@@djfritz Not if you are buying a cheap Windows Nvidia MXM card, as that requires a Windows machine to flash the appropriate firmware. But if you are buying the same card type as the stock card, or buying something like the 6970M from a 2011 iMac for use in a 2009 iMac, assuming that Apple card comes with its original heatsink (very important), then of course that is technically easier because (1) you wouldn't need to bake it, and (2) you wouldn't need to repasted it in theory. Practically speaking, cards like the 6970M almost always need to be repasted, and since the bake lasts a mere 10 minutes, you aren't saving much by purchasing another card. Besides, the bake is the cheapest fix of all the fix. And when I say "fix" I mean temporary fix of course. Even a brand new Apple card won't last forever, but I did get 2 years and 9 months from my 2nd bake. You might get more life from the Nvidia MXM cards, but again, you have to fiddle with things like flashing on a Window machine (yuck!) and even then the card won't be nearly as fast as a modern GPU. I recommend you buy the two thermal pastes and try the bake. And in then if you later decide you really want to replace the card, you have the pastes you need on hand to repasted that new card. I hope this helps.
@@JDW- thanks for replying so fast! all good points, i never really opened up a computer before but will give it a try. I have a video editing project on there I need to retrieve and back-up. thanks again
@@djfritz You would need to remove the front glass either to bake the existing card or to swap in a new card. And honestly, that is perhaps the most fiddly job of all for two reasons: (1) you must take great care not to break either of the two thin ribbon cables which connect the LCD display to the circuit boards inside. After removing screws, pull the display out toward you very, very slowly and take special care so it doesn't fall forward. That's how I accidentally broke the little ribbon cable in the upper left corner one time. After that, you need to take care when disconnecting connectors. And lastly, when you put everything back together again, it takes time to ensure there's no dust behind the glass. That part is always painful for me, because I hate even a spec of dust there. Also be sure to get the right suction cups too. Some people can remove the glass without them, but I personally don't. Suction cups work best for me and most people. Good luck!
I baked my video card today as described in this tutorial and my computer is now working again. I typed this message using my reborn computer. Thank you so much for taking the time to record this. We will see how long it lasts.
Son of a gun! This really works. It's only been 2 days, but my late 2009 27" iMac is working again. No more yellow bars. I baked my card for 10 minutes at 395F. I used a combo of your first video and this video to understand the process. I took the shortcut and did not remove the entire motherboard (as per your first video). After the bake, I used non-conductive silicone compound on all the chips except the middle one where I used Arctic Silver. I'll try to update progress, but so far so good. Thanks again for the detailed videos.
Thanks for sharing news of your success, Mark! I just crossed the 12-month mark of daily, problem-free use for my 2nd-baked iMac. In my 1st bake, as you know, I used Arctic Silver V on the GPU and a non-electrically-conductive paste on the memory chips, without removing the old Apple thermal pads on the memory chips. That bake lasted only 4 months. I don't think that had anything to do with Arctic Silver so you should be fine. The only caveat is that if you use too much Arctic Silver on the GPU, there could be overspill that works its way onto the tiny SMD capacitors, which could cause electrical shorts. That's why I went 100% non-conductive with thermal pastes in my 2nd bake; and again, that has lasted just over a year so far. But whether the 4-months of use from the 1st bake was due to thermal paste or my GPU simply needing a 2nd bake is unknown. Anyway, please do keep me updated. A lot of people comment here about their success, but almost no one keeps me informed of their iMac's progress over time. Feel free to post updates as often as you like. Best wishes!
Thanks a lot for this amazing guide. This fixed my 2009 iMac with the weaker ATI 4670. Same procedure, just a smaller card. I'm so happy it's alive again, because it's still my main machine and the best computer I ever owned. I hope it will last me at least a few more years.
my mid 2011 iMac 27" i7 GPU let go yesterday morning. I was at the Genius bar by 11:20, whose diagnostic tests confirmed GPU hardware failure, and a bill for 635 GBP to repair. They already fixed the problem in 2014 under warranty as a "known problem". I followed your advice and baked my GPU at 200 C for 9 minutes, and it worked. Thank you for saving me 635 GBP, but the satisfaction is worth way more than that.
Hi, Thanks for your videos, your last one really helped me with a 2011 27inch bake. I also incurred damage - a capacitor and a piece of the motherboard wire broke off when the motherboard slipped as I was putting it back in- and I asked myself if it was the end... I managed to reattach with a solder bridge, and some how, after baking and resoldering the part back on, and missing a couple of screws (lol), it booted and works (so far) perfectly! Your video was critical to my success, and there were times when I thought you were the only friend I had during the worrying process. Thanks again.
Robert, I'm humbled by your kind words and extremely pleased to hear of your resurrection success, especially in light of that motherboard damage. Kudos to you on your persistence and not giving up. It paid off for you!
My 2009 iMac's GPU died 2 years ago so I put it aside and bought a used 2011 model. Unfortunately that one crapped out on Christmas day and, not being financially able to replace it, I went looking for solutions which led me to your two videos. I did my 2009 one first, using your wonderfully clear steps, and that worked a treat - 200c for 10 minutes. Likewise the 2011 model was treated the same and is working once again! There are some differences with the later model - in particular the logic board must be removed to get at the GPU because Apple put the screws into the heatsink frame the other way. I am now using Macs Fan Control on both computers and hopefully their usefulness is extended for a long time to come. Thank you for your efforts that have helped a lot of people.
Thank you for your kind comments, Mike, and for letting us know of your two successful bakes! Hopefully your experience reported here will help other owners of the 2011 iMac to know that the bake will work for them as well. Best wishes.
Thank you not just for making these 2 videos, but also breaking down each step so thoroughly. My iMac died in May and I've been nervous about getting in the guts for the first time. But I've got nothing to lose and recently found your videos, so I'll be going for a bake sometime next week!
Thank you for the kind words, Ryan. Just be sure you allocate plenty of time so you can go slow and not make the same mistakes I did (like breaking the silly ribbon cable). Also be sure you have a dust blower because getting all the dust out from under the glass when you put the glass back on in the final step is a real bother, let me tell you. Also be sure not to touch the display (the screen under the glass) because that thing is very difficult to clean, even with a good microfiber cloth. Fingerprints really have staying power on it! Best wishes to you on your bake!
Thanks JDW for this second bake tutorial and keeping it updated. I did a first bake last year following your first tutorial. The early 2009 iMac lasted 4 months. I didn’t get to fixing it again until now when I saw you had baked it twice. I did it again, this time following your advice of the thermal paste. Also, I’m changing the hard drive to an SSD. It is back up running and working like a champ. One thing to note is when I took off the backlight cable, and connected it back, I had inadvertently wiggle the connectors slightly loose. This caused the backlight to not come on, making it seem like it hadn’t worked. So just something to note for others attempting this. Once again thanks. I want to see how long this one lasts.
Paul, thank you for providing details about your bake. Did you clean off all the stock thermal paste in your 1st bake and then apply a good paste to the GPU and a thermal pad replacement on the memory chips? Or did you do like me and just use a good thermal paste on the GPU and apply extra thermal paste atop the stock thermal pads? If you followed my lead then such gives evidence that removing the stock paste completely is key. I didn't do that and my 1st bake lasted exactly 4 months like yours. But my second bake is still going strong, lasting 1 year and 7 months so far. Anyway, thank you also for the warning about the backlight cable. Other people who try the bake are pretty good about reading through the comments, so your experience should be helpful to others. Wishing your 2nd bake a long and happy life!
On my first bake I did clean the old paste and applied new thermal grease. The problem was that I didn't apply enough because when I opened for the second bake I saw that the paste hadn't touched the heatsink. This time around I made sure the paste was touching both the video card and the heatsink.@@JDW-
Just finished baking the card for my early 2009 iMac and wanted to say THANK YOU!!! Your videos are informative and inspiring. I was skeptical if this would have worked, but having nothing to loose was pleasantly surprised at the result.
I'm so pleased to hear of your success! I too was skeptical until I watched another RUclipsr's story of his bake and subsequent 17 months of operation without problem. It's pretty strange, but the bake really works. Best wishes!
Wow! I thought this might be a wind up BUT i had nothing to lose so i tried it and it worked! Ha Ha - no idea how long it will last but there we are... Thanks for taking the time to do the video.... i managed to get the video card out without detaching the final wire to the heat sink so i didn't have the faff of trying to reconnect it to the back of the motherboard. I baked the board for 11 minutes at 200 degrees. Reassembled it - turned it on and it worked :-) Sorted - that 27' iMac is a lovely bit of kit.
That's wonderful to hear, Greg. Thank you for letting me know. So far, my 2nd bake has lasted almost 14 months with daily use of several hours per day. Fingers crossed that your iMac can achieve the same. Best wishes!
So about two months ago my Late 2009 27" stopped booting. Like your machine it would get about half way on the progress bar and just freeze until it fell asleep. I took it to a service guy who told me my hard drive was dead and it really wasn't worth fixing because the iMac was so old and all the rest. So I took it home and convinced the wife that I should have a go at putting a new SSD hard drive in myself for a fraction of the cost the repair guy was going to charge and we'd be back up and running with an even faster Mac. I installed a new Samsung EVO 860 SSD, an easy job that was completed without a glitch but when I booted the machine back up it had the same flaw. So I phoned my repair guy and told him the new hard drive didn't work and I was still getting the same issue. He was stumped and suggested the mother board must have died and it was irreparable and I lost hope. A few days past and he called me and asked if I could boot the machine in safe mode, so I did and yes it booted, he then said it most probably was the graphics card causing the issue and I would need to replace it. With a new found hope I started researching new cards and where I could purchase one from when I came across your first video. Now I must admit, when I watched your video I thought you were bonkers putting your Video Card in the oven but after reading all the successful comments from other punters I though I would give it a go and if it didn't work I would just get the new card my repair guy had suggested. Well I'm happy to report I baked my card today and my iMac is as good as new and a lot faster with the new SSD. Thanks for the video. Mick Rogers Yackandandah, Victoria Australia
Michael, that is truly a wonderful story, and I wish to thank you for sharing all the details. The best part is that your exchange of the spinning platter HDD for an SSD was not in vain as you ended up not only with a working machine after the bake, but a much faster one as well. An SSD is the single best performance upgrade for these old Macs, and it draws less power and is completely silent and cool running as well. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
JDW, Thanks for your videos (I watched them all). This works! I just baked my 2011 27" iMac's AMD 6970m GPU and it works again. I simply followed examples shown in several of the youtube videos including yours. I have never done anything like this before. This was the first time I opened up my iMac. While it seems intimidating at first, I did it. The hardest part was reconnecting the power cables behind the Logic Board and from the LCD panel to Logic Board. I put a sequential numbered piece of electrical tape on all of the wires and it went together smoothly. Baked at 400F for 10 minutes. Took about 3 hours to fix. My thanks go to all of the RUclipsrs who filmed the process and also to those users who posted their encouraging success stories too.
Thank you very much for watching all the bake videos, Steadman! I'm certainly pleased to hear your success story, especially because it will help fellow 2011 27" iMac owners who wonder if my late 2009 model bake will really work on their newer models. Yes it will! Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected 2011 iMac!
7 лет назад+3
THE CARD OF SORROWS - Part 2 Hi James, you are a chief !!!! Victory again !!! Loïc.
Hello James. My bake lasted just over one year. The screen went scrambled all of the sudden. I knew it was the graphic card. Did the second bake. Oven at 200 degrees. 10 minutes baking. And... back in business again. That's incredible. By the way. Instead of thermal paste, I used thermal pads. Double layers so it could touch the heatsink. Less messy than the paste. Thanks again.
Sorry to hear that, but 1 year for a first bake is good. I got the longest use out of my second bake, so I hope you get the same. Hopefully you used those thermal pads only on the memory chips, as pads are not made for the GPU. For the GPU K4 Pro is adequate, but Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is just about the best you can get outside liquid metal. (But don't use liquid metal. It's too risky.) My best regards to you and your family in 2022, Emanuele!
Hopefully this bake will be a good one for you. One trick I've seen with trying to reflow BGA chips is to put a small stack (say 3 or 5) small copper coins on top of the GPU during the heating. This applies a constant few grams of weight to the GPU and also focuses the heat a little onto the centre of the chip. I was just given a 27" 2009 iMac that's failed again after a similar repair, so will try the coins to see if it helps. Thanks for taking the time to shoot the video - it's been useful.
It's somewhat of a sound theory and one that I personally believe could be true insofar as baking (200°C heat) seems to resolve those problems internal to the chip, at least for a while. Even so, no one has thus far presented hard evidence (such as a chip disassembly or scan) to prove that theory. But one thing is certain, it is either the ball connections or the connections internal to the GPU IC, either of which are temporarily fixed by heat. Funny too, because it seems clear, as you have pointed out, that heat actually causes the problem in the first place due to inadequate ventilation!
Yes and then ????? The Late 2009 iMac 27" Video Card is no longer manufactured. This card (ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 Mo) has more than six years so Apple does not want to repair it and can not replace it. Then could you explain to me how to do ??? Could you build a new chip for my old card , or a new card for my old Mac ? (or a new Mac for me, I'm not that old :-) ) In the meantime, I do it myself. Loïc.
I am fairly tech-able, but your video gave me the confidence to take on quite a daunting task! I wasn't going to spend £100s to save a near 10-year old PC! It worked, following video 1, as per video 2 (10 minutes @ 200C) and I have now left it running now for a few hours. Many thanks for such clear & helpful videos!
That's wonderful news, Charlie. Thank you for letting me know of your success in a comment under both my videos. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
I want to let you know that I followed your guide and I was able to fix the AMD graphic card inside my mid 2010 27" iMac. The screen was totally black, everything else was working fine (could hear sound and blindly open random apps). After a few research on the topic I'd like to add my 2 cents for a long lasting and succesful Reballing. The trick seems to be in letting the card cool down naturally inside the oven, in about 30/40 minutes till it gets to environmental temperature. It seems that the thing causing the microsolding to detach in the first place is the sudden heating and cooling of the card, in absence of plumb in the solding (which apparently gives more elasticity tough, alas, being poisonous). So letting it cool down slowly helps the solding stay attached to the motherboard.
Thank you for sharing your successful bake experience, David. I believe there is logic to what you said; however, even a brand new card won't last forever. (In my experience, a new card from Apple lasted all of 3 years, just like the stock card did.). But it will be interesting to see how many years of use you get out of your bake in light of your slow cooling technique. As such, it would be appreciated if you could report back every six months or so and let us all know if your card is still running strong. Best wishes!
Hi. Hope you and family in good health. Just checking in to give an update. 2 years later and my iMac still running smoothing. Much appreciated once again 👍
I always get excited when I hear multi-year "still working!" updates! Thank you for making time to let me know. I truly hope you get another 2 years out of that bake! Best wishes to you and your family!
JDW all of your videos are great! My 2011 27inch screen all of the sudden have the vertical green bands and then after a couple reboots trying to get into safe mode (before I new what was happening) it would just boot halfway with the apple and then just stay white with no green anomalies . For this reading here the 2011 has GPU mounting screws on the back side of the logic board making access much more involved with 17 plugs and an assortment of screws to remove the logic board. I personally found it enjoyable and rewarding using a piece of card board with a marker to draw a childish diagram of the logic board and tapped the screws as I removed them onto this cardboard. It made it easy. JDW the bake worked!!! I have one question. Mine had paste on the GPU that I had to remove. Did it come this way new or did it come with pads and someone else was in there. I bought this used.3 years ago. Thanks again JDW! I subscribed :)
Thank you for your kind words and for sharing details of your experience.Apple would have put paste on the GPU chip and then separately used thermal pads on each of the memory chips. So you must clean off all of the old paste and thermal pads, and then you need to replace the paste on the GPU and then either use thermal pads or K5 Pro on the memory chips. You cannot use the same paste on all of those chips because there is a gap between the memory chips and the heat sink, but there is no gap between the heat sink and the GPU. That is why two different types of pests are required.
@@liashalvashvili7872 No. K4 Pro is only for the GPU. K5 Pro is only for the Memory Chips. If you want to use some other good paste for the GPU, such as Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut or MX-4, that is fine. But you must use K5 Pro on the memory chips. In other words, you must use two different kinds of pastes. And never use K5 Pro on the GPU. It is not made for that. K5 Pro is a "thermal pad replacement paste." It is only for use on memory chips which do not get too hot. It is made to be used when there is a gap between the top of the chips and the bottom of the heatsink. There is no gap between the GPU and the heatsink, and the GPU gets much hotter too. So again, use K4 Pro on the GPU and K5 Pro on the memory chips and you will be fine.
Oliver, it's truly mind boggling, isn't it? The very fact that baking your video card will in any way make it work better goes against common sense. Yet it works and works well! Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
Hello Mr. James - thank you for your 101 video bake tutorial. I followed every step and ordered ingredients from Greece! You created an option for cure & success ... and WOW I have cured the video issues I had. I use FCPX for video editing and although I still have issues with fcpx program share ... I have my iMac back for other operations such as typing, e-mail etc ... that's what really important ... as soon as I was able - I was compelled to write you and thank you so much. My iMac has been running for 48 hrs (cool like a cucumber) and I have put it through some rigorous phases with multi-tasking, rendering, download large files etc ALL AT ONCE and NO Video Complaints. Now that I've opened the iMac for the first-time .. it will not be the last as I intend to upgrade follow your specs and replace a few more parts (video card, video 90 degree bend cable, lcd backlight strip, SSD and fan) to complete at a a later date when I pluck up some more courage. Thank you so much ... great video. Rasta Love. Moss Side, Manchester, England
Thank you for the kind words and for sharing your success story, Paul. I'm so happy to hear the bake solved your video card woe! If you do decide to re-open your Mac and make any one upgrade, I would say it should be swapping the hard disk for a 1TB Samsung EVO SSD. That's what I did and it really makes your machine feel like a new computer. Also, if you have only 8GB of RAM, I would suggest upgrading to 16GB, especially if you share your computer with someone else who has another user. I share that iMac with my wife and she leaves her user open most of the time, so 8GB isn't enough for us. My iMac was running like a snail until I upgrade to 16GB and now it's running at top speed. Best wishes!
Wrong. The K5 Pro is a thermal pad replacement. If you watch the manufacturer's own videos you will see that I apply the same liberal amount they do. To NOT do that would be to NOT close the wide gap between the memory chips and the heatsink. That is why thermal pads are used instead of thermal paste on those chips. Furthermore, even if one still wishes to contend that "it's too much" consider well that any excess will spill over and not prove any kind of detriment at all. And lastly, I have first hand experience with this paste in my iMac since that 2nd bake and I can confirm the application of the K4 and K5 Pro in my video is working very well, not leaking out from the heatsink and keeping temperatures at or lower than what they were before (in my 1st bake I used Arctic Silver V on the GPU and general white paste on the memory chips, atop the old thermal pads).
chickenwing986 is quite correct. You are using WAY too much compound. You need to read the Arctic Silver documentation. You just need to put one 1-2mm wide line down the centre of the GPU and it will spread out. Also you should be removing the old thermal pads and look into getting new ones. Adding compound on top of this is a big no no and problem. Once you have the machine stable, you should look into increasing the fan speeds for the Optical Drive fan (which also cools the GPU). please also look at the heatsink tubes, some develop pinholes and the phase change liquid inside evaporates, making the Heatsink ineffective.
