iMac left for trash, I've fixed it, lets upgrade it!

[MrNeedSomeHelp]

Found a 24" 2009 iMac left for trash by the bins. It was totally dead, no diagnostics lights at all, so I purchased and installed a replacement power supply from AliExpress and, to my surprise, it works!

2008 iMac
A1225
EMC 2211
24"
Core 2 Duo 2.8Ghz
2GB
320Gb
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO​

​

I was thinking about putting an SSD in and installing Catalina via Patcher. I'm looking for advice on CPU, GPU and RAM upgrades I should attempt.

 

[jerwin]

why catalina, though?

 

[GLS]

Found a 24" 2009 iMac left for trash by the bins. It was totally dead, no diagnostics lights at all, so I purchased and installed a replacement power supply from AliExpress and, to my surprise, it works!

​

2008 iMac​

A1225​

EMC 2211​

24" ​

Core 2 Duo 2.8Ghz ​

2GB​

320Gb​

ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO​

​

I was thinking about putting an SSD in and installing Catalina via Patcher. I'm looking for advice on CPU, GPU and RAM upgrades I should attempt.

SSD, sure. More RAM, absolutely. But shoehorning Catalina onto a 12 year old computer just because you can? Eh.

 

[MrNeedSomeHelp]

I'm running catalina on a similar spec mbp, it runs well. I actually installed catalina last night on iMac (hadn't read concerns here), if I have issue I could go back to High Sierra. Till then I'm Looking for advise on the cpu and GPU

 

[Fishrrman]

Don't get your expectations too high.
Don't spend too much money on it.
Don't put Catalina on... or even Mojave, for that matter.
I'd "stay back" around OS 10.12 "Low" Sierra. It will run that well enough.

Buy a LOW COST SSD, 250gb or so, and put that in.
Perhaps ONE 4gb RAM DIMM to bump up the RAM to 6gb installed.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Pretty good info here:

SOLVED: How can I upgrade my early 2008 24" iMac? - iMac Intel 24" EMC 2134 and 2211

*Apple officially supports 4 GB of RAM, but third-parties have been able to upgrade the system to 6 GB of RAM using one 2 GB and one 4 GB memory module. Your processor is a ZIF socket and can be upgraded to a 3.06 GHz You have a 3 Gb/s BUS so your hard drive can be upgraded. Consider a SSD...

www.ifixit.com