JUST A NEW NOTE TO ALL OF YOU: My iMac still works like a charm after 30 months (March 2018)!!! So this trick actually works and rocks!!! Use also a free mac app that flows faster the fans and controls the temperature (example: smcFanControl). Good luck to all of you!!! :)
Evan - Creative Tuts Hi Evan, so i did this and seems to have worked! But now my fans are running at full speed. i tried resetting the smc but no good. i also tried downloading the fan control program but it wont let me change the speeds. Have i just connected something wrong inside?
Hello my friend. If that happened right after the baking process and the assembly of the iMac then I believe you haven't connected the FAN cables to the mainboard or the cable is damaged. When the cable isn't properly connected to the M/B the FANS run at full speed. If the FAN speed raised after an O.S. upgrade then you have to download the the SSD Fan Control which does an excellent job with the High Sierra OS. Good luck!
Evan - Creative Tuts Hi I tried this it worked for about a month. I was using no major software just movies. Now I am back with the White screen at the startup. Should I re heat the GPU again? What do you think the issue would have been???
I used this video to reflow my GPU three years ago, and my iMac continued to work until last week. I just went through the whole process again and am glad to report that I have resurrected the GPU once again.
It worked. 2023 and this tutorial is still valuable. I was suffering an incomplete start up (boot loop), with grey screen. Three hours of work, and my 2011 27" is back in action. Thanks very much for posting, very generous of you. A lifesaver.
i tried this procedure on my daughter's imac 27-inch Mid 2011 that does not complete the boot up. And it worked perfectly. thank you for your video. Date 25Dec2020
I think I posed before, but here I go again... Your video is PRICELESS! It is AWESOME! When my card first dies, I was looking at a $1000 CAD bill. However, I decided to try this when I was searching for a better solution. That was 18 months ago. Since them, my card has failed 2 more times. But this solution worked each time! Once the card fails, it seems for me that it will last 8-9 months before failing again. However, that is just my experience. Everyone will have a different one. Thanks so much for posting this. The value you have created in this video for people is incredible. I really do appreciate it!!!!
Greetings Everyone - Normally I don't post comments, but after going to the Apple Store and having an issue with my Radeon 6970 graphics card (for the second time) I figured I had nothing to lose so I followed this tutorial. I baked the card at 392F for 8 minutes and sure enough when I assembled the iMac back together - the computer started up fine and now I have a working screen again. I was a mega skeptic but honestly this worked for me, I encourage everyone to give it a shout if their card is already shot. ** make sure you know a thing or two about computers as reassembling the iMac can be intimidating ** Thanks for saving me a bundle of money, Evan - you're a saint!
Thanks so much Evan for this video. Today my VGA card failed as it did five years ago, then costing me two weeks without my Mac and also a small fortune. So today I followed your excellent instruction and two hours later my Mac is back as good as new. Enjoy your coffee on me and again once again THANKS
Hey Evan, just spent about two hours with my dad following your video. We had the exact same problem as you and this fixed it; our Mac is back to perfect working condition! Thanks so much for this video, really appreciate it :)
I'm going to try attempt to do this to my 2011 27' iMac today. Thanks for the encouraging words at the end. I believe in myself even though i've never done anything like this before, but my brother-in-law will help me and he does PC work so it will be a new experience for the both of us. I'd just like to thank Steve Jobs for creating this wonderful piece of machinery that works so well and is seemingly easy to disassemble and reassemble. Thanks again Evan.