Also 'tinting' the heatsink side by spreading a layer of compound all around then actually removing is the correct way to add the compound to the heatsink side to fill all the micro crevices and valleys.
Charlie, thank you for sharing your thoughts and suggestions. While you may wish to argue that the Arctic Silver documentation offers good advice for any thermal paste, the fact remains that I am not using Arctic Silver in this "2nd Bake" video at all. Thermal pads come in two forms: (1) the traditional thermal pads we all know and love, er, hate (which is what Apple used), and (2) the thick thermal compound created, manufactured and sold as K5 Pro (which I used) by the company below in Greece: www.computer-systems.gr/content/k5-pro I watched their demonstration videos on RUclips where they used a lot of that thick (thermal pad replacement) paste, just like I did. I then read some comments under at least one of their RUclips videos which speak negatively about it like you did; namely, comments saying "it's way too much!" Here's one of the videos where you can read such comments, but note the replies by the manufacturer (and myself): ruclips.net/video/mukUInQ34J4/видео.html I can attest to the fact that "too much" (if one dares say it is too much FOR THAT PARTICULAR PASTE) has worked flawlessly on my iMac for the last 7 months. Indeed, it was when I used a tiny amount of Arctic Silver V in my 1st bake that the bake lasted only 4 months. Whether that was due to the paste or something else, I do not know, but it is an observation to ponder. I do agree with you about applying paste (the normal, thin kind -- which is K4 Pro in my video) to the heatsink side, spread it around, then remove most all of it (by gently wiping, not with a cleaner), in order to fill all the microscopic hills and valleys. Agreed. Hands-down, that is sage advice for anyone, anywhere, with any normal thermal compound and nearly any kind of heatsink. But it's a different matter with the thick thermal compound that acts as a replacement for thermal pads, which seems to be made only by that one company in Greece and no where else. I also agree about ramping up the fan speed, which is what I did using third party apps (see the text description under my video for links) after my 1st bake and after my 2nd bake too. Agreed. I increase the speed of all fans inside my Mac to keep it cooler. But despite having done that, my 1st bake lasted only 4 months. Something to bear in mind. Lastly, even if one argues that I applied too much thermal paste (which I actually did NOT do -- I applied the PROPER amount in accordance to the directions of the K4 Pro and K5 Pro manufacturer), the fact remains that I have had 7 months of daily continuous use out of my late 2009 iMac after my 2nd bake, where I used that so-called "excessive amount" of paste. It's my personal believe that it is more likely someone will use too little paste than too much. And if my 7 months of ongoing use is any indication, I used the right amount of paste for this particular paste type and this particular application. Best wishes.
Martin Law, ditto my earlier comments. My 2nd bake has lasted more than 7 months as of this comment, and it runs COOLER than it ever did before. It’s the proper amount for this type of paste, applied in strict accordance to what the paste maker suggests. Again, my 7 months of daily testing proved that the amount I applied is not wrong nor worthy of criticism.
Hey JDW, just wanted to chime in and say thank you for being so methodical in your videos! I watched your first iMac baking video as well as the second and was confident enough to perform it myself - and I'm happy to report that my "card of sorrows" is fully operational once more! =) I actually had to go back and remove my screen / LCD twice as I forgot to connect the Wifi cable (I had it tucked away for tidiness during the surgery) I'm hoping I get a year of additional service out of it but if not, I'm confident to do this surgery in under 10 minutes and will try out a newer card such as the Radeon 6970. Anyway, thank you again, and for those reading that are about to perform this - just take your time in following the steps and everything will be fine.
Thank you Sir! I followed your original video, then dipped into this one for the bake and my broken iMac has new life. You have saved me several hundred ££ and also taught me some new skills and knowledge of my iMac. Thank you so much.
Hello Mr JDW...I want to say thank you for your 1st and 2nd bake video. I was very hesitant to take on a dismantle project like this and to do the bake, and putting everything back together. I had nothing to lose so i went ahead and gave it a shot. The damn thing works!!! I was in deep and once i had everything taken apart, I kept thinking there is no way this is going to work. I baked the graphics card at 395 F, for 10 minutes. Since i had everything taken apart and wasn't sure if any of this was going to work, I decided to also open the CPU. I cleaned it and used the Thermal pad with a drop of MX-4, which helped keep the pad in place. I then assembled the graphics card with thermal pad and a drop of MX-4 on both side of the pad. I also used the paste from greece (K5-PRO) on the chips. I put everything back together, crossed my fingers and turned on the computer. To my complete amazement the computer TURNED ON!!!!! Thank you, thank you thank you for both your videos, your explanations and attention to detail!!!! My jaw is still on the floor. I cannot believe this worked and a complete amateur, someone that has never opened up a computer was able to have success in doing this. Your videos, in conjunction with the iFixit tool kit, the paste and MX-4 from Amazon.com, was all less than $75. Total time from taken off the screen, to putting it back on and the computer working, was probably one day and half. I'm writing this literally 15 minutes after turning the computer back on. Now that its working my next project is to replace the hard drive with an SSD. Thank you again and Godspeed!!!!!
Phill, what a wonderful success story! Thank you for all your kind words. I am so happy to hear your iMac is up and running again. $75 is certainly cheaper than what Apple would have charged you to fix it, and although it took you a day and a half, you obviously seem to feel it was worth the effort. I certainly did. There's something indescribable about fixing something yourself, especially when you are unsure if your labors will bear fruit. Your labor paid off. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
I did the baking procedure just now and reinstalled the graphic card in my iMac and the machine works again! i am really thankful for this good instruction video which helped me a lot! Thank you for your great video! My machine just broke yesterday by showing weird patterns on the screen and freezing afterwards so I was suspicious that the graphic card might have gone crazy. Thanks to google I found your tutorial! I baked at 200°C for 10 mins and I am hoping that the card will last some extra time now Thanks again!
After many months of swopping out hard drives with multiple images , checking Ram / cables / trying different OS’s , finally I came across your video on baking. I was like Whatttt , baking a Graphics card😳 it was my last hope and yesterday I followed your step by step tutorial and thanks to u , I have my 27” iMac 2009 spec up and running again. Thank you for sharing the video as it’s a great help to follow iMac users and saves us a ton of money 💰. Technicians at the iStore looked at me like mad when I told them the solution to solving this issue. I was asking an electrical engineer why does baking solve this issue , according to him over time the older boards soldering points / pins loses contact , and baking them binds them back together again. Thank again and will keep updating thread over time as well to update the life of my iMac
Thank you for sharing your detailed success story! As you can see from the large number of comments and views on both of my bake videos, this is unfortunately a rather common problem with 2009 through 2012 27-inch iMacs. The bake is time consuming but it does work for most people who try it. Please feel free to comment back here over time to let everyone know the longevity of your bake. Best wishes!
Thanks to this channel and the amount of useful information JDW has been sharing, I've been able to resurrect my 27" 2011 iMac. My machine was showing the following symptoms after powering up: Chime, Apple logo, charging bar, white screen. I didn't have any horizontal/vertical lines of any kind of artifacts on the screen, and Apple Hardware Test appeared perfectly, without any graphic anomalies, which is why I was in doubt if it really was the GPU. So yesterday, May the 11th 2020, I disassembled the machine, took the logic board out (necessary for the 2011 model), cleaned off all the previous thermal paste (it took me quite a long time, but it's essential) and baked it at 200ºC for 10 minutes. After cooling off, I repasted with K4 and K5 pro (thank you for that tip James!), reassembled everything and voila: the machine booted up and is now running like a charm! Well, before that I had forgotten to reconnect the power button cable, so I needed to open it up again as there was no reaction to pressing the power button. I can't thank you enough for consulting me the previous days via email and I hope all the positive feedback on the comment section of all your videos encourage you to keep going with your content! I have taken pictures of the old pasting which Apple did on the repair (this was the second time my GPU has failed, I suppose Apple has replaced the card when it happened the first time) and also of my pasting job, but I don't know what the best method is to share them here in the comment section. I also installed iStat Menus for monitoring temperatures. I'd be glad to share my results once I know how to share the screenshots here on youtube. I insist on thanking you for your guidance and all the good work James! If it weren't for your content, I would have given up. Thank you!!
Thank you for your kind words and for the detailed experience you shared, Iam. With regard to sharing photos, I would suggest uploading them to a free service like Flickr or even a cloud service like DropBox or CloudApp so you can then get a shareable link that you can post in a new comment. I allow people to post links here. It’s not a problem. Glad your iMac is up and running now. Best wishes!
@@JDW- Thanks for suggesting those free services, I've uploaded all 17 photos I've taken of the heatsink/videocard through the whole process. They include some pictures that show the Apple Service's paste job as well as my clean job before putting it in the oven and finally the paste job I did. I'll attach the link at the end of the comment. Notice the spillover touching the golden pins of the card that Apple's Service did (I took the picture before removing the card from the logic board). And the spillover with the other paste around the GPU chip was a pain in the neck to clean up and remove! Furthermore, it looks as if they've used K5 Pro to me (my eye for that isn't trained at all, I might be wrong about that. It felt still moist by the way). If you have any comments regarding the pictures, I'd be glad to read them. www.flickr.com/gp/iamhannover/7BD488
@@iamhannover Very odd. I found your post in my SPAM folder here on RUclips today. That's strange because I swore I wrote a reply to you 1 month ago. Well, here are my thoughts again. Your photos of the paste (prior to your cleaning and bake) looks burned as if someone baked the video card and the heatsink with paste and everything! I don't see how else you could explain the burned portions of what looks to be K5 Pro (on the memory chips). I am glad though that your bake was a success. Please keep me updating on how it's doing over time. Best wishes!
Hey man! Thanks a lot. Just baked my Graphic Card yesterday and today i put the IMac late 2009. It works like a charm. Unbelievable. Computer was getting stuck on loading. After calling several service repair I was told that probably the problem is the Graphic Card. Cost to fix it about 260 euros. Turn around about seven days. When I asked why I was told that needs to be dismantled and the card put in a special machine with hi temperature. I was puzzled. Then I googled the problem and I came across your videos. I didn't think it twice. Opened the iMac and went for the second bake because I didn't have to remove the motherboard. The only changes I made is that I used thermal pads all around. I used the paste only on the main CPU part or the Graphic Card. Also replaced the HDD with SSD. To make a long story short. It works. Thanks again for the great video. Ciao. Emanuele
Congratulations on your successful bake, Emanuele! I actually had one service guy wrote a comment in the past saying he disliked my videos and that I was spreading misinformation (which of course is not true). Fact is that when people do the bake to repair their video card themselves, it means less business for the repair guys! :-) Even though the bake doesn't last forever, I still think it's worth it because even if you spend that 260 Euros, that fix too will not last forever! Best wishes!
@@JDW- Hey James. Thanks for the reply. I agree with you. Besides, I had to drive to the computer repair place.. They told me it would take ten days. They did not garantee that my iMac was going to be repaired. Bla, bla, bla. So, again, I took things in my hand thanks to you. On top of that it was fun. It was challenging. I got the chance to see inside an iMac. Realized that is not rocket scienze. And when I turned the iMac back on and it loaded, perfectly and in no time. I screamed: Yesssss! :). Have a nice day.
Thank you so much for your baking video tutorials. I finally got the thermal paste and BR2032 battery and did the bake at 400F for 10 to 11 minutes. I was able to replace the battery on the MB without removing the wires by just removing the screws and clip, pulling the MB away, and flipping it out with dental pick. I saw in your video which side the slot access was to insert the pick. I put everything back together, and the graphics card is now functioning again. I will add another comment if and when it fails again. Again, thank you for your excellent videos! Tim
Thank you for letting us know the details of your successful bake. And yes, if your video card fails again at some point, I would certainly appreciate hearing the time elapsed until failure. Best wishes!
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I just want to say a HUGE THANK YOU for this tutorial. I followed everything carefully and really appreciated all the details you gave. I now have a brand new old iMac 27" 2009 with a freshly baked video card and a new SSD. Thanks again for taking the time to share your experience!
Thank you for making time to share your story of success! Glad to also hear you installed an SSD, as that makes a big difference in performance. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
I just wanted to say thank you so much for taking the time to make this video. After being told by the computer tech how much it would cost to fix this problem, i almost just got rid of the computer. a $20 bottle of thermal paste later and my computer is running great. Thanks again!
Thank you for making time to comment and let me know of your success. By the way, how much did the repair shop want to fix your iMac? (I assume they were going to do the standard "reball" of the GPU chip on the video card?)
Thank you for the information. $300 is about what you'd pay if you bought the same video card on EBAY, so that price quote isn't bad. It's the going rate. I personally think it is too much for such an old and problem-prone card, but "supply and demand" is at work. Also, anything with the Apple brand seems to be priced into the stratosphere regardless of how old and obsolete it is. All said, it's cheapest to do the repair yourself, assuming you have the time and determination. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
Exact same model with same problem. Five vertical bars at startup and then funny little square line pattern all over the screen. It would then stop about halfway in the booting progress bar. Followed you video and it work. Thanks a million.
Thanks so much for your two videos! I'm yet another user who is typing this message on my restored 2010 iMac. Before baking the GPU, it kept repeating the startup chime (about every 5 seconds), with a black screen. No keyboard overrides would get it to boot or do anything other than chime continuously. I used Arctic Silver on the GPU, thermal-conductive pad on the memories, and Arctic MX4 on the large chip resistors. While watching this video GPU diode is at 53C, GPU heatsink at 49C, GPU proximity at 51C.
Thanks wonderful to hear, Jeff! Thanks for sharing your success story. The only thing I can suggest is that you download one of the fan control apps mentioned in the Text Description above (click "SHOW MORE" to expand it), and set all fans to 2000rpm. Noise isn't too bad. That's what I use. It keeps the machine running a bit cooler than stock fan control. Best wishes!
@@JDW- A followup more than a year later... My 2010 iMac is still going strong. No gpu or other hardware problems at all. I took your advice to install Macs Fan Control to keep the temps a little lower. Thanks again!
@@JeffInCO483 Thank you for the 1 year update, Jeff. I'm certainly glad to hear that video card is still going strong. The bake doesn't last forever, but I do hope you can get at least the same 2 years and 9 months I got out of my second bake!
Oh Mr James ... bytheway you are absolutely right regarding the paste from Greece ... I punished the video card ... not too much ... but just enough as you suggested .. and I have amazing results .. 'the grease from Greece' work's because it is non-conductive and gives amateurs like me some room for learning how to apply paste. Blessings to you and your Family ..everytime.
Thank you for your wonderful comment just now on iFixit, Veronica. And as I said in reply there, best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac! He's a happy "dino" now! :-)
I too baked my video card today and it also worked! I thought it was done for when I figured out what the problem was and discovered the price of a replacement GPU. Thank you for the tutorial.
I've had to do this maybe 5 or 6 times over the years. It lasts for around a year or so but always breaks again and the bake always fixes it. The lead-free solder they used in all of these cards is just bad and will grow splinters over time. This last time I baked my card I broke the flimsy vsync cable (the small one you broke) and am glad its pretty easy to replace.
That’s a lot of bakes! My first bake lasted only 4 months, but I didn’t fully clean off the stock thermal pads after that bake, and the paste I applied was old. My second bake is still going strong after 2 years and 3 months, and I was sure to clean off all the old paste and then applied brand new K4 and K5 Pro. So I don’t know if my card simply needed 2 bakes or if the thermal paste I used is special, but again, it’s still going strong for more than 2 years if daily use, 3-5 hours per day, including GPU intensive gaming.
I just wanted to thank you for putting this wonderful tutorial on RUclips! I initially saw your 4th bake video, and you mentioned your success with the 2nd bake, so I went along with what you did in this one. I have a 27" mid-2011 iMac, and I didn't have the easier option of freeing the graphics card, so I really appreciate seeing how you took it all apart in this video. I used tape to hold the wires in place after disconnecting, and I successfully reattached them all in the end! There was a big issue with trying to put the motherboard back in. I ended up having to take out all of the RAM, and it slid in perfectly without any issues. I also want to thank you for listing the necessary items. This truly was the best tutorial that I found. I had an issue with the computer suddenly fritzing out on me. I ended up with 5 pink vertical lines on the screen. It didn't even show the apple. It was just blank with the 4 lines. Somehow I found out about this "ridiculous" idea of baking the graphics card in the oven. I am now a believer. I preheated the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and placed the graphics card, just as you did on the 4 little foil mountains for 10 minutes. The computer turned on at 3:12am PST on June 1, 2020. Let's see how long it lasts!
Crystal, thank you for making time to share details of your successful bake. It certainly is a "ridiculous" idea when you ponder it, but then when you actually do it the amazement sets in. I was in your shoes when I first tried it. The bake doesn't have eternal life, unfortunately, but in my experience it does last long enough for it to have been worth the time and effort. Please keep me updated on how your iMac is doing over time. Best wishes!
@@JDW- It may not have eternal life, but that graphics card is already lasting 5 days longer than it would have otherwise! Fingers crossed that the next time I reply is in 2+ years!
@@daviddamini2185 Currently at about 1 year and 7 months...and the computer has been on nearly every day since new life was baked into the graphics card. I did increase the speed of the fans to avoid any overheating, so other than the noise from the fans, it has worked without any physical issues all this time. Honestly, the biggest issue is that High Sierra is the last upgrade made available for my mid-2011 iMac.
@@crystalweber5520 Wow that's incredible, i want to do my first bake, after my gpu gave up yesterday (White Screen Issue) But your comment as well as the others give me mich hope. Thank you for that :) Do you have some additional tips? did you also Apply new paste to the CPU? Again thank you for the Reply :)
Thanks a lot, you saved my iMac. I am a complete beginner and never opened a mac in my life and it was easy. Even though I didn't expect it to work it totally did. THANK YOU. 🤗
It worked. This method works. My mac is running Again, i will Update the Status in order to give more people faith in that method. Thank you for the Video and your Tips, aswell as the community. Have faith 🙏🏼
Absolutely fantastic process! Literally saved hundreds if not thousands of dollars (had I bought a new iMac as planned). The residual thermal paste from the factory looked ok but I thoroughly removed it nevertheless.I had some 95PGF4 perfumers grade ethanol on hand- reasoning that any water in the ethanol solution would evaporate in the oven. The thermostat on my gas stove oven only had one setting but after a preheat I'm confident it was at least 180' Celsius. I chose Arctic Silver (conductive) for the GPU and Noctua NT-H1 non- conductive for the surrounding chips as my local computer store didn't have any K4/K5. Overall this has been a great learning experience and I really enjoyed the list of tools required, descriptive video and also your reminder of "TAKING YOUR TIME'. Thank you so much!
Thank you very much, you really saved my iMac. In my case, the images started to show strange colors in some areas, and the background when starting up showed some patterns. The equipment worked without problem, but it was impossible to do photo retouching. I have to say that for being 11 years old, it is perfect after changing the hard drive for an SSD. This rig certainly didn't deserve the old HDD. My first cooking and it seems that everything went well. 8 minutes, approximately 200º C in a traditional airless oven. The most complicated has been the graphics cable, very difficult to remove and putting it back on has been a leap of faith. I hope it lasts a long time. Nice!!
