Hi Everyone,
I'm looking for some feedback from the community on next steps for my poor beloved 27" late 2012 iMac. It's been a very good computer, one of the most stable and reliable systems I've ever owned. The RAM is upgraded to 24GB and I replaced the 1TB 7200 RPM with a 1 TB SSD several years ago. Everything was humming along until March of 2020 when the system started having intermittent issues related to a bad motherboard. I replaced the motherboard myself with a used one I got from a reputable seller online, and saved a ton, and got another couple years out of it, until recently it made a popping sound when I was using it and it just died. I'm guessing the pop was probably the power supply which I understand can be replaced just like the motherboard.
However, with the operating system being out of support by Apple, I fear that fixing the computer is only going to lead to additional problems down the road (the display already has a line in it so that's another issue that kind of needs to be fixed too). I'm more concerned about the lack of security updates and having my system get hacked while online. I fear it's time to retire the beloved iMac which leads me to a couple of things I need help with. This computer is our "family" computer (all 2 of us, no kids) so it has mostly been used to managing photo libraries, music libraries and other light duty tasks such as tax returns and occasionally downloading a movie that we can't find on the 8 million streaming services out there. I use a MBA for my primary machine, he uses an iPad Pro and doesn't have any other computer, so this is mostly for him if you know what I mean.
The issue is that we never converted his old photo library to Photos, so it's still in iPhoto and there are all the mp3 files which may or may not be in iCloud depending on when they were downloaded. So, we need to get some files off the machine, which means I already have to take it apart and pull the hard drive out. I'm not sure if we will be able to convert the photo library without actually logging into the system itself, but who knows, maybe if I can copy the folder over to a new computer, it will be able to open it and convert it to Photos.
I'm assuming we would not be able to boot target to the drive on my MacBook Air since it's an M1 and the older OS is pre-M1 days so there would be no support for the processor, so the easiest way is to just pull all the files and try and rebuild from scratch what we had on the old machine. I have a Time Machine backup but it's super old (oops).
So, the iMac options are:
-Fix the computer and then get all the content off and then wipe it and give it to a loving home (or sell it for super cheap)
-Recycle the computer after pulling the drive out (I'm assuming Apple still does this for free)
-Repair the power supply and keep chugging along until something else gives out (possibly don't use it to browse the internet for security purposes, or hack it to upgrade it to the newest OS using the OpenCore patch
And the replacement candidates:
-24" new M1 iMac which is almost 2 years old now and who knows when Apple will get a new one so it seems silly for me to move to that knowing something else with M2 is coming
-Refurb 27" 2020 iMac from Apple Store so we can keep the 27 inch form factor and be a little more up to date but will miss out on some new OS features reserved for the M hardware
-M2 Mac mini with any combination of external display (I'm not shelling out $1599+ for the Apple one), so would be looking for recommendations there
-M2 MacBook Air w/ external monitor
Thoughts? I've really had bad luck with external monitors and most of the ones close to Apple's iMac specs are generally $800-1000. Every option has pros and cons, I don't want to spend a fortune since we don't really use the computer a lot.
I'm looking for some feedback from the community on next steps for my poor beloved 27" late 2012 iMac. It's been a very good computer, one of the most stable and reliable systems I've ever owned. The RAM is upgraded to 24GB and I replaced the 1TB 7200 RPM with a 1 TB SSD several years ago. Everything was humming along until March of 2020 when the system started having intermittent issues related to a bad motherboard. I replaced the motherboard myself with a used one I got from a reputable seller online, and saved a ton, and got another couple years out of it, until recently it made a popping sound when I was using it and it just died. I'm guessing the pop was probably the power supply which I understand can be replaced just like the motherboard.
However, with the operating system being out of support by Apple, I fear that fixing the computer is only going to lead to additional problems down the road (the display already has a line in it so that's another issue that kind of needs to be fixed too). I'm more concerned about the lack of security updates and having my system get hacked while online. I fear it's time to retire the beloved iMac which leads me to a couple of things I need help with. This computer is our "family" computer (all 2 of us, no kids) so it has mostly been used to managing photo libraries, music libraries and other light duty tasks such as tax returns and occasionally downloading a movie that we can't find on the 8 million streaming services out there. I use a MBA for my primary machine, he uses an iPad Pro and doesn't have any other computer, so this is mostly for him if you know what I mean.
The issue is that we never converted his old photo library to Photos, so it's still in iPhoto and there are all the mp3 files which may or may not be in iCloud depending on when they were downloaded. So, we need to get some files off the machine, which means I already have to take it apart and pull the hard drive out. I'm not sure if we will be able to convert the photo library without actually logging into the system itself, but who knows, maybe if I can copy the folder over to a new computer, it will be able to open it and convert it to Photos.
I'm assuming we would not be able to boot target to the drive on my MacBook Air since it's an M1 and the older OS is pre-M1 days so there would be no support for the processor, so the easiest way is to just pull all the files and try and rebuild from scratch what we had on the old machine. I have a Time Machine backup but it's super old (oops).
So, the iMac options are:
-Fix the computer and then get all the content off and then wipe it and give it to a loving home (or sell it for super cheap)
-Recycle the computer after pulling the drive out (I'm assuming Apple still does this for free)
-Repair the power supply and keep chugging along until something else gives out (possibly don't use it to browse the internet for security purposes, or hack it to upgrade it to the newest OS using the OpenCore patch
And the replacement candidates:
-24" new M1 iMac which is almost 2 years old now and who knows when Apple will get a new one so it seems silly for me to move to that knowing something else with M2 is coming
-Refurb 27" 2020 iMac from Apple Store so we can keep the 27 inch form factor and be a little more up to date but will miss out on some new OS features reserved for the M hardware
-M2 Mac mini with any combination of external display (I'm not shelling out $1599+ for the Apple one), so would be looking for recommendations there
-M2 MacBook Air w/ external monitor
Thoughts? I've really had bad luck with external monitors and most of the ones close to Apple's iMac specs are generally $800-1000. Every option has pros and cons, I don't want to spend a fortune since we don't really use the computer a lot.