Update: Our problem was a constant restarting. We would turn on the computer and it would restart. It would restart on awakening from sleep. It would restart 2 or 3 times in a row. No issues with striping, just the restarting issue. With the help of a technician, we disassembled the computer to get access to the GPU. We used a heatgun on the 6970M for like 4 minutes (without a thermometer) and reassembled the whole thing. Problem wasn't solved and a new problem emerged, pin-striping. 2 weeks later (after waiting for the technician), my wife and i decided to give it a shot ourselves after she watched this video. She was hesitant before watching this video, but it encouraged her to try. We opened it up again and got the GPU, this time we did the oven bake (10 minutes: 200 Degrees Celsius). Its been 5 days now and its running like new. No restarts. No striping. Everything is working wonderfully. Looks like a new machine. Now my wife, not a techy, is talking about making a Hackintosh. I asked her where she heard that phrase from. But now she is going on this rabbit-hole journey and its probably started from this video. And now we know this computer in-and-out. We ended up opening it like 10 - 15 times. We know all the parts. She got shocked one time because she touched the PSU while it was plugged (life lesson). She wants to drill holes near the fan to allow more air to enter. Its just opened so many ideas.
For anyone reading this, you don't need to put the video card in the oven. You can just buy a pocket torch and evenly apply heat to the GPU chip instead. The key is to keep moving the flame back and forth and in circular motions over the GPU chip for a minute or two. Once you smell solder you know you're good. This happened to me a few years ago and worked like a charm.
Thanks for the vid. I did 2nd bake today after graphics card failed again couple of days ago. my imac27 is up and running again. I did 1st bake in 2018 using your video as well. I went about today's bake a lot more confidently and wasn't disappointed. By the way, I took pictures of most of the cable positions for a before & after guide. Thanks once again!
My iMac's graphics card died Thursday night. Found this video on Friday morning, and spent a few hours disassembling and reassembling it. Works like a champ again! Enjoy your coffee as a thanks from me.
Great tip! Saved me a bundle man, you deserve a stronger drink! Additional note to others trying to pull this off: If your iMac has a DVD unit, take it out as well or you'll have a hard time taking out and replacing the fan. And don't forget to take detailed pictures, there are several types of screws and you don't want to loose track of where they belong.
Hi Evan! My name is Andrew I am from Russia! Thank you so much for your awesome awesome cool great video! My wife and I have been working on the imac all evening. After dismantling the IMAC, we finally took out the video card and stuffed it in the oven for 8 minutes (200 degrees Celsius). And it worked! THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Little advice. We decided to install Windows on our imac. The video card works, but it heats up to 90 degrees Celsius! To fix this, we installed the Macs Fan Control program (the program is available for both Mac OS and Windows). We adjusted the speed of the fans and now when the video card warms up to 70 degrees, the fans work at full capacity and do not allow it to warm up more than 70 degrees. Thanks again! Guys, watch your cooling on the imac.
Thank you Evan, another success. It was hard to assemble it back, but I made it!!. 3 improvements to your video are: 1) take pics or video during disassembling for every screw and wire, since start 2) be more specific about pulling out the Motherboard since it is locked from the bottom, with the IR sensor (about behind the Apple logo). Without pulling this the MB won’t come out! 3) Remove the RAMs otherwise it wont be easy to replace the MB in the original position, then place them back through the aluminium panel from below Thank you again, I made it yesterday and I hope it will work for long time.
Thank you so much! Have a 27" iMac mid 2011 (purchased around then), and it stopped working a few weeks ago. Apple store said for the card and labour, it would be about $1000 CAD after tax. For a 7 year old Mac, not working that much to repair, but don't want to spend $2300 CAD for a new 27" iMac. Found this video and that inspired me to try fixing it myself. After watching this (and a few other videos by others to get a sense of how different people did the fix), I took the plunge and tried. It took me 5 hours (there are more cables than I expected), but it worked perfectly! A few things people should note (as it may not be clear in the video): - take your RAM out step 1! While your mother board may slide out easily with them in, the board won't go in without removing them) - there are MANY cables. Get some very light painters tape and number them in pairs. Tape the cables on both sides so you can match them later - almost all screws are slightly different sizes. Keep track of them. - in fact, take photos of each screen and where it came from so you can review and match easily (Evan suggests taking a video of what you do anyway). - take video of what you are doing at each step (close up) so you can review if needed - make sure you have a small plastic tool to scrap the old thermal paste of with Again, thanks for the video. The tools I needed to get plus the thermal paste cost be $45 CAD from Amazon. Way better than $1000 CAD.