Thank you for sharing details of your successful bake, Juan! The bake doesn’t last forever, but if the 2 years and 9 months of daily use from my 2nd bake can be used as an example, some bakes really do last a long time. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
4/3/18: I have an iMac late 2009, 27" with Radeon HD 4850-512MB Graphics Card. Last month, I started to experience Black Screen after Wake-Up from Sleep. Re-boot would fix it. Then I got 5 vertical pink bands one day. It would not re-boot then. Re-boot in Safe Mode was OK but the bands were still there. At least I could limp along. So I followed your instructions, cleaned the entire card well with alcohol, baked it in a Toaster Oven, 400 deg. F (used an accurate oven thermometer) for 10 minutes with 6 quarters on top of the GPU chip for weight. I too had to replace my Vertical Synch Ribbon Cable [922-9161] (thanks Amazon) because the foils got unglued. Reinstalled the Graphics Card (with K-4 & K-5 Pro paste) and all is good for 1 week now. AMAZING this trick worked. I'll report again if it fails. Thanks for good video, JDW.
Thank you for providing your success story and for letting me know all the details of your bake and repair. I read and reply to every single comment made under both of my bake videos, and I can tell you that out of all the comments, all but 3 people have been successful with the bake. And those 3 probably forgot to reconnect something, because I advised them to check that and 2 never replied back. It is possible that some cards are too far gone to be baked back to life, but in the vast majority of cases, the bake really works. Best wishes!
Thanks for your reply. Gets opened again tomorrow to replace an aging 1TB HDD with a slim and fast 1TB SSD. Was too unsure to do both the bake and the replace at the same time. Best wishes.
this works! i've had this problem, used this solution and the imac is booting and working normally again. it's sort of unbelievable but it's real. thank you for sharing!
Thank you so much for your video. I baked my graphics card today and to my amazement it worked. I had taken the iMac to the Apple store and they had diagnosed a faulty hard drive but I had my doubts when it wouldn't boot from an external disk. I would have never attempted it without your video but I couldn't face removing the motherboard.
Thank you for sharing your success story! Removing the entire motherboard is only necessary on 2009 models when you want to change the PRAM batter on back. It’s silly they put it there. It would have been more wisely placed on the front. Best wishes!
Thanks for the great tutorial! I baked my 2009 27" iMac graphics card yesterday in an oven at 200°C for 10 minutes. Left it for the next day to cool-down. Put it back in the imac and It is running well. it took me in total 3 hours
@@simplebasiclife I am very sorry to hear that. Two weeks is unusually short for a 1st bake, so if you don't mind, I have a few questions: (1) Did you clean off all the old paste prior to your bake on both the video card and the heatsink? (2) Did you verify with an oven safe thermometer that your oven temperature is spot-on 200°C? (3) Did you allow your oven to warm to 200°C before you put the card inside? (4) What paste did you use on the GPU and Memory Chips after your bake?
@@JDW- (1) Did you clean off all the old paste prior to your bake on both the video card and the heatsink? Yes i did. (2) Did you verify with an oven safe thermometer that your oven temperature is spot-on 200°C? I pre headed the oven to 200. I did not use a oven safe thermometer (3) Did you allow your oven to warm to 200°C before you put the card inside? Yes i did (4) What paste did you use on the GPU and Memory Chips after your bake? The same paste as you used and ordered it from amazon
@@simplebasiclife Thank you for your quick reply, Mark. Having experience reading every comment under all my bake videos, I feel there are only 2 possible explanations as to why your 1st bake lasted only 2 weeks: (1) actual oven temperature is lower than what you set, or (2) your video card was too far gone for the bake to resurrect it long term.
Well done again JDW. I followed your advice and did the same procedure on my Mid 2011 27" iMac. It ran for 11 months and now I will again do the same procedure that you have just done. I will follow your steps to the letter and have ordered the same paste that you have used and will apply them in the same quantity. Thanks for perservering with this.
Thank you for your kind words. So you baked your video card 11 months ago, after seeing my 1st Bake Video, correct? And now your video card has failed again so you want to do another bake, this time based on my 2nd Bake video, correct? If so, then of course I would recommend that you use K4 Pro and K5 Pro thermal pastes like I used in my 2nd Bake video.
That's correct. I have a mid 2011 27" iMac and there is one difference that I have noticed and that being the screws that hold the GPU onto the motherboard are on the reverse making the removal of the GPU slightly different in that I have to at least take the Motherboard off to enable access to the GPU screws. I have ordered both sets of K4 and K5 Pro and am awaiting their delivery. Will let you know how I get on. Thanks again for such clear instructions.
I used MX4 on the first bake on all chips, but this time I have used HY810 on the main processor and K5-Pro on the other chips. Back together and working. I am replying on my 2nd rebaked Mid 2011 27' iMac.
Thank you for your videos about disambling and assembling the iMac. I had vertical lines on late 2009 iMac and I bake video card at 200° for around 8:00 minutes. And afterwards iMac started properly. Let see how long it will last.
Small thing to improve the process I did not remove the black piece of foamed material that is on the video card, seems it can resist 200 degrees Celsius.
Many thanks for this and the original bake video. My 09 iMac's original GFX card failed at about 5 years old but then I was lucky that Apple repaired it at very low cost. Now they would not touch it and 3rd party repair wanted £400 making it an uneconomical repair. I watched your video, ordered suction cups and thermal paste and today I baked the card and all is right again. Thank you so much.
@@Bunter1815 Oh my! I'm very sorry to heart that, and quite a surprise too! Please let me know how your new bake goes. I do know what you're going through. It's a real bother to do all that work again. But so long as you can get at least another year out of a bake, it's worth it. After that, when the bakes stop working, you have to consider options on a replacement card.
Thanks JDW for your in detailed video about this model of the imac. It is indeed tough to break one of the cables of the screen. It happend to me too on our imac 2013 21inch. and I did the same you did orderd a new one at aliexpress. As for the bake process, I did do this. I was just browsing youtube for information about an imac 27inch with the black screen problem. and your video helped to find out how much amount of work it is. Thanks!
I'm very pleased to hear my video was of help to you, Gerko. Breaking cables is always disappointing, but once fixed and once the bake is done, you're in business! Best wishes!
Thank you so much for your Video! I had to Bake the Card in my MID-2011 27" (which required removing the main board) However following your (and others) videos I was able to complete the repair. That clip for the IR sensor holding the board in stumped me too until I saw the part in your video where you explained it so I didn't waste too much time on it. The IMAC is working now and updating software as I type this. Thanks again
That IR sensor clip cost me a huge amount of time, so I’m glad to hear my video saved you that pain! Thank you also for sharing your story of success. Best wishes!
Hi. Thanks for the video. My 2009 27” iMac gpu failed last week , resulting in the green bars on my screen. Purchased the paste from Greece and did the bake having watched your video. Computer running fine now , but I have installed a free fan controller app to run the fans basically all the time . 👍 Ps that small temp sensor was so much fun to connect to the back of the motherboard, in the end I did what you had done and removed the screws and tilted it forward a bit .
Thank you for your June 2018 update! And of course thank you for this video (and the previous one). I think I will be following in the same path to fix my iMac... It's great that you wrote down everything you used, in the video description. It's very helpful.
Armin, thank you for your kind words, and thank you for taking time to read the Description under the video, seeing that many people overlook that. I read and reply to every comment under both of these videos, and I can tell you that most people who try the bake are successful. In fact, out of all the comments who reported back with success stories (which comprise most of the comments), only about 4-5 people reported back with problems, and some of those I was able to help by telling them to recheck their connections. Only a couple people had video cards too far gone to bake back to life. So in a nutshell, I think the 3+ hours it takes to do the job is worth it, especially in light of the fact I am now going on my 12th month of use after my 2nd bake. I can only suggest that you use the same pastes I did in my 2nd bake. They are worth it. Best wishes!
Followed the video and worked perfectly on my 2009 iMac, I used all the supplies you link in the description. Many thanks for saving my machine. . The only thing I did different was to disassemble the graphic card from the heat sink with out unpluging the little cable and leaving the heat-sink in the computer . One of the 4 locating pins on the screen cover did come unattached, but can't see this being an issue at all
That's great to hear, Mark. When you say, "locating pins" are you talking about one of the "screws" that holds the display in place? If so, please know that one of my screws really doesn't screw down, but there are enough other screws to keep the display mounted without worry. If that is not what you meant, please let me know.
To follow up, I too did the bake in the toaster oven. To my surprise not only has it been working but I ended up cooking it at about 250 for 11 minutes. I had put it in at 200, washed some dishes by time I got to it, the thermometer read 250 and longer then your 9 minutes. I thought for sure I ruined it. Let it cool down and re-install, and it's freaking working. I did buy the K5 and Arctic Silver. Fingers crossed. Thanks
Thank you for letting us know that 250°C for 11 minutes works well and does not harm the board. No doubt it loosened pretty much all the solder joints, regardless of solder type. Leaded solder (the good stuff) melts at either 183°C or 188°C, depending on the formulation. The nasty lead-free stuff melts at between 210°C and 230°C, depending on the formulation.
Thank you so much for these amazing videos! I was able to fix my iMac (2009, 27'') using the bake. Something I noticed was that not all the iMac screws could be unscrewed using a Torx T10 sized driver - some screws required the T9. (I thought I would mention it since in the RUclips description it sounds like all screws could be unscrewed using the T10)
Hey JDW, I wanted to say thanks again, and also give an update - my bake lasted for around 14 months (so I'm very pleased!). I've made another bake, and so far it's going well..(one mistake I made during the second bake though was letting a screw fall into the case when screwing back on the display. Since it fell in the left-hand fan area, I figured it would be fine to leave it there)
@JDW: Thanks for all this helpful content. Baking my 2009 iMac graphics card fixed reproducible boot freezes (iFixIt marked complete). I followed the motherboard in-place procedure described here with the following adjustments: 1. The GC heatsink assembly temperature sensor wire remained attached to the underside of the motherboard throughout the entire process. A mat was placed over the motherboard to protect it during the work. Take care to avoid damage to this wire while removing and inserting the GC assembly; the wires near the sensor can be damaged from interference with a ventilation partition in this area under the GCC assembly. When this damage occurs, the ODD fan will run full speed; the $10 TG Pro utility was invaluable chasing this problem down. 2. Oven *and tray* were preheated to 200ºC (measured by pointing an infrared thermometer at the tray). Then the card was placed on the tray and oven turned off with the oven door closed for 10 minutes. During this time the temperature of the tray coasted down to 180ºC. The intent here was to use a less aggressive bake to avoid the risk of damaging the board by dropping components. 3. To facilitate placing the card on a hot tray, a stand was created with 3 flathead wood screws held in position with some wire to align the pointed screw tips with graphics card mounting holes. 4. Since a less aggressive bake was used, to be prepared for a second bake *if it had been necessary*, the card was tested briefly to verify a good boot by dry assembling (no paste) the heatsink/board and mounting the board without the support frame. Once booted and immediately shutdown, the computer was reassembled with paste per the procedure here.
Thank you for providing all the detailed steps in your baking procedure, Steve. I'm sure that will be helpful to those who wish to follow your lead, especially about taking care with the temperature. So long as the temperature doesn't rise too much above 200°C and remain at that high level during the bake, there is no concern components will fall off due to excessive heat. But I am curious to hear back from you in the future regarding the longevity of your bank. I think it would be safe to say that if you get at least a year out of your bake, your method of turning off the oven and letting heat fall to 180°C would then be a very safe and excellent recommend! Best wishes!
Just reporting a successful bake of my 2009 27 inch. The card was slightly physically smaller than yours. Also I even managed to avoid detaching the GPU temperature gauge cable! I didn't use the alcohol, just rubbed all clean with a tissue. 10 mins at 200 fan oven. Used the Greek paste. Let's see how long it lasts. Thanks a lot for the great tip!
Thank you for sharing your story of success, Wojciech! My iMac is still going strong 1 year and 6 months after my 2nd bake. If for some reason your bake doesn't last as long, be sure to report back. But I must say that I read and reply to every comment on both of my bake videos, and hardly anyone posts follow-up comments saying their iMac stopped working. I'm not sure if that's because they got a new Mac or if it is because, like me, their iMac is still going strong. Regardless, I wish your newly revived iMac a long a happy life!
2 years and one month of bonus operation for me after successful bake (great instructions). Just failed again so I'm about to try a second time, hoping for the same success.
Two years and one month isn't bad. To me, that makes the bake worthwhile. Since that was your 1st bake, my hope is that you will get about as much life out of your second bake. Please let me know how it goes!
JDW, Thanks for the detailed videos, I watched both videos (bake 1 and bake 2). These videos inspired me to fix my 2011 iMac 21..5". My iMac was dead (black screen) after few sudden automatic shutdown during watching you tube. I was almost going to scrap it and then I watched you videos. I followed step by step to open the iMac and bake video card (AMD HD 6750). 2011 model has different layout than 2009 model. I had to take out CD drive, fan model (right side) and then mother board. But it was worth doing it. I also ordered thermal pastes (K4 & K5 Pro Kit) from amazon as per your recommendation . It is now working and the only problem is, one of the fan is running at very high speed and very noisy, don't know why . Thank you very much for your videos and I will keep updating about status of my iMac after few months.
Sachin, thank you for watching and for sharing your successful bake! I read and reply to every comment under all of my videos, and I can tell you that several people have reported high fan speed after the bake just like you have. In every case, the reason is because a connector was either accidentally left disconnected or not reconnected properly. The proper fix for that is a bit troublesome in that it will require you to reopen your iMac and check all the connectors. The quicker “Band-Aid“ fix is to download one of the fan control apps that I link for you in the text description beneath my video on RUclips. Note that you should be using one of those fan control apps anyway after your bake to slightly increase the base RPM speeds of all your fans in order to keep your iMac running cooler overtime. That’s what I do. Keep in mind that after you install the fan control software, you still need to dig into the preference settings of that software to set the minimum speed, otherwise the fan control app will only keep the fans running at the same system control speed as before. Please let me know how it goes.
@@JDW- Thanks for the recommendation about the fan control app. Downloaded the app. It was ODD fan running at high speed. The app works fine and I can control all three fan speed now. Today I am going to open the mac again to check any disconnection of the fan cable.
You are right, ODD temperature sensor cable was not properly connected. Now its all right no more fan noise. Also I can control the fan speed with fan control app as per your recommendation. Thanks once again.
Well did it today did the bake and it came out perfect.....even got the same paste that you used.... My daughter is so happy... thanks so much for the great video on how to do it.
Just bake it! Ups I did it again! so its April 5. 2021 I was really surprised by the breakdown of my iMac (late 2009) but since I baked a few newer ones before I was equally hopeful and afraid before baking. Because the symptoms were horizontal grey lines. BUT it worked. 8 minutes at 200 C°. 2009 27 iMacs are easier to take apart than 2011. I'm on that machine writing it :)
That's great to hear! Thanks for making time to let me know. Just to confirm though, did you clean off all the old thermal paste before your bake and then apply the 2 types of new thermal paste I recommend after the bake? I ask because thermal paste plays a big role in how long the card will remain usable post-bake.
Roy, thank you for watching both videos. I'm thrilled to hear of your successful bake and certainly appreciate your making time to let me know. Best wishes!
Dear JDW, after trying everything else possible, i took the jump an hour ago. Low and behold, it fixed my 27” imac with 6970 radeon. I can’t believe it! I did not use the same thermal grease u did. But now i know it fixed it, i will order the same grease. I wonder why they couldnt make the cooler block touching all components correctly?
Thank you for making time to let me know about your successful bake! The only reason I can think of as to why Apple left such a big gap between the heat sink and those memory chips is that they anticipated some type of height variance among memory chips on those video cards. In any case, the K5 Pro I recommend is the perfect paste for those chips. Best wishes!
I had my iMac 2009 down for a long time with this video card issue. I looked for a lot of solutions (mainly software), tried just replacing the thermo compound but it didn't work I was afraid of buying overpriced old cards and it could result in the same problem. I declared as dead my card (and possibly my iMac) so I gave a try for this solution. Wow!!! I'm posting from my iMac. 10min at 200 deg C. My 2009 iMac is back. I will post if it stops again. But thank you very much for the 2 videos. Just a suggestion if you have the same problem with the broken cabe, this one is very simple. If you can't wait to get a new one or if it is difficult to get it, you can paste the plastic part again on the remaining part of the cable, delicately de-peel the plastic part on the top and gently sand or scratch with a knife on top to reveal the copper "wires". I had a similar issue and it is working great (already ordered a new one just in case).
Your tutorial about the GPU bake was a great help to me. I was able to resurrect my GPU to life. It will be interesting to see how long it works properly. Many thanks!
I commented on your first video regarding my success with this diy fix, but there’s something I came across specific to this approach. I have a mid 2011 27” i7 iMac. The GPU is actually attached from the inside, not outside, facing side of the logic board. So, unfortunately, on 2011 iMacs, the logic board has to be removed to do this fix. But it works!!!
Thank you for that information. I removed the logic board on my first bake on my late 2009 iMac, so I know how much trouble that can be. It's nice that you really don't have to do that on my 2009 machine, but it would appear you must do that on your 2011 iMac. Even so, it's great to hear the bake worked for you.
Watched ur first and second bake said let me try this I have nothing to loose. 3 hours one day ordered the k4 and k5. Week later 4 hours and I have a working machine great videos worked for me. I can't say how long it will last though 😂
My 2nd bake has lasted 2 years and 5 months so far. Still no problems. So hopefully you can get the same long use that I have. Thanks for watching, Yuriy!
Yes, my iMac is still going strong. By the way, I update the text description below both of my video card bake videos every month so that people always have the most up-to-date information about the state of my machine. The iMac is used daily, for many hours each day, and include a lot of RUclips video watching and gaming. It even runs the latest macOS High Sierra. I don’t even have little glitches on the machine at all. It works great.
JDW, both this and your sister video covering the bakes are great. I was experiencing similar issues with my mid 2011 27 iMac, so decided to give the bake a try. Opening up my machine, however, revealed some differences compared with your 2009 model, both in terms of wiring and layout. The Apple Technician Guide for the mid 2011 iMac proved useful here. The key variance is the inability to remove the graphics card independently of the logic board in mid 2011 models due to repositioning of the hex screws. In 2009 models these screws can be accessed and undone from the front, whereas mid 2011 units are only accessible from the rear. This was an unwelcome discovery! It meant giving up or removing the logic board, which is a much bigger and more daunting fix. The latter route caused much head-scratching, but was worth it in the end. We will see how long it lasts, but many thanks JDW. I've posted a short speeded up video account here: ruclips.net/video/A3Er9dSzP1o/видео.html
Excellent job, Chris! I've pinned your post because your excellent video can be very helpful for owners of 2011 iMacs. Feel free to post follow-up comments to let everyone know how long your bake and repaste has lasted. Best wishes!
Chris , you were the other component to my success in this venture. I saw your video as well. The task is relatively easy when you use paper drawings like you did. Priceless!!
Great videos (I watched both) JDW with a lot of helpful details. Last year summer I did my first bake and it lasted until this years summer (2019). I think it broke the second time around because I switched of the computer while away for 2 weeks on holiday. Now it's up and running again and although I am still on Yosemite OS I love my 10 years old Mac. PS it only took me 2.5 hours for the second bake. I am becoming an expert.
Thank you for the report, Adriaan. I'm curious. What thermal paste did you use for your first and then your second bake? My 2nd bake is going on 2 years of continuous use, and I think the K4 and K5 Pro pastes I used had a lot to do with it. That's why I'm curious about the pastes you used. Thanks.
