It all started when my wife wanted an iMac, and simply we couldn't afford one bc of the wedding. Like any good soon to be husband, I figured out how to get it for her. So I started to search on Craigslist for broken iMac's, reason being is bc I'm a nerd and I used to work on PC alot so I figured Apple products can't be all that complicated to fix. It was all luck and quick response that I found two different people from two different state that wanted to sell their broken imacs. One was an i5 and the other was i7. They both said the iMac stopped working and won't turn on. I5 guy said apple care it was due to a bad logic board, and i7 guy said the display connector is completely broken off. I didn't care, so I bought it both for 100 each.
Took apart both iMac and found out a world that was completely new to me! Had no idea what I was getting into. So many hours on researching and late nights. I couldn't figured out why it wasn't working!! I was so frustrated that I just left it sitting there for a month until my wife called me out. Now I'm determined. I went deeper. Took apart the logic board, the chips, the gpu, and tried to pinpoint the exact problem with these stupid imacs, then one day, one of the guy here on the form pointed out that the board that I have is interchangeable!! What?!? Lol I just simply switch all the parts around with a lot of trial and errors. Finally!!! One iMac is working bc the i7 logic board is still in great condition, and the i5 gpu is working. Put those together and tada! Now I'm left with a bad logic board and bad gpu and a very nice LCD panel that I wanted to put a good use for.
Once again more research, and found out that I can use it as an external monitor if I buy this displayport controller for that specific LCD. I got it from eBay (only place that sells it, and it's in China) after another month and a half, it came!!! I then quickly part out everything except for the LCD and the back casing. Connect everything and now I have one working iMac and an extra 27in monitor!! But how did I get it for free? I just sold all the parts on eBay, even the logic board and GPU. Couldn't sell it for actual price bc its not really in working condition but people still bought them for a fair amount. After that I sold all the small stuff which really add up. Below I'll list the amount I really had to spend to get it up and running. I'm not going to list all the parts I sold bc it's way too many.
IMac i5: $100
IMac i7: $100 (both are from late 2009)
250 Samsung ssd: $90
Displayport to mini displayport cable: $10
Displayport port controller board: $70
Crucial 32gb RAM: $145
Grand total: $515 dollars.
Parts sold cams out to be $410. So I really spent about 100 dollars which is not bad for this machine! Just want to thank everyone here who paved the way for me to get answers. Couldn't do it if there wasn't people smarter than me. So this is my diy I guess. Lol I got some pics to show too. Let me know what you guys think!!