A NOTE TO ALL OF YOU: This video was created on September 2015. My iMac still works like a charm for 22 months now (June 2017) with heavy duty daily work! So YES it WORKS and LASTS! :)
You´re a life saver, i have the same issue and this week i´ll bake that shit! By the way i hear at the end of the video a backgroud sound like your fans too loud or high RPM? I just say it because before my GPU problem happened, the fans started like 1 year ago so loud and high rpms. that i had to install "mac fan control"... (i upgraded my late 2009 iMac to an SSD+eliminate optic drive so maybe it was because of that but it happened much more months after the upgrade...)
I have been looking EVERYWHERE to solve this problem. At first I thought it was a bug in latest MacOS Sierra or conflict with 3rd party software. Disconnected everything, complete reinstall, almost bought a new computer! I am now typing this response on my iMac that I could not access this morning. Now fixed and much appreciated... already sent some coffee money. Cheers.
OMG, it worked!!! I have a 2008 iMac with the video problem since August. I decided to try, spend 4 dollars on the thermal paste, 9.99 on a set of tools. Thanks, thanks, thanks...
It worked! Thank you. There's so much info about this problem I just had to try it, I had nothing to lose since the iMac (mid 2011) was dead. 8 mins in the oven and its back together and working! Im an electronic engineer so understand why this fix works. Pretty cool. Thanks again, you video is one of the best. Much appreciated. Jon, Scotland UK,
Thank you for taking the time to make this tutorial. I was soooo skeptical about baking, a computer in my oven, I’m not even a baker😉. I was also a little afraid tackle the innards of the IMac. It fired right up and worked great. Two extra screws leftover tgough🙏
WOW!!! Many thanks for this video. I just tried this last night (Jan 22, 2021) with awesome success. Went with 395 degrees Fahrenheit for exactly 8 minutes. Bam!!! All good!
Wow. This actually worked. My mid-2007 iMac was hanging at the logo/progress bar screen while booting. I followed this video's instructions and I now have a perfectly working iMac again. Thank you, Evan! You have saved me a shit-ton of money, and I'm donating a GIANT cup of coffee via Paypal. :) Just in case anyone else encounters the same problem I did: After baking the graphics card and reinstalling it into the iMac, I booted to a black screen with no video at all. I could could still hear the chime and the hard disk whirring, but the screen was completely black. Some more Googling led me to someone who had replaced his graphics card only to have the same problem about the black screen. He resolved it by opening the box back up and re-seating the graphics card. It turns out that the card can look like it's properly seated, but you actually have to push it in pretty firmly, enough so that you can barely even see the gold contacts on the card. I re-seated mine and it booted up perfectly with no issues at all. Again, thanks so much, Evan, for taking the time to make this video. Enjoy your coffee, my friend!
I live in Dominican Republic and after watching your video i did exactly as you showed here, foil balls and all, it worked like a charm, saved $800 USD the shop were trying to charge to replace the card, solved the problem all by myself in one evening thanks to you, so thank you very much for this video!.
Hey Cris, I have a early 2009, with NVIDIA GeForce 130 and it crashes when online. Just shuts off, not sure if it's driver issues, is your installed with a NVIDIA GeForce 130 card? Is your 2009 iMac still working? I just patched Catilina to it.
@@reel_images I have the late 2009 iMac with ATI Radeon HD 4850. The graphics card gave out again about two years ago and I replaced it with an NVIDIA GeForce 765 but it runs quite slow and feels like it’s on its last legs now.
I've just performed this procedure on my late 2009 iMac 27" and it worked. It's great that there are people out there that make videos like this to help people to fix their Macs without having to go through Apple and pay through the nose. I'm totally chuffed to bits about the removal of those damned vertical lines which have plagued my Mac for too long. Man, you get a thumbs up from me. Thanks for the vid
Hey great video. Thank you very much for making this. My graphics card on my 21" imac 2010, was overheating and I did exactly the same steps as you did here, and it works perfect now!! The inside of my mac was a bit different and i also used thermal grease instead of thermal paste, but now my mac is working so obviously this trick works for more than one generation of imac.