@@aoprins Well, you will have no issue with the paste. I guess your video card was like mine in that it needed a double baking. Hopefully you will get more longevity out of your second bake like I have.
I'm very impressed with your video on the fix for your card. Thank you very much. I'm going to do the same for my "stripes" on my 27" iMac, too, hopefully with the same result...
I'm overjoyed to hear your story of success, Taso! Thanks for sharing! And regarding "how to thank," I would certainly be humbled and grateful if you kindly would click the Thumbs-up icon on my video as well as Subscribe. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
My 1st bake has lasted 3 yrs, just about to do it again. A tip: get a cereal box, open up and reverse it, draw each part on it and insert each screw into position using a small hole to show which screw goes where.
More evidence that these flawed-design video cards really do last only 3 years. That's how long my stock card lasted, then Apple replaced it with a new card, and that new card lasted 3 years, and then I resorted to the bake and made my two videos. It is frustrating beyond words that we even have to do a bake to get the video card to work again, but it beats paying Apple or an EBAY seller for a replacement video card and certainly beats the cost of a brand new iMac (as much as we all would love one). Thanks, Simon!
@@JDW- Looks like it has worked. I originally thought it was the hard drive so installed a newer version of mac osx, Sierra, and it's now updating but looks ok and isn't in Safe Boot. Glad I ordered a V-sync cable it's falling apart but ok to test the unit out. It's not my Mac, not a fan of Apple, but I think the blame lies with ATI. I've had 2 laptops in the last 6 years die thanks to ATI graphics cards, unfortunately baking them didn't work. While I was at it this time I enlarged the air vent at the rear by 6x its previous size, I can feel the air flowing out now. I've also disconnected the DVD drive SATA cable, cut out a small slot in the back, fed the cable through and fitted a DVD to 2.5" unit on the back of the Mac. Now provides replaceable storage at SATA speeds. Not that pretty, but it works well. Great videos by the way.
Thank you for your kind words, Simon. And thank you for providing more experience on the matter, specifically saying that baking does NOT work on all video cards. Really, we have a case of a flawed video card design in the 2009 through 2013 iMacs which just so happens to be remedied by an oven bake. It's probably worth trying on other video cards, but there's no strong evidence that shows the bake works on those other cards. That's why I intended my two bake videos to be very specific about resurrecting the iMac's video card, rather than all ATI cards. Best wishes to you and your iMac!
I wasn't too sure about this and having no real experience I didn't have high hopes but amazingly it all went well and it is back up and running , Thank You !
Thank you for letting us know your success! It was actually another RUclipsr who posted a video about his bake who inspired me to do my bake because he reported going 17 months (as of Feb. 2017) without any problems after his bake. So the duration seems to vary from person to person, for reasons unknown. Hopefully my 2nd bake lasts 17 months or longer this time! Best wishes.
Hello, my process of baking and applying the above-mentioned pastes was successful, today the computer started up historically after a long break in use :) Thank you @JDW for your help and detailed explanations that saved money, it's a pity that I found your channel so late :)
That's wonderful to hear, Gregory. Although the bake doesn't last forever, I do hope you are able to get at least several more years of use from your newly resurrected iMac. Best wishes!
@@JDW- that is the Plan, use it as long as it is possible, but I have 2 more questions: 1) Do you think that calmer use could extend the use time without death? I mean, not playing modern games and not being burdened with hundreds of tabs in the browser, only application programs, possibly programming and occasional larger calculations and a waste of 32 GB of RAM? 2) Do you (or anyone reading) know a similar program like "macsfancontrol" to control fans on Windows 7 in BootCamp?
@@grelmedialski2241 Nothing you do will prevent the problem from raising its ugly head again because it's an inherent flaw in the chip itself. No manner of reballing or using cooling fans (even a floor fan or room A/C) will result in a permanent fix. The good news is that good paste and properly cooling at a higher fan speed can often extend the time you are able to use the card. In my case, my second bake got me 2 years and 9 months of use. I consider that worth all the effort involved. My 3rd and 4th bakes didn't work beyond a week each, so I knew the card was end of life. I then bought a 6970M, repasted it, and I continue to use that card to this very day. So at some point you will need to swap out the card, but the bake is nice because it will delay that, and the bake is cheaper overall than buying a replacement card. Not sure about fan control in Windows, but if you keep your room cool with a floor fan and/or A/C, it will help even if you can't boost the iMac's fan speed in Windows.
Hi! I baked my video card back in 2015 the first time. Now it´s freezing with artifacts again so I´m gonna give it a second baking this weekend. I plan to use thermal pads instead of paste where the space between heatsink and the card was. Fingers crossed that all goes well, and thanks for the video tutorial, it was great.
Thank you for your kind comments. I'm sorry to hear your 1st bake did not work. (Mine 1st bake didn't work either, but it took 4 months for me to know it! :-) If you had freezing immediately on your first cold boot, then I would say paste had nothing to do with the freezing. But if you used it for a while and then got the freezing, it could be a paste issue. You need to remove all the old paste, then apply a good non-electrically-conductive paste like K4 Pro (what I used) to the GPU, then use a non-conductive thermal pad replacement paste like K5 Pro (what I used) on the memory chips. If you do that, you can be assured any artifacts will not stem from your pastes. You can use thermal pads instead of K5 Pro, but I personally don't know the best thickness and is why I searched for a thermal pad replacement and found K5 Pro. With K5 Pro, you don't have to worry about thickness. Apply it like I did, some will spill over, but that's okay. My iMac has been going strong for 1 year and 6 months now after my 2nd bake, which I think is a testament to the fact that K4 and K5 Pro, when applied correctly, work well. Bake for 10 minutes at 200°C or 400°F. Some people said they put coins atop their GPU during their bake in hopes of focusing more heat there. I didn't do that, but go ahead and give it a try. Let the card cool to room temperature naturally by removing it from the oven and letting it sit an hour. Then apply your pastes, reinstall, and give it a go. Please let me know how it goes, Peter!
JDW Well Im actually very pleased with my first bake, it lasted for more than three years. Let’s hope that my second bake will last as long as the first one 🙂. Greetings...
Thank you for sharing that your 1st bake predates my own! :-) The fact your bake lasted around 3 years isn't too surprising. When I bought my late 2009 iMac, it worked great, but 3 years later the video card died, just after my AppleCare expired. An email to Tim Cook ended up with me getting a free video card replacement from an Apple store here in Japan. Sadly, that "new" card too died almost exactly 3 years later. Knowing I wasn't going to get another freebie, even though it's abundant clear this line of video cards has a seriously flawed design, I Googled, found videos on the bake, tried it, found it worked, and made my own video. My first bake lasted only 4 months, but I've gotten 1.5 years out of my 2nd bake, and it's still going strong. It probably won't last much beyond 3 years, but I still think the bake is worth it. Best wishes to you on your own 2nd bake, Peter!
Hi JDW, thanks for the great videos, if you have time i'd like to tell you my imac late 2009 journey. I had my mac repaired (GPU baked) about 2-3 and a half years ago and the original HD was replaced with an SSD (Samsung 850 EVO). The mac worked fine for about six months then same problems. Finally after 3 years of inactivity I decided to follow your guide as a bet against myself and everything worked fine, it was a great day, that feel of accomplishment, installHighiMacblack 2. Clean Install of high sierra 3. Restore the machine at Sierra 4. Clean Install of sierra No effect other than the black lines displayed at boot. don'twrong waydoesn'twith a 3rd
Thank you for sharing your story, Lorenzo. So is your iMac working now or not? You said you followed my guide and then it was "a great day" (which means it worked), but then you said at the very end "no effect other than the black lines displayed at boot," which means it did not work. Could you please explain?
@@JDW- I had initially posted a larger comment but youtube cut it and posted it (I exceeded the characters limit), sorry, I originally wanted to send you an email but basically I followed your guide (generously applied the k5 pro) and the iMac worked until I decided to switch to H-Sierra and install the latest security update. The iMac was back to displaying lines on boot and now I can only boot it with safe boot. I tried both backups and clean install of H-sierra and sierra to ensure it wasn't the ssd or the OS itself. I wanted to ask you if a 3rd bake was worth it, or in general if you had any problems when you updated to H-sierra. Thanks again for your time and your guides
@@LDLNick2 I never had a problem with High Sierra, and I still run High Sierra on all my Macs, actually. So how many months did you use your iMac before you updated to High Sierra and had the problem suddenly come back? It seems too much of a coincidence to say that the video card suddenly died at the same time you updated MacOS. And yet, I cannot see a big difference between Sierra and High Sierra to have caused the problem. Again, the problem you are seeing is lines on the screen? Can you post a URL to a photo so I can see those lines? Thanks.
@@JDW- here I posted the whole "story", yes before I had pink vertical lines and now black horizontal lines. forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-late-2009-black-horizontal-lines.2250462/ In both cases I could/can only boot with safe boot. Yes I know it's very strange but at the same time I formatted the iMac and clean installed the previous OS and it still gave me problems. And again thanks for your time
@@LDLNick2 Thank you for the link. If you have an external drive, are you able too boot from it? If so, what is the MacOS version on that drive? If you don't have such a drive, you might want to consider buying one. It can be used for backups so the purchase is not a waste. It's probably the video card, but still it would be good to rule out MacOS by trying to boot from an external drive. And if you have more than one Mac and can use that drive to properly boot that other Mac from it, then you know the boot drive is good, so it will be a good test on your bad iMac.
The worst part was building these little volcanos out of aluminium foil;) and seriously, it's been working again for 5 days now, so thank you so much for this unexpectable experience!
When I was a kid, I actually made a volcano. It wasn't foolishly put on a table like that Brady Bunch episode but rather built on the ground where it belongs. I put a garden hose in the ground and put layers of mud around it, slowly, layer by layer for about 1 week until it was the proper shape and hard. The hose and spout faced straight up. I then blasted the water. Worked great. So those aluminum foil volcanos were pretty easy for me to make in comparison to that volcano of old! :-)
@@JDW- so my first bake lasted 8 months...on my way to the oven right now...but I never know if it's 10 minutes and after you wait for the card to cool down in the oven or if you take it off as soon as the bell rings (supper's ready!)...no thermal shock?
@@themusinglad I'm sorry your bake lasted only 8 months. My first lasted 4 months but the second bake lasted 2 years and 9 months. In both cases I had my card sitting atop aluminum foil feet, which in turn was sitting on a removable metal tray. After the bake I proceeded to remove the metal tray and put that on our kitchen table to cool. The entire tray is metal, so there was much heat coming off it during the cool-down process, thereby preventing thermal shock. The room temperature was normal -- not especially cold. If you lack the ability to remove a tray like I did, I'd suggest leaving it in the oven with the door open wide to cool down. That would be perfectly fine to do.
@@JDW- oh please don't be sorry, 8 months is already a miracle!;) The 2nd bake has just finished, my cat is playing with the aluminium volcanoes, the Imac boots perfectly....such a perfect day;) I'll keep you posted and most of all, thanks for your precious sharing! Hug from France!
Hi JSW! This weekend I faced a problem with my iMac 21.5 (2011) video card. I got striped vertical lines on boot. After it recovered from himself, I ran a video benchmark, and at the beginning of the benchmark the display turned black, and the iMac stopped responding. After a hard reboot, the issue was back. Yesterday I baked the video card, and now the iMac is back in business. I run the same benchmark successfully after that. Hope it will last a few years now. I cleaned up the old thermal paste and I applied a new one on the chip and on the RAM. Thank you!
This is some sort of witchcraft but it just fixed my issue first time! I can't thank you enough and it was nowhere near as difficult as it sounds. Amazing!
Thank you for your kind words, Phillip. It is surprising that it does work, but despite all the naysayers have said (e.g., "will only work for 3 months or so and then die again"), the bake (when it takes) really does work. I'm currently going on 1 year and 1 month after my 2nd bake. Not sure why the 1st bake only lasted 4 months, but my 2nd bake shows the bake really does work, and the vast majority of people who try it find success (as evidenced by their numerous comments here). Best wishes!
I'd love to know the science behind it but right now i'm just extremely happy that I just saved myself being ripped off for a repair. Been running the computer pretty solid for the past 3 hours and the GPU temp is pretty stable between 50 and 60 C, far lower than before the bake.
@@JDW- Just to report my first bake failed last week after what must be 1 years + of use. This happen on the day UK had a heatwave, weather was 33+ deg. I just done a 2nd bake using new Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut on GPU but old K5 pro (I know what you advised against...) but trying to save. Fingers crossed. GPU Diode stays around 51 deg C playing your youtube video at 1080p 60 frames.
@@stevlee01 Steven, I am sorry to hear your 1st bake failed, but I do appreciate your having made time to give me a follow-up. My 1st bake lasted a mere 4 months, but my 2nd bake lasted 2 years and 9 months. My hope is you can get the same on your 2nd bake. And so long as the old K5 Pro you had was still quite soft and hadn't firmed up too much over the last year, I think it will transfer heat as well as when it was new. It's when the paste dries and gets a bit firm that it loses a bit of that thermal transfer power. Even so, the most important paste is for the GPU chip, and the fact you used Kryonaut is a good indication that your thermals will be as good as you can get from that heatsink. Just keep all 3 fans running higher than the base speed, and you should be good to go. Currently, with a 6970M installed in my late 2009 iMac, I have all 3 fans set to 2000rpm. You can hear the fans, but it's not too obnoxious, and the machine runs cooler too. Best wishes!
@@JDW- thanks for the long reply. I have to unfortunately report after 2 full 8hr working day unfortunately it failed today. I get the bong when it boots up but black screen only. No display. I ran all 3 fans at 2k rpm also. GPU temperature always around 53 deg celsius even playing your youtube videos before it failed. Is this the end or other option is possible?
Didn't cure my black screen, unfortunately... But thanks for saving me the trouble of getting the motherboard out. I thought I had to do that, but you showed me an easier way.
If that's the case, and if indeed you used a thermometer to confirm your baking temperature was correct, then it could be that you merely have a bad backlight driver board issue. To confirm that, power on your iMac and shine a flashlight into the display. If you see any content at all, it proves you have a backlight related issue. But if you cannot see any content, then it is either the graphics card or power supply.
Sorry I was actually using your video to help me figure out which screws I'd taken out of the CPU and GPU. I hadn't gotten that far. I used Kryonaut by Thermal Grizzly and Arctic MX-4 on the GPU memory. Used both on the GPU processor and CPU processor and mine is running cool and working great. Both Kryonaut and Arctic MX-4 are NON electrically conductive and non-capacitive.
Thank you for sharing those details. If you can make the time, I would appreciate hearing from you in the future here in the comments to know how well your fix works in the long term. The Kryonaut sounds like a fine choice for the GPU, but I am curious as to how well your MX-4 holds up on the memory chips. I say this because there is a much larger gap between those chips and the heatsink than there is between the heatsink and the GPU. Indeed, there is virtually no gap at all over the GPU. This is why Apple used what are called "thermal pads" above the memory chips on the iMac video card. Normal thermal paste like MX-4 is simply not thick enough to bridge that gap effectively over time. I used K5 Pro instead of thermal pads for the memory chips because I did not know how to precisely measure the gap above the memory chips and therefore I could not know which thermal pad was best to use. K5 Pro was engineered to be a replacement for thermal pads. It is not for a CPU or GPU but instead for other chips like memory where cooling is important but just not as important as a hot GPU and CPU. Meaning, there is less thermal transfer through thermal pads or K5 Pro than there is through normal pastes like Kryonaut or K4 Pro or MX-4. So because you used MX-4 on the memory chips, in light of the heatsink gap, I would suggest you keep your eye on the machine over time to see if your application of MX-4 keeps those memory chips sufficiently cool in the long term. Best wishes!
Thousand thanks you for sharing your amazing tutorial (1 & 2) with good video quality and meticulous steps. It helped so much!! I’m going to bake my card today for iMac late 2009. First time it fails after all these years of regular use on video editing. I have nothing to loose so I’ll try before thinking to buy new card. Best regards!!
![Late 2009 iMac 27" Video Card Repair [4850 Bake]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/v1DXBLkiqFM/mqdefault.jpg)
![Late 2009 iMac 27" Video Card Repair [4850 Bake]](/img/tr.png)
Sept.24, 2020: Check out my new FAQ video before posting questions as I may have already answered it here: ruclips.net/video/hldcyJ_qUD4/видео.html
hi JDW, is it easier to just buy a new graphics card and install it?
@@djfritz Not if you are buying a cheap Windows Nvidia MXM card, as that requires a Windows machine to flash the appropriate firmware. But if you are buying the same card type as the stock card, or buying something like the 6970M from a 2011 iMac for use in a 2009 iMac, assuming that Apple card comes with its original heatsink (very important), then of course that is technically easier because (1) you wouldn't need to bake it, and (2) you wouldn't need to repasted it in theory.
Practically speaking, cards like the 6970M almost always need to be repasted, and since the bake lasts a mere 10 minutes, you aren't saving much by purchasing another card. Besides, the bake is the cheapest fix of all the fix. And when I say "fix" I mean temporary fix of course. Even a brand new Apple card won't last forever, but I did get 2 years and 9 months from my 2nd bake. You might get more life from the Nvidia MXM cards, but again, you have to fiddle with things like flashing on a Window machine (yuck!) and even then the card won't be nearly as fast as a modern GPU.
I recommend you buy the two thermal pastes and try the bake. And in then if you later decide you really want to replace the card, you have the pastes you need on hand to repasted that new card.
I hope this helps.
@@JDW- thanks for replying so fast! all good points, i never really opened up a computer before but will give it a try. I have a video editing project on there I need to retrieve and back-up. thanks again
@@djfritz You would need to remove the front glass either to bake the existing card or to swap in a new card. And honestly, that is perhaps the most fiddly job of all for two reasons: (1) you must take great care not to break either of the two thin ribbon cables which connect the LCD display to the circuit boards inside. After removing screws, pull the display out toward you very, very slowly and take special care so it doesn't fall forward. That's how I accidentally broke the little ribbon cable in the upper left corner one time. After that, you need to take care when disconnecting connectors. And lastly, when you put everything back together again, it takes time to ensure there's no dust behind the glass. That part is always painful for me, because I hate even a spec of dust there. Also be sure to get the right suction cups too. Some people can remove the glass without them, but I personally don't. Suction cups work best for me and most people. Good luck!
I baked my video card today as described in this tutorial and my computer is now working again. I typed this message using my reborn computer. Thank you so much for taking the time to record this. We will see how long it lasts.
That's great news, Glendon! Thanks for letting us know of your success!
Glendon Humphrey is it still working?
Son of a gun! This really works. It's only been 2 days, but my late 2009 27" iMac is working again. No more yellow bars. I baked my card for 10 minutes at 395F. I used a combo of your first video and this video to understand the process. I took the shortcut and did not remove the entire motherboard (as per your first video). After the bake, I used non-conductive silicone compound on all the chips except the middle one where I used Arctic Silver. I'll try to update progress, but so far so good. Thanks again for the detailed videos.
