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Reviving an early 2009 24" Imac

E

emozoo

Suspended
Original poster
Feb 2, 2018
11
0
Hey guys,

Im sure there has been a bunch of these threads made, but I would love some help deciding what to do with this Imac.

Here are the specs:
2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce 9400 256 MB

OS X El captain 10.11.6

I was thinking of going with 8 gig of ram from crucial, and an SSD. I run photoshop alot, and its starting to become a task for the ol' work horse.

If anyone else has any ideas please let me know..is it even worth it at this stage in the game?
 
I have a 2009 imac that I intended to roll back to 10.6, so that I could play more of my game collection--in particular, Neverwinter Nights. I never actually got around to doing so. It ran well with 8GB--I just had to be patient. My current imac blows it away. A good bit of that cna be ascribed to quicksync.
 
You can run High Sierra on an early 2009. The one behind me is doing just that. It's not officially supported, and you have to use dosdude1's excellent patcher, but it works. See the "unsupported Macs" thread in the HS subforum.

And yes, 8 Gb and SSD make a huge difference. I still wouldn't suggest the machine for anything heavy duty, but for web, email, basic office stuff, occasional light photo editing, etc it works just fine.

Having said that, I have a suspicion that putting the money into that old of a machine isn't the best value long term, all things considered. It is however a relatively inexpensive way to keep an old beater working for another year or so. You basically have to decide based on your individual cash flow situation. I upgraded mine a couple years ago, hoping to get one more year out of the machine, and here we are still. But I think its days are numbered.
 
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Well guys, Im going to start with 8 gigs of ram and go from there.

I love this thing, I dont want to give it up just yet.
 
oldhifi said:
I think you will like it, I don't have any problems with it, but I don't download a bunch of junk apps
Click to expand...
the only think I run is photoshop and google chrome lol I should be good to go..add in the new ram I just ordered and hell, its like doing a turbo swap in a car hahah...the engine swap (SSD) may come later.
 
emozoo said:
the only think I run is photoshop and google chrome lol I should be good to go..add in the new ram I just ordered and hell, its like doing a turbo swap in a car hahah...the engine swap (SSD) may come later.
Click to expand...

yea it will be a lot faster..
I plan to up grade my 2010 MBP to a SSD, it slow on startup
 
emozoo said:
Well guys, Im going to start with 8 gigs of ram and go from there.

I love this thing, I dont want to give it up just yet.
Click to expand...

I have a 20 inch 2007? iMac with similar specs. What I did was purchase 500GB SSD from macsales. I also upped my RAM to maximum on my machine (6) I am running El Capitan and it is working perfectly. I made these upgrades 2 years ago and this machine is running very smoothly and much faster. I have reached the end of the line with El Capitan but it does everything I need. It serves as my main library for my iTunes library. I also use it to surf the web and read/reply to e mails. In a pinch I can use it (Office for Mac is installed) for bidding jobs sending out service reports for my small sub-contracting company. I own a 2012 mabook Pro I have similarly updated and use as my main work computer now. Bottom line is that I am not getting rid of this machine until it dies. It has given me 10 years of flawless service.
 
LCC0256 said:
I have a 20 inch 2007? iMac with similar specs. What I did was purchase 500GB SSD from macsales. I also upped my RAM to maximum on my machine (6) I am running El Capitan and it is working perfectly. I made these upgrades 2 years ago and this machine is running very smoothly and much faster. I have reached the end of the line with El Capitan but it does everything I need. It serves as my main library for my iTunes library. I also use it to surf the web and read/reply to e mails. In a pinch I can use it (Office for Mac is installed) for bidding jobs sending out service reports for my small sub-contracting company. I own a 2012 mabook Pro I have similarly updated and use as my main work computer now. Bottom line is that I am not getting rid of this machine until it dies. It has given me 10 years of flawless service.
Click to expand...


How do you feel about an SSHD?
 
Which version of Photoshop? Some of the older ones don’t run properly on High Sierra, but run fine on Sierra.

For light Photoshop and Chrome, SSD with 4 GB is actually more of an upgrade IMO than HD with 8 GB. But ideally SSD plus 8 GB is what you want although I understand that the SSD is the much more difficult upgrade. I too haven’t upgraded my 2010’s HD to SSD, but that’s because it’s only being used as an external monitor.
 
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I have CS6 but everything seems to be working. I think ill see how the 8GB ram does and maybe add the firecuda SSHD 1TB drive.
 
LCC0256 said:
I have a 20 inch 2007? iMac with similar specs. What I did was purchase 500GB SSD from macsales. I also upped my RAM to maximum on my machine (6) I am running El Capitan and it is working perfectly. I made these upgrades 2 years ago and this machine is running very smoothly and much faster. I have reached the end of the line with El Capitan but it does everything I need. It serves as my main library for my iTunes library. I also use it to surf the web and read/reply to e mails. In a pinch I can use it (Office for Mac is installed) for bidding jobs sending out service reports for my small sub-contracting company. I own a 2012 mabook Pro I have similarly updated and use as my main work computer now. Bottom line is that I am not getting rid of this machine until it dies. It has given me 10 years of flawless service.
Click to expand...

I have one these too.
I am about to upgrade the CPU, fit an SSD and replace wifi card (as not sierra compatible) then upgrade to high sierra.
 
emozoo said:
I have CS6 but everything seems to be working. I think ill see how the 8GB ram does and maybe add the firecuda SSHD 1TB drive.
Click to expand...
For Photoshop CS6, it overall works fine but I get this weird bug where if I load up a PNG file and try to save as JPG, the conversion will work fine, but it forgets to change the file suffix to .jpg. This bug also exists for other file type conversions. Obviously this will cause problems because it has the wrong filename suffix. However, I can just remember to change the suffix myself before I save and it's fine.
 
Go with an SSD and ignore Seagate rubbish for that is all the SSHD really is. Do not consider an Apple Fusion Drive either as we are past those temporary stop-gaps.

I think High Sierra will struggle a little on an slow old platter drive as it is designed for an SSD. As time goes by the slowness will seem to exaggerate.
 
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OK so after a day with the ram installed, I can tell a difference..pretty happy with it.


Can anyone recommend a good SSD? I dont need that much memory
 
emozoo said:
Can anyone recommend a good SSD? I dont need that much memory
Click to expand...

Almost anything will work, I think. I put a Mushkin Reactor in mine almost 2 years ago.

If you're working from the iFixit instructions, be sure to read the comments - you don't have to disconnect the display and a lot of people had problems reconnecting that cable.
 
emozoo said:
OK so after a day with the ram installed, I can tell a difference..pretty happy with it.


Can anyone recommend a good SSD? I dont need that much memory
Click to expand...

Hello. This is the one I ordered from Macsales 28 months ago and it has been perfect for me. The connection speed is 3 on my old machine but those people on the phone at Macsales are THE BEST in the business IMHO and they will make sure they send you the correct SSD. Good luck to you !!

480GB Mercury Electra 3G 2.5-inch 7mm SATA 3.0Gb/s Solid-State Drive. Tier 1 NAND Flash storage with 7% Over Provisioned Redundancy. Mac and PC compatible. Built in the USA. 3 Year OWC Limited Warranty.
 
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