It wasn't over-heating... Hint: The baking is usually because lead free solder is used in apple products. Lead free solder grows crystals and shorts itself over time. Baking removes the crystals... this was not necessarily caused by temperature and adjusting your internal fans will not necessarily solve this issue.... If this were a heat related problem. Baking wouldn't work.
I have read elsewhere, that this is not a good solution, at least long-term-wise. But since I did not have any real options, I chose it, and it worked! I am on a beloved iMac early 2008 24", really a great computer of its time. Good to see I can still use it and work on it, after 12 years! Still gets everyday jobs (and a few heavy ones), done. Great machine.
Thank You Thank You Thank You. My Imac packed up on fri last and I spent yesterday afternoon fixing it, just like you did in your video. I am eternally greatful for your help. God Bless you Sir
Hi Evan Your calm behavior and thorough description of the procedure, gave me the courage to "bake" the graphics card in my childrens Mac. It worked, and I now have two very happy children who loves me more than ever. Peace, love and respect to you. Many danx!
Thank you, you saved my day. My computer went totally black no chime sound no video. I thought perhaps was the logic board and i was ready to buy a replacement when I come across your video and I decide to try it. A miracle has happened the computer come back to work again.
Thank you it worked! Fixed my 2011 iMac. A warning to others, be very careful with the little connections inside. I accidentally pulled the mother board and ripped off a wire from the WiFi card. No WiFi now but at can still use Ethernet. Many thanks.
Thank you Evan for bringing this to our attention. The GPU on my 2011 27" iMac had been replaced preventively in the past by Apple when they repaired the HDD. Last week, the screen turned green and the iMac would not boot anymore. Since I was not looking forward to spending a ridiculous amount of money to get a replacement GPU or buying a new iMac, I decided to try your method. It was actually less hard than I expected. The iMac is working again. Let's hope it will last me another couple of years like yours.
Thank you for making this video. I have an iMac 24" from 2008 and this process worked to fix my graphics card. I now have an operational iMac again thanks to you!
JUST A NEW NOTE TO ALL OF YOU: My iMac still works like a charm after 26 months (November 2017)!!! So this trick actually works and rocks!!! Use also a free mac app that flows faster the fans (smcFanControl). Good luck to all of you!!! :)
Evan, thank you. I was really skeptical, I thought it was a joke. But my girlfriend had not the money to pay the reparation of her Imac. She needed her Imac fast, it was broken, so we gave it a shot. It was not that easy to open and so on, it took us a lot of patience... But a couple of hours later, we launched the Imac. We where really surprised and happy. Today my girlfriend worked the whole day on her Imac, and without any problems. So thank you again.
+Kristof Caluwaerts I am glad it works my friend! I hope your g/f will enjoy her iMac for a long time! I know how it feels when your favourite computes suddenly stops working. Please share the video so we could help others too! :)
I've done this on a logic board for an LG tv due to the HDMI ports going bad. If you don't want to deal with the smell inside the house, if you have a toaster oven, you can use that outside. Works just as good! Great video!
Can you tell me what issues you had after the first try? Prior to baking it, my machine wouldn't get past the startup screen but would power on, then I baked it and put everything back together and the screen remained all black, no startup screen. Please let me know. Thanks!
Repairing my mac again, 3rd time using this trick. Seems to stay fixed using this method for about a year and a bit. Worth it! Thank you so much for sharing, this does actually work!