Thanks for sharing news of your success, Mark! I just crossed the 12-month mark of daily, problem-free use for my 2nd-baked iMac. In my 1st bake, as you know, I used Arctic Silver V on the GPU and a non-electrically-conductive paste on the memory chips, without removing the old Apple thermal pads on the memory chips. That bake lasted only 4 months. I don't think that had anything to do with Arctic Silver so you should be fine. The only caveat is that if you use too much Arctic Silver on the GPU, there could be overspill that works its way onto the tiny SMD capacitors, which could cause electrical shorts. That's why I went 100% non-conductive with thermal pastes in my 2nd bake; and again, that has lasted just over a year so far. But whether the 4-months of use from the 1st bake was due to thermal paste or my GPU simply needing a 2nd bake is unknown. Anyway, please do keep me updated. A lot of people comment here about their success, but almost no one keeps me informed of their iMac's progress over time. Feel free to post updates as often as you like. Best wishes!
Thanks a lot for this amazing guide. This fixed my 2009 iMac with the weaker ATI 4670. Same procedure, just a smaller card. I'm so happy it's alive again, because it's still my main machine and the best computer I ever owned. I hope it will last me at least a few more years.
Thank you for letting me know of your successful bake, Albrecht! Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
my mid 2011 iMac 27" i7 GPU let go yesterday morning. I was at the Genius bar by 11:20, whose diagnostic tests confirmed GPU hardware failure, and a bill for 635 GBP to repair. They already fixed the problem in 2014 under warranty as a "known problem". I followed your advice and baked my GPU at 200 C for 9 minutes, and it worked. Thank you for saving me 635 GBP, but the satisfaction is worth way more than that.
Hi, Thanks for your videos, your last one really helped me with a 2011 27inch bake. I also incurred damage - a capacitor and a piece of the motherboard wire broke off when the motherboard slipped as I was putting it back in- and I asked myself if it was the end... I managed to reattach with a solder bridge, and some how, after baking and resoldering the part back on, and missing a couple of screws (lol), it booted and works (so far) perfectly!
Your video was critical to my success, and there were times when I thought you were the only friend I had during the worrying process.
Thanks again.
Robert, I'm humbled by your kind words and extremely pleased to hear of your resurrection success, especially in light of that motherboard damage. Kudos to you on your persistence and not giving up. It paid off for you!
My 2009 iMac's GPU died 2 years ago so I put it aside and bought a used 2011 model. Unfortunately that one crapped out on Christmas day and, not being financially able to replace it, I went looking for solutions which led me to your two videos. I did my 2009 one first, using your wonderfully clear steps, and that worked a treat - 200c for 10 minutes.
Likewise the 2011 model was treated the same and is working once again! There are some differences with the later model - in particular the logic board must be removed to get at the GPU because Apple put the screws into the heatsink frame the other way.
I am now using Macs Fan Control on both computers and hopefully their usefulness is extended for a long time to come. Thank you for your efforts that have helped a lot of people.
Thank you for your kind comments, Mike, and for letting us know of your two successful bakes! Hopefully your experience reported here will help other owners of the 2011 iMac to know that the bake will work for them as well. Best wishes.
Thank you not just for making these 2 videos, but also breaking down each step so thoroughly. My iMac died in May and I've been nervous about getting in the guts for the first time. But I've got nothing to lose and recently found your videos, so I'll be going for a bake sometime next week!
Thank you for the kind words, Ryan. Just be sure you allocate plenty of time so you can go slow and not make the same mistakes I did (like breaking the silly ribbon cable). Also be sure you have a dust blower because getting all the dust out from under the glass when you put the glass back on in the final step is a real bother, let me tell you. Also be sure not to touch the display (the screen under the glass) because that thing is very difficult to clean, even with a good microfiber cloth. Fingerprints really have staying power on it! Best wishes to you on your bake!
Thanks JDW for this second bake tutorial and keeping it updated. I did a first bake last year following your first tutorial. The early 2009 iMac lasted 4 months. I didn’t get to fixing it again until now when I saw you had baked it twice. I did it again, this time following your advice of the thermal paste. Also, I’m changing the hard drive to an SSD.
It is back up running and working like a champ. One thing to note is when I took off the backlight cable, and connected it back, I had inadvertently wiggle the connectors slightly loose. This caused the backlight to not come on, making it seem like it hadn’t worked. So just something to note for others attempting this.
Once again thanks. I want to see how long this one lasts.
Paul, thank you for providing details about your bake. Did you clean off all the stock thermal paste in your 1st bake and then apply a good paste to the GPU and a thermal pad replacement on the memory chips? Or did you do like me and just use a good thermal paste on the GPU and apply extra thermal paste atop the stock thermal pads? If you followed my lead then such gives evidence that removing the stock paste completely is key. I didn't do that and my 1st bake lasted exactly 4 months like yours. But my second bake is still going strong, lasting 1 year and 7 months so far. Anyway, thank you also for the warning about the backlight cable. Other people who try the bake are pretty good about reading through the comments, so your experience should be helpful to others. Wishing your 2nd bake a long and happy life!
On my first bake I did clean the old paste and applied new thermal grease. The problem was that I didn't apply enough because when I opened for the second bake I saw that the paste hadn't touched the heatsink. This time around I made sure the paste was touching both the video card and the heatsink.@@JDW-
Just finished baking the card for my early 2009 iMac and wanted to say THANK YOU!!! Your videos are informative and inspiring. I was skeptical if this would have worked, but having nothing to loose was pleasantly surprised at the result.
I'm so pleased to hear of your success! I too was skeptical until I watched another RUclipsr's story of his bake and subsequent 17 months of operation without problem. It's pretty strange, but the bake really works. Best wishes!
Wow! I thought this might be a wind up BUT i had nothing to lose so i tried it and it worked! Ha Ha - no idea how long it will last but there we are... Thanks for taking the time to do the video.... i managed to get the video card out without detaching the final wire to the heat sink so i didn't have the faff of trying to reconnect it to the back of the motherboard. I baked the board for 11 minutes at 200 degrees. Reassembled it - turned it on and it worked :-) Sorted - that 27' iMac is a lovely bit of kit.
That's wonderful to hear, Greg. Thank you for letting me know. So far, my 2nd bake has lasted almost 14 months with daily use of several hours per day. Fingers crossed that your iMac can achieve the same. Best wishes!
So about two months ago my Late 2009 27" stopped booting. Like your machine it would get about half way on the progress bar and just freeze until it fell asleep. I took it to a service guy who told me my hard drive was dead and it really wasn't worth fixing because the iMac was so old and all the rest. So I took it home and convinced the wife that I should have a go at putting a new SSD hard drive in myself for a fraction of the cost the repair guy was going to charge and we'd be back up and running with an even faster Mac. I installed a new Samsung EVO 860 SSD, an easy job that was completed without a glitch but when I booted the machine back up it had the same flaw. So I phoned my repair guy and told him the new hard drive didn't work and I was still getting the same issue. He was stumped and suggested the mother board must have died and it was irreparable and I lost hope. A few days past and he called me and asked if I could boot the machine in safe mode, so I did and yes it booted, he then said it most probably was the graphics card causing the issue and I would need to replace it. With a new found hope I started researching new cards and where I could purchase one from when I came across your first video. Now I must admit, when I watched your video I thought you were bonkers putting your Video Card in the oven but after reading all the successful comments from other punters I though I would give it a go and if it didn't work I would just get the new card my repair guy had suggested. Well I'm happy to report I baked my card today and my iMac is as good as new and a lot faster with the new SSD.
Thanks for the video.
Mick Rogers
Yackandandah, Victoria
Australia
Michael, that is truly a wonderful story, and I wish to thank you for sharing all the details. The best part is that your exchange of the spinning platter HDD for an SSD was not in vain as you ended up not only with a working machine after the bake, but a much faster one as well. An SSD is the single best performance upgrade for these old Macs, and it draws less power and is completely silent and cool running as well. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
JDW, Thanks for your videos (I watched them all). This works! I just baked my 2011 27" iMac's AMD 6970m GPU and it works again. I simply followed examples shown in several of the youtube videos including yours. I have never done anything like this before. This was the first time I opened up my iMac. While it seems intimidating at first, I did it. The hardest part was reconnecting the power cables behind the Logic Board and from the LCD panel to Logic Board. I put a sequential numbered piece of electrical tape on all of the wires and it went together smoothly. Baked at 400F for 10 minutes. Took about 3 hours to fix. My thanks go to all of the RUclipsrs who filmed the process and also to those users who posted their encouraging success stories too.
Thank you very much for watching all the bake videos, Steadman! I'm certainly pleased to hear your success story, especially because it will help fellow 2011 27" iMac owners who wonder if my late 2009 model bake will really work on their newer models. Yes it will! Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected 2011 iMac!
THE CARD OF SORROWS - Part 2
Hi James, you are a chief !!!!
Victory again !!!
Loïc.
Thank you, Loïc!
Hello James. My bake lasted just over one year. The screen went scrambled all of the sudden. I knew it was the graphic card. Did the second bake. Oven at 200 degrees. 10 minutes baking. And... back in business again. That's incredible. By the way. Instead of thermal paste, I used thermal pads. Double layers so it could touch the heatsink. Less messy than the paste. Thanks again.
Sorry to hear that, but 1 year for a first bake is good. I got the longest use out of my second bake, so I hope you get the same. Hopefully you used those thermal pads only on the memory chips, as pads are not made for the GPU. For the GPU K4 Pro is adequate, but Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is just about the best you can get outside liquid metal. (But don't use liquid metal. It's too risky.) My best regards to you and your family in 2022, Emanuele!
@@JDW- Hey James. No worries. One year is great. And, of course, I used the paste for the GPU :). Happy New Year to you and your family as well.
Hopefully this bake will be a good one for you. One trick I've seen with trying to reflow BGA chips is to put a small stack (say 3 or 5) small copper coins on top of the GPU during the heating. This applies a constant few grams of weight to the GPU and also focuses the heat a little onto the centre of the chip.
I was just given a 27" 2009 iMac that's failed again after a similar repair, so will try the coins to see if it helps. Thanks for taking the time to shoot the video - it's been useful.
Thank you for the excellent tip, Suzanne!
Yeaahhh excellent idea !
It's somewhat of a sound theory and one that I personally believe could be true insofar as baking (200°C heat) seems to resolve those problems internal to the chip, at least for a while. Even so, no one has thus far presented hard evidence (such as a chip disassembly or scan) to prove that theory. But one thing is certain, it is either the ball connections or the connections internal to the GPU IC, either of which are temporarily fixed by heat. Funny too, because it seems clear, as you have pointed out, that heat actually causes the problem in the first place due to inadequate ventilation!
Suzanne Maybe q
Yes and then ????? The Late 2009 iMac 27" Video Card is no longer manufactured. This card (ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 Mo) has more than six years so Apple does not want to repair it and can not replace it. Then could you explain to me how to do ??? Could you build a new chip for my old card , or a new card for my old Mac ? (or a new Mac for me, I'm not that old :-) ) In the meantime, I do it myself. Loïc.
I am fairly tech-able, but your video gave me the confidence to take on quite a daunting task!
I wasn't going to spend £100s to save a near 10-year old PC!
It worked, following video 1, as per video 2 (10 minutes @ 200C) and I have now left it running now for a few hours.
Many thanks for such clear & helpful videos!
That's wonderful news, Charlie. Thank you for letting me know of your success in a comment under both my videos. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
I want to let you know that I followed your guide and I was able to fix the AMD graphic card inside my mid 2010 27" iMac. The screen was totally black, everything else was working fine (could hear sound and blindly open random apps). After a few research on the topic I'd like to add my 2 cents for a long lasting and succesful Reballing. The trick seems to be in letting the card cool down naturally inside the oven, in about 30/40 minutes till it gets to environmental temperature. It seems that the thing causing the microsolding to detach in the first place is the sudden heating and cooling of the card, in absence of plumb in the solding (which apparently gives more elasticity tough, alas, being poisonous). So letting it cool down slowly helps the solding stay attached to the motherboard.
Thank you for sharing your successful bake experience, David. I believe there is logic to what you said; however, even a brand new card won't last forever. (In my experience, a new card from Apple lasted all of 3 years, just like the stock card did.). But it will be interesting to see how many years of use you get out of your bake in light of your slow cooling technique. As such, it would be appreciated if you could report back every six months or so and let us all know if your card is still running strong. Best wishes!
How is your card doing?
@@daviddamini2185 still working like a charm!
@@DavidVotino glad to hear that, i will try your technique this Friday :)
Thanks
More than two years, the card is still alive and kicking!
Hi. Hope you and family in good health. Just checking in to give an update. 2 years later and my iMac still running smoothing. Much appreciated once again 👍
I always get excited when I hear multi-year "still working!" updates! Thank you for making time to let me know. I truly hope you get another 2 years out of that bake! Best wishes to you and your family!
JDW all of your videos are great! My 2011 27inch screen all of the sudden have the vertical green bands and then after a couple reboots trying to get into safe mode (before I new what was happening) it would just boot halfway with the apple and then just stay white with no green anomalies . For this reading here the 2011 has GPU mounting screws on the back side of the logic board making access much more involved with 17 plugs and an assortment of screws to remove the logic board. I personally found it enjoyable and rewarding using a piece of card board with a marker to draw a childish diagram of the logic board and tapped the screws as I removed them onto this cardboard. It made it easy.
JDW the bake worked!!! I have one question. Mine had paste on the GPU that I had to remove. Did it come this way new or did it come with pads and someone else was in there. I bought this used.3 years ago. Thanks again JDW! I subscribed :)
Thank you for your kind words and for sharing details of your experience.Apple would have put paste on the GPU chip and then separately used thermal pads on each of the memory chips. So you must clean off all of the old paste and thermal pads, and then you need to replace the paste on the GPU and then either use thermal pads or K5 Pro on the memory chips. You cannot use the same paste on all of those chips because there is a gap between the memory chips and the heat sink, but there is no gap between the heat sink and the GPU. That is why two different types of pests are required.
@@JDW- Can I use only K4 pro for everything?
@@liashalvashvili7872 No. K4 Pro is only for the GPU. K5 Pro is only for the Memory Chips. If you want to use some other good paste for the GPU, such as Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut or MX-4, that is fine. But you must use K5 Pro on the memory chips. In other words, you must use two different kinds of pastes. And never use K5 Pro on the GPU. It is not made for that. K5 Pro is a "thermal pad replacement paste." It is only for use on memory chips which do not get too hot. It is made to be used when there is a gap between the top of the chips and the bottom of the heatsink. There is no gap between the GPU and the heatsink, and the GPU gets much hotter too. So again, use K4 Pro on the GPU and K5 Pro on the memory chips and you will be fine.
Well Yet another Success Story late 2009 27 iMac... Followed your instructions - 10 minutes bake and I could not believe my eyes - Thank you!
Oliver, it's truly mind boggling, isn't it? The very fact that baking your video card will in any way make it work better goes against common sense. Yet it works and works well! Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
Thank you so much for this video, it saved my IMac.
Thank you for watching and for letting us know of your success, Edward! Best wishes.
Hello Mr. James - thank you for your 101 video bake tutorial. I followed every step and ordered ingredients from Greece! You created an option for cure & success ... and WOW I have cured the video issues I had. I use FCPX for video editing and although I still have issues with fcpx program share ... I have my iMac back for other operations such as typing, e-mail etc ... that's what really important ... as soon as I was able - I was compelled to write you and thank you so much. My iMac has been running for 48 hrs (cool like a cucumber) and I have put it through some rigorous phases with multi-tasking, rendering, download large files etc ALL AT ONCE and NO Video Complaints. Now that I've opened the iMac for the first-time .. it will not be the last as I intend to upgrade follow your specs and replace a few more parts (video card, video 90 degree bend cable, lcd backlight strip, SSD and fan) to complete at a a later date when I pluck up some more courage. Thank you so much ... great video.
Rasta Love.
Moss Side, Manchester, England
Thank you for the kind words and for sharing your success story, Paul. I'm so happy to hear the bake solved your video card woe! If you do decide to re-open your Mac and make any one upgrade, I would say it should be swapping the hard disk for a 1TB Samsung EVO SSD. That's what I did and it really makes your machine feel like a new computer. Also, if you have only 8GB of RAM, I would suggest upgrading to 16GB, especially if you share your computer with someone else who has another user. I share that iMac with my wife and she leaves her user open most of the time, so 8GB isn't enough for us. My iMac was running like a snail until I upgrade to 16GB and now it's running at top speed. Best wishes!
WAYYYY to much thermal paste, 25% of what you put on would have been too much.
Wrong. The K5 Pro is a thermal pad replacement. If you watch the manufacturer's own videos you will see that I apply the same liberal amount they do. To NOT do that would be to NOT close the wide gap between the memory chips and the heatsink. That is why thermal pads are used instead of thermal paste on those chips. Furthermore, even if one still wishes to contend that "it's too much" consider well that any excess will spill over and not prove any kind of detriment at all. And lastly, I have first hand experience with this paste in my iMac since that 2nd bake and I can confirm the application of the K4 and K5 Pro in my video is working very well, not leaking out from the heatsink and keeping temperatures at or lower than what they were before (in my 1st bake I used Arctic Silver V on the GPU and general white paste on the memory chips, atop the old thermal pads).
chickenwing986 is quite correct. You are using WAY too much compound. You need to read the Arctic Silver documentation. You just need to put one 1-2mm wide line down the centre of the GPU and it will spread out. Also you should be removing the old thermal pads and look into getting new ones. Adding compound on top of this is a big no no and problem. Once you have the machine stable, you should look into increasing the fan speeds for the Optical Drive fan (which also cools the GPU). please also look at the heatsink tubes, some develop pinholes and the phase change liquid inside evaporates, making the Heatsink ineffective.
Also 'tinting' the heatsink side by spreading a layer of compound all around then actually removing is the correct way to add the compound to the heatsink side to fill all the micro crevices and valleys.
Charlie, thank you for sharing your thoughts and suggestions. While you may wish to argue that the Arctic Silver documentation offers good advice for any thermal paste, the fact remains that I am not using Arctic Silver in this "2nd Bake" video at all. Thermal pads come in two forms: (1) the traditional thermal pads we all know and love, er, hate (which is what Apple used), and (2) the thick thermal compound created, manufactured and sold as K5 Pro (which I used) by the company below in Greece:
www.computer-systems.gr/content/k5-pro
I watched their demonstration videos on RUclips where they used a lot of that thick (thermal pad replacement) paste, just like I did. I then read some comments under at least one of their RUclips videos which speak negatively about it like you did; namely, comments saying "it's way too much!" Here's one of the videos where you can read such comments, but note the replies by the manufacturer (and myself):
ruclips.net/video/mukUInQ34J4/видео.html
I can attest to the fact that "too much" (if one dares say it is too much FOR THAT PARTICULAR PASTE) has worked flawlessly on my iMac for the last 7 months. Indeed, it was when I used a tiny amount of Arctic Silver V in my 1st bake that the bake lasted only 4 months. Whether that was due to the paste or something else, I do not know, but it is an observation to ponder.
I do agree with you about applying paste (the normal, thin kind -- which is K4 Pro in my video) to the heatsink side, spread it around, then remove most all of it (by gently wiping, not with a cleaner), in order to fill all the microscopic hills and valleys. Agreed. Hands-down, that is sage advice for anyone, anywhere, with any normal thermal compound and nearly any kind of heatsink. But it's a different matter with the thick thermal compound that acts as a replacement for thermal pads, which seems to be made only by that one company in Greece and no where else.
I also agree about ramping up the fan speed, which is what I did using third party apps (see the text description under my video for links) after my 1st bake and after my 2nd bake too. Agreed. I increase the speed of all fans inside my Mac to keep it cooler. But despite having done that, my 1st bake lasted only 4 months. Something to bear in mind.
