).

Let me rephrase that then: 20" AL iMacs have the bad screens.

the previous white 20" had excellent screens -- Ive got both, side by side theres no comparision.