I know very little about computers, I just use it to edit. But my graphics card died and the store wouldn't fix it and I was desperate and also very broke. Then I found this video. Evan, I don't know you but... I love you. By watching you over and over and over again I did it and... IT WORKS!!!! I can work again!!! In my case, I ignored the stripes until finally the screen just went black. Still powered on, but nothing on the screen. Yes, this is graphics card failure. Yes, cooking the card works! Additional tips for first timers: 1. Get some masking tape and mark each wire you pull, then draw a diagram so you'll remember where they all go. 2. Sometime before you put the Logic board back in, take out the RAM. This will help the Logic board slide in easier. Then you can put it back after everything else is re-assembeled at the bottom center vent under the monitor. 3. Consider taking the fans out while you're at it and cleaning out the gunk with isopropyl alcohol, a toothbrush and canned air. 4. The old goo on mine was in more places on the card than where Evan applied his. I wondered if some of it was a thermal cushion rather than paste and I debated a LONG time about if the Arctic Silver I used would be OK... I ended up trying anyway and it's fine. So don't stress about that. Save yourself a few hours of anguish. 5. Reserve 2 nights for this. Evan could do it in an hour, but if you're a noob like me you'll need lots of time.
I know there are naysayers, but I just completed the solution you suggested and my iMac is working again!! Plus, as long as I had it pulled apart, I was able to add in an SSD to become the new boot drive and speed thing up. Between your video on cooking the GPU and the OWC video on taking the iMac apart (and back together), I now one happy camper. Thank you! BTW- when I called the authorized Mac repair shop before trying your fix, they told me they had 9 iMac with the exact same GPU issue they were shipping back to recycling. Glad mine is not one of them.
I had to see this video twice I thought it was a sick joke or even some weird thing. I don't have this problem with my early 2009 24 inch iMac, however my hats off to you for either learning this procedure or pick it up somewhere and sharing it with the rest of us. It is said that necessity is the mother of all invention and certainly you kept $600/euros in your pocket but I think the feeling of you having fix this for yourself gives you a much better satisfaction knowing that you did this yourself and that you can help others👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Some things cannot be translated in money, so the happiness of this weird as you said fix made me make this video in order to help others get the courage to deal with the common problem! I am glad it helped so many people! :) Thank you very much my friend!
Evan my friend! I must be honest, I saw several tutorials about this method, and was sceptical about it, but as my iMac presented yellow vertical lines, this was my last resort. I baked my graphic card as you instructed, and I waited for 24hours before writing this comment just to be sure the imac si working again. Thank you very much and I hope it will last few more years.
I just did this and it was a pain in the ass and it took me about 4 hours because I struggled with getting the main board in and out but when I finished I just about teared up when it turned on. You saved me like 600 bucks you're the real mvp. Thanks!
Well, I was a bit sceptic when I first watched your video about "burning" the graphics card will be fixing the issue... but it worked. My iMac is up and running again. Thanks for the tutorial, Evan!
Evan, Thank you very much for this tutorial. I had my iMac 27" with intermittent display issues until it completely ceased to work, I followed your instructions from this video and am happy to say that the issue was completely resolved, my iMac is fully functional again!!! My system is a 27 inch iMac from late 2011. Thanks again from Mexico!
Evan my friend, you can add another to your list of viewers that successfully utilized your process and fixed their (actually my brother-in-law's) 27" iMac!!! It took several hours for me to get it done, even with my brother-in-law's assistance, but IT WORKS!!! I also immediately installed the SMC fan control program and greatly increased all three fans RPM, so hopefully the issue won't crop up again for a very long time! THANK YOU!!!
Hi Evan. I solved the problem on your way and my computer is now working perfectly. I am immensely grateful that you shared this knowledge with us. Thank you very much. All praise to you.
You've got to be kidding me. This worked for me. I was so ready to find out my computer was ruined after trying this but it totally worked. Dude you saved my $3000+ computer. No one makes these parts anymore apparently so this is really the only option. Such a legend. To anyone wanting to try this, watch a couple videos on actually taking the mother board out and reinstalling it, that is really the only difficult part so be prepared and know what you're getting into. Be super careful, lots of screws, lots of cables, and not much room to work with. This trick definitely works though!!!! Thank you!
My iMac worked for 18 months after this repair but I have been working with 4k video for the last year, this time I managed to remove the graphics card only by leaving the heat sink with the wire attached to the mother board in place, just be careful and take your time. I have also installed the Fan Control app. Thanks again for the info Evan, my iMac is alive again.