Lastly, even if one argues that I applied too much thermal paste (which I actually did NOT do -- I applied the PROPER amount in accordance to the directions of the K4 Pro and K5 Pro manufacturer), the fact remains that I have had 7 months of daily continuous use out of my late 2009 iMac after my 2nd bake, where I used that so-called "excessive amount" of paste. It's my personal believe that it is more likely someone will use too little paste than too much. And if my 7 months of ongoing use is any indication, I used the right amount of paste for this particular paste type and this particular application.
Best wishes.
Martin Law, ditto my earlier comments. My 2nd bake has lasted more than 7 months as of this comment, and it runs COOLER than it ever did before. It’s the proper amount for this type of paste, applied in strict accordance to what the paste maker suggests. Again, my 7 months of daily testing proved that the amount I applied is not wrong nor worthy of criticism.
Hey JDW, just wanted to chime in and say thank you for being so methodical in your videos! I watched your first iMac baking video as well as the second and was confident enough to perform it myself - and I'm happy to report that my "card of sorrows" is fully operational once more! =) I actually had to go back and remove my screen / LCD twice as I forgot to connect the Wifi cable (I had it tucked away for tidiness during the surgery) I'm hoping I get a year of additional service out of it but if not, I'm confident to do this surgery in under 10 minutes and will try out a newer card such as the Radeon 6970. Anyway, thank you again, and for those reading that are about to perform this - just take your time in following the steps and everything will be fine.
I'm very pleased to hear of your success, Juju! And thank you for your kind words. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
Thank you Sir! I followed your original video, then dipped into this one for the bake and my broken iMac has new life. You have saved me several hundred ££ and also taught me some new skills and knowledge of my iMac. Thank you so much.
Thank you for letting me know of your success, Aby! That's wonderful news indeed. Best wishes!
Hello Mr JDW...I want to say thank you for your 1st and 2nd bake video. I was very hesitant to take on a dismantle project like this and to do the bake, and putting everything back together. I had nothing to lose so i went ahead and gave it a shot. The damn thing works!!! I was in deep and once i had everything taken apart, I kept thinking there is no way this is going to work. I baked the graphics card at 395 F, for 10 minutes. Since i had everything taken apart and wasn't sure if any of this was going to work, I decided to also open the CPU. I cleaned it and used the Thermal pad with a drop of MX-4, which helped keep the pad in place. I then assembled the graphics card with thermal pad and a drop of MX-4 on both side of the pad. I also used the paste from greece (K5-PRO) on the chips. I put everything back together, crossed my fingers and turned on the computer. To my complete amazement the computer TURNED ON!!!!!
Thank you, thank you thank you for both your videos, your explanations and attention to detail!!!! My jaw is still on the floor. I cannot believe this worked and a complete amateur, someone that has never opened up a computer was able to have success in doing this.
Your videos, in conjunction with the iFixit tool kit, the paste and MX-4 from Amazon.com, was all less than $75. Total time from taken off the screen, to putting it back on and the computer working, was probably one day and half.
I'm writing this literally 15 minutes after turning the computer back on.
Now that its working my next project is to replace the hard drive with an SSD.
Thank you again and Godspeed!!!!!
Phill, what a wonderful success story! Thank you for all your kind words. I am so happy to hear your iMac is up and running again. $75 is certainly cheaper than what Apple would have charged you to fix it, and although it took you a day and a half, you obviously seem to feel it was worth the effort. I certainly did. There's something indescribable about fixing something yourself, especially when you are unsure if your labors will bear fruit. Your labor paid off. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
I did the baking procedure just now and reinstalled the graphic card in my iMac and the machine works again! i am really thankful for this good instruction video which helped me a lot! Thank you for your great video!
My machine just broke yesterday by showing weird patterns on the screen and freezing afterwards so I was suspicious that the graphic card might have gone crazy. Thanks to google I found your tutorial! I baked at 200°C for 10 mins and I am hoping that the card will last some extra time now Thanks again!
That's wonderful to hear, Marc! Thank you for letting me know, and best wishes!
After many months of swopping out hard drives with multiple images , checking Ram / cables / trying different OS’s , finally I came across your video on baking.
I was like Whatttt , baking a Graphics card😳 it was my last hope and yesterday I followed your step by step tutorial and thanks to u , I have my 27” iMac 2009 spec up and running again.
Thank you for sharing the video as it’s a great help to follow iMac users and saves us a ton of money 💰.
Technicians at the iStore looked at me like mad when I told them the solution to solving this issue.
I was asking an electrical engineer why does baking solve this issue , according to him over time the older boards soldering points / pins loses contact , and baking them binds them back together again.
Thank again and will keep updating thread over time as well to update the life of my iMac
Thank you for sharing your detailed success story! As you can see from the large number of comments and views on both of my bake videos, this is unfortunately a rather common problem with 2009 through 2012 27-inch iMacs. The bake is time consuming but it does work for most people who try it. Please feel free to comment back here over time to let everyone know the longevity of your bake. Best wishes!
Hi. Just an update.
10 months later and my late 2009 27” iMac still working perfectly. Thnx again for your video / assistance 🙏👍
Thanks to this channel and the amount of useful information JDW has been sharing, I've been able to resurrect my 27" 2011 iMac. My machine was showing the following symptoms after powering up: Chime, Apple logo, charging bar, white screen. I didn't have any horizontal/vertical lines of any kind of artifacts on the screen, and Apple Hardware Test appeared perfectly, without any graphic anomalies, which is why I was in doubt if it really was the GPU.
So yesterday, May the 11th 2020, I disassembled the machine, took the logic board out (necessary for the 2011 model), cleaned off all the previous thermal paste (it took me quite a long time, but it's essential) and baked it at 200ºC for 10 minutes. After cooling off, I repasted with K4 and K5 pro (thank you for that tip James!), reassembled everything and voila: the machine booted up and is now running like a charm! Well, before that I had forgotten to reconnect the power button cable, so I needed to open it up again as there was no reaction to pressing the power button.
I can't thank you enough for consulting me the previous days via email and I hope all the positive feedback on the comment section of all your videos encourage you to keep going with your content! I have taken pictures of the old pasting which Apple did on the repair (this was the second time my GPU has failed, I suppose Apple has replaced the card when it happened the first time) and also of my pasting job, but I don't know what the best method is to share them here in the comment section. I also installed iStat Menus for monitoring temperatures. I'd be glad to share my results once I know how to share the screenshots here on youtube.
I insist on thanking you for your guidance and all the good work James! If it weren't for your content, I would have given up. Thank you!!
Thank you for your kind words and for the detailed experience you shared, Iam. With regard to sharing photos, I would suggest uploading them to a free service like Flickr or even a cloud service like DropBox or CloudApp so you can then get a shareable link that you can post in a new comment. I allow people to post links here. It’s not a problem.
Glad your iMac is up and running now. Best wishes!
@@JDW- Thanks for suggesting those free services, I've uploaded all 17 photos I've taken of the heatsink/videocard through the whole process. They include some pictures that show the Apple Service's paste job as well as my clean job before putting it in the oven and finally the paste job I did. I'll attach the link at the end of the comment.
Notice the spillover touching the golden pins of the card that Apple's Service did (I took the picture before removing the card from the logic board). And the spillover with the other paste around the GPU chip was a pain in the neck to clean up and remove! Furthermore, it looks as if they've used K5 Pro to me (my eye for that isn't trained at all, I might be wrong about that. It felt still moist by the way).
If you have any comments regarding the pictures, I'd be glad to read them.
www.flickr.com/gp/iamhannover/7BD488
@@iamhannover Very odd. I found your post in my SPAM folder here on RUclips today. That's strange because I swore I wrote a reply to you 1 month ago. Well, here are my thoughts again. Your photos of the paste (prior to your cleaning and bake) looks burned as if someone baked the video card and the heatsink with paste and everything! I don't see how else you could explain the burned portions of what looks to be K5 Pro (on the memory chips). I am glad though that your bake was a success. Please keep me updating on how it's doing over time. Best wishes!
Yesterday i bought dead iMac 2009 27’ for 150$, today I baked videocard, now it works, thanks! It’s my first Mac 😊
Hey man! Thanks a lot. Just baked my Graphic Card yesterday and today i put the IMac late 2009. It works like a charm. Unbelievable. Computer was getting stuck on loading. After calling several service repair I was told that probably the problem is the Graphic Card. Cost to fix it about 260 euros. Turn around about seven days. When I asked why I was told that needs to be dismantled and the card put in a special machine with hi temperature. I was puzzled. Then I googled the problem and I came across your videos. I didn't think it twice. Opened the iMac and went for the second bake because I didn't have to remove the motherboard. The only changes I made is that I used thermal pads all around. I used the paste only on the main CPU part or the Graphic Card. Also replaced the HDD with SSD. To make a long story short. It works. Thanks again for the great video. Ciao. Emanuele
Congratulations on your successful bake, Emanuele! I actually had one service guy wrote a comment in the past saying he disliked my videos and that I was spreading misinformation (which of course is not true). Fact is that when people do the bake to repair their video card themselves, it means less business for the repair guys! :-) Even though the bake doesn't last forever, I still think it's worth it because even if you spend that 260 Euros, that fix too will not last forever! Best wishes!
@@JDW- Hey James. Thanks for the reply. I agree with you. Besides, I had to drive to the computer repair place.. They told me it would take ten days. They did not garantee that my iMac was going to be repaired. Bla, bla, bla. So, again, I took things in my hand thanks to you. On top of that it was fun. It was challenging. I got the chance to see inside an iMac. Realized that is not rocket scienze. And when I turned the iMac back on and it loaded, perfectly and in no time. I screamed: Yesssss! :). Have a nice day.
Thanks J. I followed your instructions and my dead iMac is now working again.
That's wonderful to hear. Thank you for letting me know!
Thank you so much for your baking video tutorials. I finally got the thermal paste and BR2032 battery and did the bake at 400F for 10 to 11 minutes. I was able to replace the battery on the MB without removing the wires by just removing the screws and clip, pulling the MB away, and flipping it out with dental pick. I saw in your video which side the slot access was to insert the pick. I put everything back together, and the graphics card is now functioning again. I will add another comment if and when it fails again. Again, thank you for your excellent videos! Tim
Thank you for letting us know the details of your successful bake. And yes, if your video card fails again at some point, I would certainly appreciate hearing the time elapsed until failure. Best wishes!
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I just want to say a HUGE THANK YOU for this tutorial. I followed everything carefully and really appreciated all the details you gave. I now have a brand new old iMac 27" 2009 with a freshly baked video card and a new SSD. Thanks again for taking the time to share your experience!
Thank you for making time to share your story of success! Glad to also hear you installed an SSD, as that makes a big difference in performance. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
I just wanted to say thank you so much for taking the time to make this video. After being told by the computer tech how much it would cost to fix this problem, i almost just got rid of the computer. a $20 bottle of thermal paste later and my computer is running great. Thanks again!
Thank you for making time to comment and let me know of your success. By the way, how much did the repair shop want to fix your iMac? (I assume they were going to do the standard "reball" of the GPU chip on the video card?)
they said $150 for labor and $300 for a new graphics card
Thank you for the information. $300 is about what you'd pay if you bought the same video card on EBAY, so that price quote isn't bad. It's the going rate. I personally think it is too much for such an old and problem-prone card, but "supply and demand" is at work. Also, anything with the Apple brand seems to be priced into the stratosphere regardless of how old and obsolete it is. All said, it's cheapest to do the repair yourself, assuming you have the time and determination. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
Exact same model with same problem. Five vertical bars at startup and then funny little square line pattern all over the screen. It would then stop about halfway in the booting progress bar. Followed you video and it work. Thanks a million.
Another great success story. Thank you for sharing, Luc!
Thanks so much for your two videos! I'm yet another user who is typing this message on my restored 2010 iMac. Before baking the GPU, it kept repeating the startup chime (about every 5 seconds), with a black screen. No keyboard overrides would get it to boot or do anything other than chime continuously. I used Arctic Silver on the GPU, thermal-conductive pad on the memories, and Arctic MX4 on the large chip resistors. While watching this video GPU diode is at 53C, GPU heatsink at 49C, GPU proximity at 51C.
Thanks wonderful to hear, Jeff! Thanks for sharing your success story. The only thing I can suggest is that you download one of the fan control apps mentioned in the Text Description above (click "SHOW MORE" to expand it), and set all fans to 2000rpm. Noise isn't too bad. That's what I use. It keeps the machine running a bit cooler than stock fan control. Best wishes!
@@JDW-
A followup more than a year later... My 2010 iMac is still going strong. No gpu or other hardware problems at all. I took your advice to install Macs Fan Control to keep the temps a little lower. Thanks again!
@@JeffInCO483 Thank you for the 1 year update, Jeff. I'm certainly glad to hear that video card is still going strong. The bake doesn't last forever, but I do hope you can get at least the same 2 years and 9 months I got out of my second bake!
Oh Mr James ... bytheway you are absolutely right regarding the paste from Greece ... I punished the video card ... not too much ... but just enough as you suggested .. and I have amazing results .. 'the grease from Greece' work's because it is non-conductive and gives amateurs like me some room for learning how to apply paste. Blessings to you and your Family ..everytime.
I just baked the card in my 11 year-old Mac. I cannot believe this worked! But I'm so glad it did. Thank you so much for this video.
Thank you for your wonderful comment just now on iFixit, Veronica. And as I said in reply there, best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac! He's a happy "dino" now! :-)
I too baked my video card today and it also worked! I thought it was done for when I figured out what the problem was and discovered the price of a replacement GPU. Thank you for the tutorial.
I've had to do this maybe 5 or 6 times over the years. It lasts for around a year or so but always breaks again and the bake always fixes it. The lead-free solder they used in all of these cards is just bad and will grow splinters over time. This last time I baked my card I broke the flimsy vsync cable (the small one you broke) and am glad its pretty easy to replace.
That’s a lot of bakes! My first bake lasted only 4 months, but I didn’t fully clean off the stock thermal pads after that bake, and the paste I applied was old. My second bake is still going strong after 2 years and 3 months, and I was sure to clean off all the old paste and then applied brand new K4 and K5 Pro. So I don’t know if my card simply needed 2 bakes or if the thermal paste I used is special, but again, it’s still going strong for more than 2 years if daily use, 3-5 hours per day, including GPU intensive gaming.
I just wanted to thank you for putting this wonderful tutorial on RUclips! I initially saw your 4th bake video, and you mentioned your success with the 2nd bake, so I went along with what you did in this one.
I have a 27" mid-2011 iMac, and I didn't have the easier option of freeing the graphics card, so I really appreciate seeing how you took it all apart in this video. I used tape to hold the wires in place after disconnecting, and I successfully reattached them all in the end!
There was a big issue with trying to put the motherboard back in. I ended up having to take out all of the RAM, and it slid in perfectly without any issues.
I also want to thank you for listing the necessary items. This truly was the best tutorial that I found.
I had an issue with the computer suddenly fritzing out on me. I ended up with 5 pink vertical lines on the screen. It didn't even show the apple. It was just blank with the 4 lines. Somehow I found out about this "ridiculous" idea of baking the graphics card in the oven. I am now a believer. I preheated the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and placed the graphics card, just as you did on the 4 little foil mountains for 10 minutes.
The computer turned on at 3:12am PST on June 1, 2020. Let's see how long it lasts!
Crystal, thank you for making time to share details of your successful bake. It certainly is a "ridiculous" idea when you ponder it, but then when you actually do it the amazement sets in. I was in your shoes when I first tried it. The bake doesn't have eternal life, unfortunately, but in my experience it does last long enough for it to have been worth the time and effort. Please keep me updated on how your iMac is doing over time. Best wishes!
@@JDW- It may not have eternal life, but that graphics card is already lasting 5 days longer than it would have otherwise! Fingers crossed that the next time I reply is in 2+ years!
@@crystalweber5520 and how is it going?
@@daviddamini2185 Currently at about 1 year and 7 months...and the computer has been on nearly every day since new life was baked into the graphics card. I did increase the speed of the fans to avoid any overheating, so other than the noise from the fans, it has worked without any physical issues all this time. Honestly, the biggest issue is that High Sierra is the last upgrade made available for my mid-2011 iMac.
@@crystalweber5520 Wow that's incredible, i want to do my first bake, after my gpu gave up yesterday (White Screen Issue)
But your comment as well as the others give me mich hope. Thank you for that :)
Do you have some additional tips?
did you also Apply new paste to the CPU?
Again thank you for the Reply :)
Thanks a lot, you saved my iMac. I am a complete beginner and never opened a mac in my life and it was easy. Even though I didn't expect it to work it totally did. THANK YOU. 🤗
Thank you for making time to let me know your bake was a success, Ervin! Best wishes!
It worked. This method works. My mac is running Again, i will Update the Status in order to give more people faith in that method. Thank you for the Video and your Tips, aswell as the community.
Have faith 🙏🏼
Absolutely fantastic process! Literally saved hundreds if not thousands of dollars (had I bought a new iMac as planned). The residual thermal paste from the factory looked ok but I thoroughly removed it nevertheless.I had some 95PGF4 perfumers grade ethanol on hand- reasoning that any water in the ethanol solution would evaporate in the oven. The thermostat on my gas stove oven only had one setting but after a preheat I'm confident it was at least 180' Celsius. I chose Arctic Silver (conductive) for the GPU and Noctua NT-H1 non- conductive for the surrounding chips as my local computer store didn't have any K4/K5. Overall this has been a great learning experience and I really enjoyed the list of tools required, descriptive video and also your reminder of "TAKING YOUR TIME'. Thank you so much!
That's wonderful to hear. Thank you for sharing your success, Karl!
Thank you very much, you really saved my iMac. In my case, the images started to show strange colors in some areas, and the background when starting up showed some patterns. The equipment worked without problem, but it was impossible to do photo retouching. I have to say that for being 11 years old, it is perfect after changing the hard drive for an SSD. This rig certainly didn't deserve the old HDD.
My first cooking and it seems that everything went well. 8 minutes, approximately 200º C in a traditional airless oven. The most complicated has been the graphics cable, very difficult to remove and putting it back on has been a leap of faith. I hope it lasts a long time. Nice!!
Thank you for sharing details of your successful bake, Juan! The bake doesn’t last forever, but if the 2 years and 9 months of daily use from my 2nd bake can be used as an example, some bakes really do last a long time. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
4/3/18: I have an iMac late 2009, 27" with Radeon HD 4850-512MB Graphics Card. Last month, I started to experience Black Screen after Wake-Up from Sleep. Re-boot would fix it. Then I got 5 vertical pink bands one day. It would not re-boot then. Re-boot in Safe Mode was OK but the bands were still there. At least I could limp along. So I followed your instructions, cleaned the entire card well with alcohol, baked it in a Toaster Oven, 400 deg. F (used an accurate oven thermometer) for 10 minutes with 6 quarters on top of the GPU chip for weight. I too had to replace my Vertical Synch Ribbon Cable [922-9161] (thanks Amazon) because the foils got unglued. Reinstalled the Graphics Card (with K-4 & K-5 Pro paste) and all is good for 1 week now. AMAZING this trick worked. I'll report again if it fails. Thanks for good video, JDW.
