Can I use the Imac for just a Monitor?

Peppered

Senior member
Jul 3, 2009
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I asking this because I have replaced the hard drive in my Wife's IMac several times over the years.

I think she would be better off if I built a PC to use instead but hate to lose the monitor of the IMac.
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
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How old is it? It was only the more recent ones that supported Video-in, and there are any number of caveats on that.

The leading 'i' is never capitalized on Apple products. iMac.
 

Theb

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2006
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Is it one of the older white iMacs? IME those are bad news. Usually it's heat killing capacitors, but heat is bad for hard drives too.

If it's an aluminum iMac then I'd be interested in finding out why it's eating hard drives before turning a computer into a monitor. What errors is Disk Utility giving you?
 

Peppered

Senior member
Jul 3, 2009
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It is one of the first aluminun ( hope I spelled it right ) IMacs, I belive or the next year after.
It has a Core two duo for the CPU if that helps for the year made.
I just think there cooling solution was not up to par for the hoter componets. this is the only reason I can see fo the hard drive to fail so much. twice under warnty and I just recently replaced it with a new one again.

I just hate to not use the monitor if there is a way around it. There are better ones out there but this would save me some cash in building a new PC to replace it.
 

Peppered

Senior member
Jul 3, 2009
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It got to the point that it wouldnt start up before she told me there was a problem with it so I didnt get the chance to use the disk utlity.
 

Peppered

Senior member
Jul 3, 2009
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I am not tring to dish the I mac I just have not had good experiance with this one. we have a older white plastic one that we hqave had for a long time. and my daughter had used it for years up till last week because it would do some of the things she needed to do. A $300 hp destop was onsale so she bought that she can do what she needs to do for shcool work.

It was a lot cheaper than buying a new IMac.

I would buy a new one for my wife But for what she dose I thnk I can build a PC for a lot less.

I have a old 1080 p Monitor she copuld use but I do like the screen that the mac has so if there was a way to do it I wanten to do it.
 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
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The feature you're looking for is called Target Display Mode. Unfortunately this feature was only introduced in late 2009 with the Unibody iMac (iMac10,1). Your aluminum iMac would predate that. So I'm afraid you're out of luck here.
 

vailr

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,365
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Replace the spinning HD with an SSD?
Or: just sell the iMac "as is" and replace with something less failure prone.
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
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I know English isn't your first language, but he was making fun of the poster before him, who was typing "iMac" as "I Mac".

If there's anything that is going to tweak us here in ATA, it's stuff like MAC, IMac, iTouch, etc.