Nicely done my friend. I did this as well on my iMac about 2 years ago, and I still have a great working machine today. I did not use the oven method, I have a hot air soldering station that I used instead. Look for an App called SMC Fan Control and install that. It allows you to adjust your internal fan speeds on your iMac to prevent the over-heating of the components. It helps a lot. Cheers.
Hint: The baking is usually because lead free solder is used in apple products. Lead free solder grows crystals and shorts itself over time. Baking removes the crystals... this was not necessarily caused by temperature and adjusting your internal fans will not necessarily solve this issue.... If this were a heat related problem. Baking wouldn't work.
Evan , you don't need to take the motherboard out just loosen the 3 screws on the heat sink at the bottom and the top screws and it will come out without taking the main board out. Also consider replacing the hard drive and the dvd player with SSD drives. The Imac benefits two ways 1) the system will run a lot faster , 2) the heat generated is considerably less. I used a 1TB in the main drive location and a smaller SSD in a drive caddy for the dvd location. Heat, dust contamination & poor ventilation kill all electrical items, the heat sucks in the dust which kills the card. If you still want a dvd drive you can buy a dvd enclosure on ebay or amazon, most people stream these days or use usb sticks so dvd drives are not used that much. One other thing when you drop in a SSD the temperature sensor that plugs into the hard drive cannot be used, so I took the thermal stick stick on sensor off the dvd drive and placed that on the SSD. If you don't use a sensor the system fans will be running 100% all the time eg noisy . I used a system cleaner to removed the old thermal paste and then cooked it and used a chemical cleaner to remove the contaminants before applying the silver paste sparingly to the chips.
I have 2008 imac with Nvidia graphics. Following symtoms were present: Loading bar will load 75% or 50% way and it will boot looop / Stuck in grey screen / Imac will crash with error code. I tried everything like reinstalling / recovery, safe mode........ Finally I gave up and disassembled the entire thing and this is method. Now it works like charm. Thank you so much for this video. ( I baked mine in 400 F degree in toaster oven for 10 minutes. foil was used as feet. New thermal paste was applied )
Hey, Amazing trick. I was in the Apple Support and they wanted more than 800$ to reppear my Mid2011 iMac. I just followed this intructions and Works Again!!!!! My computer was completly dark (no picture at all). But now is perfect. Thank you very much!!!!!! Just Great!!!
I baked my Video card just like the RUclips video stated and had a technician R&R the card. Cost me $80.00 in labour. It works great now for over a week. THANKS
Thank U! I did this and my imac is still alive!! I see why it over heated... the thermal paste had completely dried up and the screws to the heat sink were pretty loose... so there you have it... BTW 200 degrees C... is 392F... my oven won't let me turn both elements on at the same time, so i just turned it to broil and let the top element do the work... It still worked!!.. Thanks again...
Evan you are a Legend!! Can't believe my Imac 27' is back on bussines, it's definetlly works, follow all the steps by carefully and miracullous works. My graphics card is ready to go hopefully for quite longer more. Thanks Champ.
I am glad to see that this tricks works for the most here! Enjoy your iMac my friend! Make sure to download an app to control the speed of your computer's fans. I am using the smcFanControler which is free! :)
hey bought 27 iMac i7 12 gigs with bad graphics card paid 150 took it apart like you showed us put it all back together and works like new thanks for your video and all your help i scored big time with this 150 dollar 27 inch iMac he even threw in the magic keyboard and mouse Im one happy guy..
Well, after many grueling hours I can say this actually appears to have worked!! Thermal throttling is gone after adding high quality paste to the CPU and GPU + VRMs (Oh yeah and I baked it too!) All temps are now in the 30s! Even if your mac isn't broken and you're competent with computers, give it a shot. It sucks.. a lot. But if you're having bad heating issues and you're out of warranty than it may be worth it. Also helps to have a friend around to give you a hand when needed. AND TAKE PICTURES/VIDEO, AND KEEP SCREWS ORGANIZED! Thanks so much for the guide, you've saved my ass. CHEERS!
I just want to thank you my friend for your idea. I just fixed a 2011 27inch iMac that I found at the garbage dump. I have a fully working free iMac now! It really did work for me.