Thank you for providing your success story and for letting me know all the details of your bake and repair. I read and reply to every single comment made under both of my bake videos, and I can tell you that out of all the comments, all but 3 people have been successful with the bake. And those 3 probably forgot to reconnect something, because I advised them to check that and 2 never replied back. It is possible that some cards are too far gone to be baked back to life, but in the vast majority of cases, the bake really works. Best wishes!
Thanks for your reply. Gets opened again tomorrow to replace an aging 1TB HDD with a slim and fast 1TB SSD. Was too unsure to do both the bake and the replace at the same time. Best wishes.
this works! i've had this problem, used this solution and the imac is booting and working normally again. it's sort of unbelievable but it's real. thank you for sharing!
And thank you, António, for sharing your great success story! Best wishes!
Thank you so much for your video. I baked my graphics card today and to my amazement it worked. I had taken the iMac to the Apple store and they had diagnosed a faulty hard drive but I had my doubts when it wouldn't boot from an external disk. I would have never attempted it without your video but I couldn't face removing the motherboard.
Thank you for sharing your success story! Removing the entire motherboard is only necessary on 2009 models when you want to change the PRAM batter on back. It’s silly they put it there. It would have been more wisely placed on the front. Best wishes!
Thanks for the great tutorial! I baked my 2009 27" iMac graphics card yesterday in an oven at 200°C for 10 minutes. Left it for the next day to cool-down. Put it back in the imac and It is running well. it took me in total 3 hours
Thank you for sharing your experience, Mark. Congratulations on your successful Bake!
@@JDW- The graphics card lasted for two weeks :( Still a great experience though. I ordered a new Radeon Hd 4850
aliexpress.com/item/32963614805.html
@@simplebasiclife I am very sorry to hear that. Two weeks is unusually short for a 1st bake, so if you don't mind, I have a few questions: (1) Did you clean off all the old paste prior to your bake on both the video card and the heatsink? (2) Did you verify with an oven safe thermometer that your oven temperature is spot-on 200°C? (3) Did you allow your oven to warm to 200°C before you put the card inside? (4) What paste did you use on the GPU and Memory Chips after your bake?
@@JDW-
(1) Did you clean off all the old paste prior to your bake on both the video card and the heatsink? Yes i did.
(2) Did you verify with an oven safe thermometer that your oven temperature is spot-on 200°C? I pre headed the oven to 200. I did not use a oven safe thermometer
(3) Did you allow your oven to warm to 200°C before you put the card inside? Yes i did
(4) What paste did you use on the GPU and Memory Chips after your bake? The same paste as you used and ordered it from amazon
@@simplebasiclife Thank you for your quick reply, Mark. Having experience reading every comment under all my bake videos, I feel there are only 2 possible explanations as to why your 1st bake lasted only 2 weeks: (1) actual oven temperature is lower than what you set, or (2) your video card was too far gone for the bake to resurrect it long term.
Well done again JDW. I followed your advice and did the same procedure on my Mid 2011 27" iMac. It ran for 11 months and now I will again do the same procedure that you have just done. I will follow your steps to the letter and have ordered the same paste that you have used and will apply them in the same quantity. Thanks for perservering with this.
Thank you for your kind words. So you baked your video card 11 months ago, after seeing my 1st Bake Video, correct? And now your video card has failed again so you want to do another bake, this time based on my 2nd Bake video, correct? If so, then of course I would recommend that you use K4 Pro and K5 Pro thermal pastes like I used in my 2nd Bake video.
That's correct. I have a mid 2011 27" iMac and there is one difference that I have noticed and that being the screws that hold the GPU onto the motherboard are on the reverse making the removal of the GPU slightly different in that I have to at least take the Motherboard off to enable access to the GPU screws. I have ordered both sets of K4 and K5 Pro and am awaiting their delivery. Will let you know how I get on. Thanks again for such clear instructions.
Thank you for your reply, Brian. By the way, what thermal paste(s) did you use for your 1st bake 11 months ago?
JDW for the first bake I used MX4 Arctic Thermal Compound, so 11 months was good in my opinion.
I used MX4 on the first bake on all chips, but this time I have used HY810 on the main processor and K5-Pro on the other chips. Back together and working. I am replying on my 2nd rebaked Mid 2011 27' iMac.
Thank you for your videos about disambling and assembling the iMac. I had vertical lines on late 2009 iMac and I bake video card at 200° for around 8:00 minutes. And afterwards iMac started properly. Let see how long it will last.
That's great to hear, Torsten. Thank you for letting me know of your success. I wish your newly resurrected iMac a very long and productive life!
Small thing to improve the process I did not remove the black piece of foamed material that is on the video card, seems it can resist 200 degrees Celsius.
Many thanks for this and the original bake video. My 09 iMac's original GFX card failed at about 5 years old but then I was lucky that Apple repaired it at very low cost. Now they would not touch it and 3rd party repair wanted £400 making it an uneconomical repair. I watched your video, ordered suction cups and thermal paste and today I baked the card and all is right again. Thank you so much.
Thank you for sharing your story of success, Bunter!
@@JDW- Still going strong!
@@Bunter1815 That's wonderful to hear! Thanks for the 1-year update!
@@JDW- wow I really regret posting that, tonight on a zoom call it went again!! Time for safe mode and another bake
@@Bunter1815 Oh my! I'm very sorry to heart that, and quite a surprise too! Please let me know how your new bake goes. I do know what you're going through. It's a real bother to do all that work again. But so long as you can get at least another year out of a bake, it's worth it. After that, when the bakes stop working, you have to consider options on a replacement card.
Thanks JDW for your in detailed video about this model of the imac.
It is indeed tough to break one of the cables of the screen.
It happend to me too on our imac 2013 21inch. and I did the same you did orderd a new one at aliexpress.
As for the bake process, I did do this. I was just browsing youtube for information about an imac 27inch with the black screen problem.
and your video helped to find out how much amount of work it is. Thanks!
I'm very pleased to hear my video was of help to you, Gerko. Breaking cables is always disappointing, but once fixed and once the bake is done, you're in business! Best wishes!
Thank you so much for your Video! I had to Bake the Card in my MID-2011 27" (which required removing the main board) However following your (and others) videos I was able to complete the repair. That clip for the IR sensor holding the board in stumped me too until I saw the part in your video where you explained it so I didn't waste too much time on it. The IMAC is working now and updating software as I type this. Thanks again
That IR sensor clip cost me a huge amount of time, so I’m glad to hear my video saved you that pain! Thank you also for sharing your story of success. Best wishes!
Hi. Thanks for the video. My 2009 27” iMac gpu failed last week , resulting in the green bars on my screen. Purchased the paste from Greece and did the bake having watched your video. Computer running fine now , but I have installed a free fan controller app to run the fans basically all the time . 👍
Ps that small temp sensor was so much fun to connect to the back of the motherboard, in the end I did what you had done and removed the screws and tilted it forward a bit .
Congratulations on your successful bake! Thank you for letting me know of your success. Best wishes.
Thank you for your June 2018 update! And of course thank you for this video (and the previous one). I think I will be following in the same path to fix my iMac... It's great that you wrote down everything you used, in the video description. It's very helpful.
Armin, thank you for your kind words, and thank you for taking time to read the Description under the video, seeing that many people overlook that. I read and reply to every comment under both of these videos, and I can tell you that most people who try the bake are successful. In fact, out of all the comments who reported back with success stories (which comprise most of the comments), only about 4-5 people reported back with problems, and some of those I was able to help by telling them to recheck their connections. Only a couple people had video cards too far gone to bake back to life. So in a nutshell, I think the 3+ hours it takes to do the job is worth it, especially in light of the fact I am now going on my 12th month of use after my 2nd bake. I can only suggest that you use the same pastes I did in my 2nd bake. They are worth it. Best wishes!
Followed the video and worked perfectly on my 2009 iMac, I used all the supplies you link in the description. Many thanks for saving my machine. . The only thing I did different was to disassemble the graphic card from the heat sink with out unpluging the little cable and leaving the heat-sink in the computer . One of the 4 locating pins on the screen cover did come unattached, but can't see this being an issue at all
That's great to hear, Mark. When you say, "locating pins" are you talking about one of the "screws" that holds the display in place? If so, please know that one of my screws really doesn't screw down, but there are enough other screws to keep the display mounted without worry. If that is not what you meant, please let me know.
JDW on the top of the plastic outer screen there are 4 small pins , one fell off. Really happy I found you videos
To follow up, I too did the bake in the toaster oven. To my surprise not only has it been working but I ended up cooking it at about 250 for 11 minutes. I had put it in at 200, washed some dishes by time I got to it, the thermometer read 250 and longer then your 9 minutes. I thought for sure I ruined it. Let it cool down and re-install, and it's freaking working. I did buy the K5 and Arctic Silver. Fingers crossed. Thanks
Thank you for letting us know that 250°C for 11 minutes works well and does not harm the board. No doubt it loosened pretty much all the solder joints, regardless of solder type. Leaded solder (the good stuff) melts at either 183°C or 188°C, depending on the formulation. The nasty lead-free stuff melts at between 210°C and 230°C, depending on the formulation.
Thank you so much for these amazing videos! I was able to fix my iMac (2009, 27'') using the bake. Something I noticed was that not all the iMac screws could be unscrewed using a Torx T10 sized driver - some screws required the T9. (I thought I would mention it since in the RUclips description it sounds like all screws could be unscrewed using the T10)
Thank you for the kind words and for sharing the Torx size tip, James. I'm certainly pleased to hear of your successful bake! Best wishes!
Hey JDW, I wanted to say thanks again, and also give an update - my bake lasted for around 14 months (so I'm very pleased!). I've made another bake, and so far it's going well..(one mistake I made during the second bake though was letting a screw fall into the case when screwing back on the display. Since it fell in the left-hand fan area, I figured it would be fine to leave it there)
@JDW: Thanks for all this helpful content. Baking my 2009 iMac graphics card fixed reproducible boot freezes (iFixIt marked complete). I followed the motherboard in-place procedure described here with the following adjustments:
1. The GC heatsink assembly temperature sensor wire remained attached to the underside of the motherboard throughout the entire process. A mat was placed over the motherboard to protect it during the work. Take care to avoid damage to this wire while removing and inserting the GC assembly; the wires near the sensor can be damaged from interference with a ventilation partition in this area under the GCC assembly. When this damage occurs, the ODD fan will run full speed; the $10 TG Pro utility was invaluable chasing this problem down.
2. Oven *and tray* were preheated to 200ºC (measured by pointing an infrared thermometer at the tray). Then the card was placed on the tray and oven turned off with the oven door closed for 10 minutes. During this time the temperature of the tray coasted down to 180ºC. The intent here was to use a less aggressive bake to avoid the risk of damaging the board by dropping components.
3. To facilitate placing the card on a hot tray, a stand was created with 3 flathead wood screws held in position with some wire to align the pointed screw tips with graphics card mounting holes.
4. Since a less aggressive bake was used, to be prepared for a second bake *if it had been necessary*, the card was tested briefly to verify a good boot by dry assembling (no paste) the heatsink/board and mounting the board without the support frame. Once booted and immediately shutdown, the computer was reassembled with paste per the procedure here.
Thank you for providing all the detailed steps in your baking procedure, Steve. I'm sure that will be helpful to those who wish to follow your lead, especially about taking care with the temperature. So long as the temperature doesn't rise too much above 200°C and remain at that high level during the bake, there is no concern components will fall off due to excessive heat. But I am curious to hear back from you in the future regarding the longevity of your bank. I think it would be safe to say that if you get at least a year out of your bake, your method of turning off the oven and letting heat fall to 180°C would then be a very safe and excellent recommend! Best wishes!
Just reporting a successful bake of my 2009 27 inch. The card was slightly physically smaller than yours. Also I even managed to avoid detaching the GPU temperature gauge cable! I didn't use the alcohol, just rubbed all clean with a tissue. 10 mins at 200 fan oven. Used the Greek paste. Let's see how long it lasts. Thanks a lot for the great tip!
Thank you for sharing your story of success, Wojciech! My iMac is still going strong 1 year and 6 months after my 2nd bake. If for some reason your bake doesn't last as long, be sure to report back. But I must say that I read and reply to every comment on both of my bake videos, and hardly anyone posts follow-up comments saying their iMac stopped working. I'm not sure if that's because they got a new Mac or if it is because, like me, their iMac is still going strong. Regardless, I wish your newly revived iMac a long a happy life!
2 years and one month of bonus operation for me after successful bake (great instructions). Just failed again so I'm about to try a second time, hoping for the same success.
Two years and one month isn't bad. To me, that makes the bake worthwhile. Since that was your 1st bake, my hope is that you will get about as much life out of your second bake. Please let me know how it goes!
JDW, Thanks for the detailed videos, I watched both videos (bake 1 and bake 2). These videos inspired me to fix my 2011 iMac 21..5". My iMac was dead (black screen) after few sudden automatic shutdown during watching you tube. I was almost going to scrap it and then I watched you videos. I followed step by step to open the iMac and bake video card (AMD HD 6750). 2011 model has different layout than 2009 model. I had to take out CD drive, fan model (right side) and then mother board. But it was worth doing it. I also ordered thermal pastes (K4 & K5 Pro Kit) from amazon as per your recommendation . It is now working and the only problem is, one of the fan is running at very high speed and very noisy, don't know why . Thank you very much for your videos and I will keep updating about status of my iMac after few months.
Sachin, thank you for watching and for sharing your successful bake! I read and reply to every comment under all of my videos, and I can tell you that several people have reported high fan speed after the bake just like you have. In every case, the reason is because a connector was either accidentally left disconnected or not reconnected properly. The proper fix for that is a bit troublesome in that it will require you to reopen your iMac and check all the connectors. The quicker “Band-Aid“ fix is to download one of the fan control apps that I link for you in the text description beneath my video on RUclips.
Note that you should be using one of those fan control apps anyway after your bake to slightly increase the base RPM speeds of all your fans in order to keep your iMac running cooler overtime. That’s what I do.
Keep in mind that after you install the fan control software, you still need to dig into the preference settings of that software to set the minimum speed, otherwise the fan control app will only keep the fans running at the same system control speed as before. Please let me know how it goes.
@@JDW- Thanks for the recommendation about the fan control app. Downloaded the app. It was ODD fan running at high speed. The app works fine and I can control all three fan speed now.
Today I am going to open the mac again to check any disconnection of the fan cable.
You are right, ODD temperature sensor cable was not properly connected. Now its all right no more fan noise. Also I can control the fan speed with fan control app as per your recommendation.
Thanks once again.
Well did it today did the bake and it came out perfect.....even got the same paste that you used....
My daughter is so happy...
thanks so much for the great video on how to do it.
That's a wonderful way to start the new year! Thank you for watching and for letting me know of your success, Greg!
You saved my mental health! I have now a full working order iMac! Thanks man!!!
Thank you for watching and sharing your story of success, Moisan! I wish you a truly HAPPY New Year!
Just bake it!
Ups I did it again! so its April 5. 2021 I was really surprised by the breakdown of my iMac (late 2009) but since I baked a few newer ones before I was equally hopeful and afraid before baking. Because the symptoms were horizontal grey lines. BUT it worked. 8 minutes at 200 C°.
2009 27 iMacs are easier to take apart than 2011.
I'm on that machine writing it :)
That's great to hear! Thanks for making time to let me know. Just to confirm though, did you clean off all the old thermal paste before your bake and then apply the 2 types of new thermal paste I recommend after the bake? I ask because thermal paste plays a big role in how long the card will remain usable post-bake.
I watched both of your videos. They were very helpful. I baked my video card about three weeks ago, and I can report another success. Thank you.
Roy, thank you for watching both videos. I'm thrilled to hear of your successful bake and certainly appreciate your making time to let me know. Best wishes!
I have a freshly baked GPU and it's working great! I hope it lasts forever! Thank You for all your detailed video how to's!!
Thank you for letting us know of your success. Best wishes!
Dear JDW, after trying everything else possible, i took the jump an hour ago. Low and behold, it fixed my 27” imac with 6970 radeon. I can’t believe it! I did not use the same thermal grease u did. But now i know it fixed it, i will order the same grease. I wonder why they couldnt make the cooler block touching all components correctly?
Thank you for making time to let me know about your successful bake!
The only reason I can think of as to why Apple left such a big gap between the heat sink and those memory chips is that they anticipated some type of height variance among memory chips on those video cards. In any case, the K5 Pro I recommend is the perfect paste for those chips. Best wishes!
I had my iMac 2009 down for a long time with this video card issue. I looked for a lot of solutions (mainly software), tried just replacing the thermo compound but it didn't work I was afraid of buying overpriced old cards and it could result in the same problem.
I declared as dead my card (and possibly my iMac) so I gave a try for this solution. Wow!!! I'm posting from my iMac.
10min at 200 deg C.
My 2009 iMac is back. I will post if it stops again.
But thank you very much for the 2 videos.
Just a suggestion if you have the same problem with the broken cabe, this one is very simple. If you can't wait to get a new one or if it is difficult to get it, you can paste the plastic part again on the remaining part of the cable, delicately de-peel the plastic part on the top and gently sand or scratch with a knife on top to reveal the copper "wires". I had a similar issue and it is working great (already ordered a new one just in case).
Thank you for your detailed report and the excellent repair tip, Leonardo! Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac.
Your tutorial about the GPU bake was a great help to me. I was able to resurrect my GPU to life. It will be interesting to see how long it works properly. Many thanks!
Thank you for watching and sharing your story of success Bruce!
I commented on your first video regarding my success with this diy fix, but there’s something I came across specific to this approach. I have a mid 2011 27” i7 iMac. The GPU is actually attached from the inside, not outside, facing side of the logic board. So, unfortunately, on 2011 iMacs, the logic board has to be removed to do this fix. But it works!!!
Thank you for that information. I removed the logic board on my first bake on my late 2009 iMac, so I know how much trouble that can be. It's nice that you really don't have to do that on my 2009 machine, but it would appear you must do that on your 2011 iMac. Even so, it's great to hear the bake worked for you.
Oh my god - it worked!!!!
I can't thank you enough, saved me £300 at least.
Your instructions were great. Thankyou so much :)
I'm extremely pleased to hear of your success, Darren! Best wishes!
Watched ur first and second bake said let me try this I have nothing to loose. 3 hours one day ordered the k4 and k5. Week later 4 hours and I have a working machine great videos worked for me. I can't say how long it will last though 😂
My 2nd bake has lasted 2 years and 5 months so far. Still no problems. So hopefully you can get the same long use that I have. Thanks for watching, Yuriy!
Is it still going James? I'll be attempting this tomorrow. So glad I'll have you with me step by step.
Yes, my iMac is still going strong. By the way, I update the text description below both of my video card bake videos every month so that people always have the most up-to-date information about the state of my machine. The iMac is used daily, for many hours each day, and include a lot of RUclips video watching and gaming. It even runs the latest macOS High Sierra. I don’t even have little glitches on the machine at all. It works great.
