Just ordered my first Mac (2011 27" iMac)

[Maliclipse]

My wife's Christmas present this year is a new iMac. I did a little research and to save some money I ordered a stock configuration with 4GB of memory and the standard 1TB sata drive.

I'd like to replace the 1TB drive with a 256GB SSD (looking at the Crucial M4) but I read about the fan problems. I know I have two options, one through software (hddfancontrol) and the other by shorting the pins. I read that if you order an iMac apple shorts the pins at the factory so does anyone know where to buy that cable / plug that shorts the pins?

As far as memory goes people around here hold OWC in high regards. I went to their website and they said that samsung is the factory original memory - is that true? I like having things match (memory chips/speed/etc) so I'd get two 4GB dimms to add to the existing memory for 12 total.

Thanks much in advance for any feedback.

M

 

[Sandman1969]

My wife's Christmas present this year is a new iMac. I did a little research and to save some money I ordered a stock configuration with 4GB of memory and the standard 1TB sata drive.

I'd like to replace the 1TB drive with a 256GB SSD (looking at the Crucial M4) but I read about the fan problems. I know I have two options, one through software (hddfancontrol) and the other by shorting the pins. I read that if you order an iMac apple shorts the pins at the factory so does anyone know where to buy that cable / plug that shorts the pins?

As far as memory goes people around here hold OWC in high regards. I went to their website and they said that samsung is the factory original memory - is that true? I like having things match (memory chips/speed/etc) so I'd get two 4GB dimms to add to the existing memory for 12 total.

Thanks much in advance for any feedback.

M

I can't answer the fan and the SSD question. But you may risk your warranty there.

ANyway, OWC is great and has a lifetime warranty. Yes I believe Apple uses Samsung, and if macsales.com is any indication they only come in 2 and 4GB. WHich I guess is why the max on Apple's store is 16GB. When you can actually put 4 8GB in.

If I were you I would spend just a touch more and get a 16GB upgrade for $97.

I just ordered 16GB for our two new 27" iMacs. I was going to go 12 for each of them with the 4 SODIMMS... but I was told that if you don't have the same size memory in all 4 slots you lose dual channel aspect, which impacts performance slightly apparently. So now I am going to put 16GB in mine and put my 2 2GB chips in the wife's so she will have 8GB. Probably upgrade her later. Maybe me to 32GB when 8GB chips come down in price.

Still can't believe how cheap memory has become.

 

[Maliclipse]

Just a little update here...

Performed the surgery last night and to my surprise there was no temperature sensor cable attached to the factory 1TB sata drive in my 2011 27" iMac. All i had to do was attach the cables, close her up, and boot up off the factory drive (usb attached at this point) and do a OS recovery. It installed 10.7.2 just fine (took about an hour to download the components) and off I went.

I went with the OWC 240GB 6G drive and it runs at 6G - did a little benchmarking and I'm getting 511MB/s.

Also went with the samsung chipped OWC 4gbx2 upgrade for a total of 12GB memory. No stability issues. The wife loves her new mac, with parallels and a windows 7 image she can play all her sims games smoothly.

These iMacs are quite a bargain.

MH