I am an idiot and used a program called Mac Fan Control to turn down the fans on my iMac because they were so loud. Now my GPU is messed up just like yours. I am going to attempt this because it has the i7, 16gb of ram and 2TB harddrive and is an awesome computer. Thanks for this helpful video and glad it worked out for you!
Thank you so much Evan. Baked mine this morning and it is like new. Had it boxed for over a year and a half and used a lower model C2D iMac, but now my i7 is rocking it again.
I thought all hope was lost for my Imac. It is a late 2009 model so I wasn't so surprised that it happened, I mean it has been working great for almost 7 years. But it was still sad, then I found this video. And I sure as hell didn't believe this could work. But today we took apart the computer with help from this tutorial, and baked the graphic card in the oven. It is now working again!!! I cannot believe it! I am so happy! :) :) :)
Thanks you so much for your help... My Mac has been dead for over a year now and i thought i would give it a try as i had nothing to loose. I worked a treat, i have installed the software to keep the fan running high and keep it cool .. Hats off to you mate I can not thank you enough and you saved me over $600 .....
Man, thank you so much for this video, this helped me a lot. I did the entire procedure just following your steps and it worked!!! I really thought that i would be forced to spend really money on the fix (here in Brazil is really expensive) and I just watched this video a couple times, did the thing and my Imac is alive! Incredible! Greetings from Brazil!
Same problem with my iMac - nothing to loose so I tried your remedy - fantastic! it worked. I now have a fully working iMac again - so I then swopped the HD for an SSD. Thank you for the tutorial - brill :)
I took my Mid 2011 IMac to the Apple store to see if they would honor the recall on the 6970M video card which I suspected was bad. Needless to say that was a waste of time other than them confirming my suspicion and hitting me with a $525 dollar estimate to replace it. I decided to take the time to do your fix. I became skeptical in the process as the haters were posting videos saying it doesnt work.. there were several methods to do the fix and haters claiming it doesn't work. I also found several methods to do the fix including : heat gun, oven, and small hand held torch. I decided on the oven method. I baked it for just over 8 minutes at 400 degrees and let it cool on the top of the stove. I proceeded to reassemble the machine and was pleased to find it works again. Simply amazing. In my case I suspect it was a solder joint not a bad chip so it worked! For the haters, try it before you assume it doesn't work! Thank you for taking the time to produce the video on a fix that should have been on Apple.
Thank you. I did this and brought my 27 inch iMac back to life! A challenge to put it back together, but well worth it!! Thanks for taking the time to make this tutorial. Amazing!
Thank you very much, The Apple store wanted to charge me $500 Dollars for a new video card(same model#) with 3 month warranty only. I told them No. I went home and I followed your instructions and now My IMAC is working again. Thanks!!
After 248282817 hours, 27373 mistakes, hidden wires, motherboard on and off for infinite times... MY IMAC WORKS AGAIN AFTER 3 YEARS!!!! I only can say THANK YOU VERY MUCH! I owe you 1 l coffee at least!! Tanks thanks thanks! 🥳🥳🥳💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽 (I was skeptical too I confess!!!)
Hello! Just to let you know I had this problem in my mid 2011 27" iMac. Thank you very much for your video, I used information from yours and other youtube videos, and the bake of the GPU in the oven WORKED!!! AT FIRST!!! I just can't believe :) One thousand thanks!
You are a fantastic guy and everyone would like to be friend with you ! That kind of friend to drink a beer with ! Thanks for such generousity ! Thanks to share
Hi Evan I just wanna say "Thanks" my Imac 27 " has a continus rebooting problem, I sent it to Apple Store support and the apple technical said me the Imac Need a replacement , the cost is 2.300 US.. (OMG) with that price I had brind it to my home again,,,, . when I see your video I followed all that you teach, burn my video card in my electrical oven as 200 degree por 8 minutes , and woalaaaaa! fix all my imac problem--- just pay the price of thermal creme and my hands. Thanks. thanks , thanks ,.. I am Happy!!