JDW, both this and your sister video covering the bakes are great. I was experiencing similar issues with my mid 2011 27 iMac, so decided to give the bake a try. Opening up my machine, however, revealed some differences compared with your 2009 model, both in terms of wiring and layout. The Apple Technician Guide for the mid 2011 iMac proved useful here. The key variance is the inability to remove the graphics card independently of the logic board in mid 2011 models due to repositioning of the hex screws. In 2009 models these screws can be accessed and undone from the front, whereas mid 2011 units are only accessible from the rear. This was an unwelcome discovery! It meant giving up or removing the logic board, which is a much bigger and more daunting fix. The latter route caused much head-scratching, but was worth it in the end. We will see how long it lasts, but many thanks JDW. I've posted a short speeded up video account here: ruclips.net/video/A3Er9dSzP1o/видео.html
Excellent job, Chris! I've pinned your post because your excellent video can be very helpful for owners of 2011 iMacs. Feel free to post follow-up comments to let everyone know how long your bake and repaste has lasted. Best wishes!
Yeah, I ran into this hex screw trouble too. Ugg! Not sure I am going to still undertake...
Chris , you were the other component to my success in this venture. I saw your video as well. The task is relatively easy when you use paper drawings like you did. Priceless!!
Great videos (I watched both) JDW with a lot of helpful details. Last year summer I did my first bake and it lasted until this years summer (2019). I think it broke the second time around because I switched of the computer while away for 2 weeks on holiday. Now it's up and running again and although I am still on Yosemite OS I love my 10 years old Mac. PS it only took me 2.5 hours for the second bake. I am becoming an expert.
Thank you for the report, Adriaan. I'm curious. What thermal paste did you use for your first and then your second bake? My 2nd bake is going on 2 years of continuous use, and I think the K4 and K5 Pro pastes I used had a lot to do with it. That's why I'm curious about the pastes you used. Thanks.
Hi JDW, I did use the K4 and K5 Pro pastes for both bakes. Cheers
@@aoprins Well, you will have no issue with the paste. I guess your video card was like mine in that it needed a double baking. Hopefully you will get more longevity out of your second bake like I have.
I'm very impressed with your video on the fix for your card. Thank you very much. I'm going to do the same for my "stripes" on my 27" iMac, too, hopefully with the same result...
Thank you for the information about your successful bake. Please let us know the result of your other machine as well. Best wishes.
I don't know how to THANK YOU for this one! You saved my life and my wallet! Much love from Greece!
I'm overjoyed to hear your story of success, Taso! Thanks for sharing! And regarding "how to thank," I would certainly be humbled and grateful if you kindly would click the Thumbs-up icon on my video as well as Subscribe. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
My 1st bake has lasted 3 yrs, just about to do it again. A tip: get a cereal box, open up and reverse it, draw each part on it and insert each screw into position using a small hole to show which screw goes where.
More evidence that these flawed-design video cards really do last only 3 years. That's how long my stock card lasted, then Apple replaced it with a new card, and that new card lasted 3 years, and then I resorted to the bake and made my two videos. It is frustrating beyond words that we even have to do a bake to get the video card to work again, but it beats paying Apple or an EBAY seller for a replacement video card and certainly beats the cost of a brand new iMac (as much as we all would love one). Thanks, Simon!
@@JDW- Looks like it has worked. I originally thought it was the hard drive so installed a newer version of mac osx, Sierra, and it's now updating but looks ok and isn't in Safe Boot. Glad I ordered a V-sync cable it's falling apart but ok to test the unit out.
It's not my Mac, not a fan of Apple, but I think the blame lies with ATI. I've had 2 laptops in the last 6 years die thanks to ATI graphics cards, unfortunately baking them didn't work. While I was at it this time I enlarged the air vent at the rear by 6x its previous size, I can feel the air flowing out now. I've also disconnected the DVD drive SATA cable, cut out a small slot in the back, fed the cable through and fitted a DVD to 2.5" unit on the back of the Mac. Now provides replaceable storage at SATA speeds. Not that pretty, but it works well.
Great videos by the way.
Thank you for your kind words, Simon. And thank you for providing more experience on the matter, specifically saying that baking does NOT work on all video cards. Really, we have a case of a flawed video card design in the 2009 through 2013 iMacs which just so happens to be remedied by an oven bake. It's probably worth trying on other video cards, but there's no strong evidence that shows the bake works on those other cards. That's why I intended my two bake videos to be very specific about resurrecting the iMac's video card, rather than all ATI cards. Best wishes to you and your iMac!
I wasn't too sure about this and having no real experience I didn't have high hopes but amazingly it all went well and it is back up and running , Thank You !
That's great to hear. Thank you for making time to let me know your success, and best wishes!
Hey mate, I just wanna say thanks , your videos helped me a lot, and my first bake worked like magic , hopefully it's last longer . Thanks once again
Thank you for letting us know your success! It was actually another RUclipsr who posted a video about his bake who inspired me to do my bake because he reported going 17 months (as of Feb. 2017) without any problems after his bake. So the duration seems to vary from person to person, for reasons unknown. Hopefully my 2nd bake lasts 17 months or longer this time! Best wishes.
I bake my 2009 iMac graphic card last night and my computer works again!!! Thanks !!!
That's great to hear, Daniel. Thank you for making time to let me know of your success! Best wishes!
Hello, my process of baking and applying the above-mentioned pastes was successful, today the computer started up historically after a long break in use :) Thank you @JDW for your help and detailed explanations that saved money, it's a pity that I found your channel so late :)
That's wonderful to hear, Gregory. Although the bake doesn't last forever, I do hope you are able to get at least several more years of use from your newly resurrected iMac. Best wishes!
@@JDW- that is the Plan, use it as long as it is possible, but I have 2 more questions: 1) Do you think that calmer use could extend the use time without death? I mean, not playing modern games and not being burdened with hundreds of tabs in the browser, only application programs, possibly programming and occasional larger calculations and a waste of 32 GB of RAM?
2) Do you (or anyone reading) know a similar program like "macsfancontrol" to control fans on Windows 7 in BootCamp?
@@grelmedialski2241 Nothing you do will prevent the problem from raising its ugly head again because it's an inherent flaw in the chip itself. No manner of reballing or using cooling fans (even a floor fan or room A/C) will result in a permanent fix. The good news is that good paste and properly cooling at a higher fan speed can often extend the time you are able to use the card. In my case, my second bake got me 2 years and 9 months of use. I consider that worth all the effort involved. My 3rd and 4th bakes didn't work beyond a week each, so I knew the card was end of life. I then bought a 6970M, repasted it, and I continue to use that card to this very day. So at some point you will need to swap out the card, but the bake is nice because it will delay that, and the bake is cheaper overall than buying a replacement card. Not sure about fan control in Windows, but if you keep your room cool with a floor fan and/or A/C, it will help even if you can't boost the iMac's fan speed in Windows.
@@JDW-I understand everything. My card is 6970M now. I am very happy, that this process works :)
May your life will be long and healthy :)
Hi!
I baked my video card back in 2015 the first time. Now it´s freezing with artifacts again so I´m gonna give it a second baking this weekend. I plan to use thermal pads instead of paste where the space between heatsink and the card was. Fingers crossed that all goes well, and thanks for the video tutorial, it was great.
Thank you for your kind comments. I'm sorry to hear your 1st bake did not work. (Mine 1st bake didn't work either, but it took 4 months for me to know it! :-)
If you had freezing immediately on your first cold boot, then I would say paste had nothing to do with the freezing. But if you used it for a while and then got the freezing, it could be a paste issue. You need to remove all the old paste, then apply a good non-electrically-conductive paste like K4 Pro (what I used) to the GPU, then use a non-conductive thermal pad replacement paste like K5 Pro (what I used) on the memory chips. If you do that, you can be assured any artifacts will not stem from your pastes.
You can use thermal pads instead of K5 Pro, but I personally don't know the best thickness and is why I searched for a thermal pad replacement and found K5 Pro. With K5 Pro, you don't have to worry about thickness. Apply it like I did, some will spill over, but that's okay. My iMac has been going strong for 1 year and 6 months now after my 2nd bake, which I think is a testament to the fact that K4 and K5 Pro, when applied correctly, work well.
Bake for 10 minutes at 200°C or 400°F. Some people said they put coins atop their GPU during their bake in hopes of focusing more heat there. I didn't do that, but go ahead and give it a try. Let the card cool to room temperature naturally by removing it from the oven and letting it sit an hour. Then apply your pastes, reinstall, and give it a go. Please let me know how it goes, Peter!
JDW Well Im actually very pleased with my first bake, it lasted for more than three years.
Let’s hope that my second bake will last as long as the first one 🙂.
Greetings...
Thank you for sharing that your 1st bake predates my own! :-) The fact your bake lasted around 3 years isn't too surprising. When I bought my late 2009 iMac, it worked great, but 3 years later the video card died, just after my AppleCare expired. An email to Tim Cook ended up with me getting a free video card replacement from an Apple store here in Japan. Sadly, that "new" card too died almost exactly 3 years later. Knowing I wasn't going to get another freebie, even though it's abundant clear this line of video cards has a seriously flawed design, I Googled, found videos on the bake, tried it, found it worked, and made my own video. My first bake lasted only 4 months, but I've gotten 1.5 years out of my 2nd bake, and it's still going strong. It probably won't last much beyond 3 years, but I still think the bake is worth it. Best wishes to you on your own 2nd bake, Peter!
JDW The bake went well and I can now use my beloved iMac again 🙂
That's great to hear. Thank you for letting me know, Peter! Best wishes!
Hi JDW,
thanks for the great videos, if you have time i'd like to tell you my imac late 2009 journey.
I had my mac repaired (GPU baked) about 2-3 and a half years ago and the original HD was replaced with an SSD (Samsung 850 EVO). The mac worked fine for about six months then same problems. Finally after 3 years of inactivity I decided to follow your guide as a bet against myself and everything worked fine, it was a great day, that feel of accomplishment, installHighiMacblack
2. Clean Install of high sierra
3. Restore the machine at Sierra
4. Clean Install of sierra
No effect other than the black lines displayed at boot.
don'twrong waydoesn'twith a 3rd
Thank you for sharing your story, Lorenzo. So is your iMac working now or not? You said you followed my guide and then it was "a great day" (which means it worked), but then you said at the very end "no effect other than the black lines displayed at boot," which means it did not work. Could you please explain?
@@JDW- I had initially posted a larger comment but youtube cut it and posted it (I exceeded the characters limit), sorry, I originally wanted to send you an email but basically I followed your guide (generously applied the k5 pro) and the iMac worked until I decided to switch to H-Sierra and install the latest security update.
The iMac was back to displaying lines on boot and now I can only boot it with safe boot.
I tried both backups and clean install of H-sierra and sierra to ensure it wasn't the ssd or the OS itself. I wanted to ask you if a 3rd bake was worth it, or in general if you had any problems when you updated to H-sierra. Thanks again for your time and your guides
@@LDLNick2 I never had a problem with High Sierra, and I still run High Sierra on all my Macs, actually. So how many months did you use your iMac before you updated to High Sierra and had the problem suddenly come back? It seems too much of a coincidence to say that the video card suddenly died at the same time you updated MacOS. And yet, I cannot see a big difference between Sierra and High Sierra to have caused the problem. Again, the problem you are seeing is lines on the screen? Can you post a URL to a photo so I can see those lines? Thanks.
@@JDW- here I posted the whole "story", yes before I had pink vertical lines and now black horizontal lines.
forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-late-2009-black-horizontal-lines.2250462/
In both cases I could/can only boot with safe boot. Yes I know it's very strange but at the same time I formatted the iMac and clean installed the previous OS and it still gave me problems.
And again thanks for your time
@@LDLNick2 Thank you for the link. If you have an external drive, are you able too boot from it? If so, what is the MacOS version on that drive? If you don't have such a drive, you might want to consider buying one. It can be used for backups so the purchase is not a waste. It's probably the video card, but still it would be good to rule out MacOS by trying to boot from an external drive. And if you have more than one Mac and can use that drive to properly boot that other Mac from it, then you know the boot drive is good, so it will be a good test on your bad iMac.
The worst part was building these little volcanos out of aluminium foil;)
and seriously, it's been working again for 5 days now, so thank you so much for this unexpectable experience!
When I was a kid, I actually made a volcano. It wasn't foolishly put on a table like that Brady Bunch episode but rather built on the ground where it belongs. I put a garden hose in the ground and put layers of mud around it, slowly, layer by layer for about 1 week until it was the proper shape and hard. The hose and spout faced straight up. I then blasted the water. Worked great. So those aluminum foil volcanos were pretty easy for me to make in comparison to that volcano of old! :-)
@@JDW- so my first bake lasted 8 months...on my way to the oven right now...but I never know if it's 10 minutes and after you wait for the card to cool down in the oven or if you take it off as soon as the bell rings (supper's ready!)...no thermal shock?
@@themusinglad I'm sorry your bake lasted only 8 months. My first lasted 4 months but the second bake lasted 2 years and 9 months. In both cases I had my card sitting atop aluminum foil feet, which in turn was sitting on a removable metal tray. After the bake I proceeded to remove the metal tray and put that on our kitchen table to cool. The entire tray is metal, so there was much heat coming off it during the cool-down process, thereby preventing thermal shock. The room temperature was normal -- not especially cold. If you lack the ability to remove a tray like I did, I'd suggest leaving it in the oven with the door open wide to cool down. That would be perfectly fine to do.
@@JDW- oh please don't be sorry, 8 months is already a miracle!;)
The 2nd bake has just finished, my cat is playing with the aluminium volcanoes, the Imac boots perfectly....such a perfect day;)
I'll keep you posted and most of all, thanks for your precious sharing! Hug from France!
This worked for me too! My 2009, 27" iMac with the i5 processor has no more video issues. Thank you for this great detailed video!
I'm very happy to hear of your success! Best wishes!
Hi JSW! This weekend I faced a problem with my iMac 21.5 (2011) video card. I got striped vertical lines on boot. After it recovered from himself, I ran a video benchmark, and at the beginning of the benchmark the display turned black, and the iMac stopped responding. After a hard reboot, the issue was back. Yesterday I baked the video card, and now the iMac is back in business. I run the same benchmark successfully after that. Hope it will last a few years now. I cleaned up the old thermal paste and I applied a new one on the chip and on the RAM. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing your story of success, Cristian! Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac.
I Had the same problem and managed to solve it by taking out the GPU and heating it in the Oven for 20 minutes on 200 degrees Celsius. Worked Great!
Thank you for letting us know that a 20 minute bake will also work just fine. Best wishes!
This is some sort of witchcraft but it just fixed my issue first time! I can't thank you enough and it was nowhere near as difficult as it sounds. Amazing!
Thank you for your kind words, Phillip. It is surprising that it does work, but despite all the naysayers have said (e.g., "will only work for 3 months or so and then die again"), the bake (when it takes) really does work. I'm currently going on 1 year and 1 month after my 2nd bake. Not sure why the 1st bake only lasted 4 months, but my 2nd bake shows the bake really does work, and the vast majority of people who try it find success (as evidenced by their numerous comments here). Best wishes!
I'd love to know the science behind it but right now i'm just extremely happy that I just saved myself being ripped off for a repair. Been running the computer pretty solid for the past 3 hours and the GPU temp is pretty stable between 50 and 60 C, far lower than before the bake.
I was successful. Getting the temp probe wire reconnected on the back of the motherboard is tricky, but other than that, no issues. Thanks!
That’s great to hear. Thank you for making time to let me know!
You saved me a lot of money, my card screws were put in the wrong way so I know I bought a repaired I Mac. Errrrrr EBay
Hi JDW, just want to say another success on a late 2009 27 imac after following your guide and a big thank you.
That's wonderful to hear, Steven. Thank you for letting me know, and best wishes!
@@JDW- Just to report my first bake failed last week after what must be 1 years + of use. This happen on the day UK had a heatwave, weather was 33+ deg. I just done a 2nd bake using new Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut on GPU but old K5 pro (I know what you advised against...) but trying to save. Fingers crossed. GPU Diode stays around 51 deg C playing your youtube video at 1080p 60 frames.
Thank you again !
@@stevlee01 Steven, I am sorry to hear your 1st bake failed, but I do appreciate your having made time to give me a follow-up. My 1st bake lasted a mere 4 months, but my 2nd bake lasted 2 years and 9 months. My hope is you can get the same on your 2nd bake. And so long as the old K5 Pro you had was still quite soft and hadn't firmed up too much over the last year, I think it will transfer heat as well as when it was new. It's when the paste dries and gets a bit firm that it loses a bit of that thermal transfer power. Even so, the most important paste is for the GPU chip, and the fact you used Kryonaut is a good indication that your thermals will be as good as you can get from that heatsink. Just keep all 3 fans running higher than the base speed, and you should be good to go. Currently, with a 6970M installed in my late 2009 iMac, I have all 3 fans set to 2000rpm. You can hear the fans, but it's not too obnoxious, and the machine runs cooler too. Best wishes!
@@JDW- thanks for the long reply. I have to unfortunately report after 2 full 8hr working day unfortunately it failed today. I get the bong when it boots up but black screen only. No display. I ran all 3 fans at 2k rpm also. GPU temperature always around 53 deg celsius even playing your youtube videos before it failed. Is this the end or other option is possible?
Didn't cure my black screen, unfortunately... But thanks for saving me the trouble of getting the motherboard out. I thought I had to do that, but you showed me an easier way.
If that's the case, and if indeed you used a thermometer to confirm your baking temperature was correct, then it could be that you merely have a bad backlight driver board issue. To confirm that, power on your iMac and shine a flashlight into the display. If you see any content at all, it proves you have a backlight related issue. But if you cannot see any content, then it is either the graphics card or power supply.
Thanks for the vid. Great instructions and they worked for me. Saved my iMac from the scrap heap. Cheers.
Thanks for letting everyone know the bake worked well for you, Steve. Best wishes.
Sorry I was actually using your video to help me figure out which screws I'd taken out of the CPU and GPU. I hadn't gotten that far. I used Kryonaut by Thermal Grizzly and Arctic MX-4 on the GPU memory. Used both on the GPU processor and CPU processor and mine is running cool and working great. Both Kryonaut and Arctic MX-4 are NON electrically conductive and non-capacitive.
Thank you for sharing those details. If you can make the time, I would appreciate hearing from you in the future here in the comments to know how well your fix works in the long term.
The Kryonaut sounds like a fine choice for the GPU, but I am curious as to how well your MX-4 holds up on the memory chips. I say this because there is a much larger gap between those chips and the heatsink than there is between the heatsink and the GPU. Indeed, there is virtually no gap at all over the GPU. This is why Apple used what are called "thermal pads" above the memory chips on the iMac video card. Normal thermal paste like MX-4 is simply not thick enough to bridge that gap effectively over time.
I used K5 Pro instead of thermal pads for the memory chips because I did not know how to precisely measure the gap above the memory chips and therefore I could not know which thermal pad was best to use. K5 Pro was engineered to be a replacement for thermal pads. It is not for a CPU or GPU but instead for other chips like memory where cooling is important but just not as important as a hot GPU and CPU. Meaning, there is less thermal transfer through thermal pads or K5 Pro than there is through normal pastes like Kryonaut or K4 Pro or MX-4.
So because you used MX-4 on the memory chips, in light of the heatsink gap, I would suggest you keep your eye on the machine over time to see if your application of MX-4 keeps those memory chips sufficiently cool in the long term.
Best wishes!
Thousand thanks you for sharing your amazing tutorial (1 & 2) with good video quality and meticulous steps. It helped so much!! I’m going to bake my card today for iMac late 2009. First time it fails after all these years of regular use on video editing. I have nothing to loose so I’ll try before thinking to buy new card. Best regards!!
Thank you for your kind words. I would love to hear how well it goes once your bake is finished!