Just tried this, took me about 4 hours to complete and so far so good! Thank you so much! Tip: create some kind of contraption to jam the screen fully back tilted. Been reading a lot about people accidently dropping the lcd and damaging the fragile cables when the screen suddenly tilts forward. Makes it a whole lot easier when fiddling with the cables connecting the lcd!
JUST A NEW NOTE TO ALL OF YOU:
My iMac still works like a charm after 30 months (March 2018)!!!
So this trick actually works and rocks!!! Use also a free mac app that flows faster the fans and controls the temperature (example: smcFanControl). Good luck to all of you!!! :)
Evan - Creative Tuts Hi Evan, so i did this and seems to have worked! But now my fans are running at full speed. i tried resetting the smc but no good. i also tried downloading the fan control program but it wont let me change the speeds. Have i just connected something wrong inside?
Hello my friend. If that happened right after the baking process and the assembly of the iMac then I believe you haven't connected the FAN cables to the mainboard or the cable is damaged. When the cable isn't properly connected to the M/B the FANS run at full speed. If the FAN speed raised after an O.S. upgrade then you have to download the the SSD Fan Control which does an excellent job with the High Sierra OS. Good luck!
Evan - Creative Tuts Hi there it will be helpful if you replied the message, What is the materials you've used to remove the old GPU past. Thanks
will this trick work with a late 2006 20" imac?
Evan - Creative Tuts Hi I tried this it worked for about a month. I was using no major software just movies. Now I am back with the White screen at the startup. Should I re heat the GPU again? What do you think the issue would have been???
I used this video to reflow my GPU three years ago, and my iMac continued to work until last week. I just went through the whole process again and am glad to report that I have resurrected the GPU once again.
It worked. 2023 and this tutorial is still valuable. I was suffering an incomplete start up (boot loop), with grey screen. Three hours of work, and my 2011 27" is back in action. Thanks very much for posting, very generous of you. A lifesaver.
i tried this procedure on my daughter's imac 27-inch Mid 2011 that does not complete the boot up. And it worked perfectly. thank you for your video. Date 25Dec2020
I think I posed before, but here I go again...
Your video is PRICELESS! It is AWESOME! When my card first dies, I was looking at a $1000 CAD bill. However, I decided to try this when I was searching for a better solution. That was 18 months ago. Since them, my card has failed 2 more times. But this solution worked each time!
Once the card fails, it seems for me that it will last 8-9 months before failing again. However, that is just my experience. Everyone will have a different one.
Thanks so much for posting this. The value you have created in this video for people is incredible. I really do appreciate it!!!!
Greetings Everyone - Normally I don't post comments, but after going to the Apple Store and having an issue with my Radeon 6970 graphics card (for the second time) I figured I had nothing to lose so I followed this tutorial. I baked the card at 392F for 8 minutes and sure enough when I assembled the iMac back together - the computer started up fine and now I have a working screen again. I was a mega skeptic but honestly this worked for me, I encourage everyone to give it a shout if their card is already shot. ** make sure you know a thing or two about computers as reassembling the iMac can be intimidating **
Thanks for saving me a bundle of money, Evan - you're a saint!
Thanks so much Evan for this video. Today my VGA card failed as it did five years ago, then costing me two weeks without my Mac and also a small fortune. So today I followed your excellent instruction and two hours later my Mac is back as good as new. Enjoy your coffee on me and again once again THANKS
Hey Evan, just spent about two hours with my dad following your video. We had the exact same problem as you and this fixed it; our Mac is back to perfect working condition! Thanks so much for this video, really appreciate it :)
+Luke Iannello I am glad it works my friend! Enjoy your iMac and please share the video so we could help others too! :)
I'm going to try attempt to do this to my 2011 27' iMac today. Thanks for the encouraging words at the end. I believe in myself even though i've never done anything like this before, but my brother-in-law will help me and he does PC work so it will be a new experience for the both of us. I'd just like to thank Steve Jobs for creating this wonderful piece of machinery that works so well and is seemingly easy to disassemble and reassemble. Thanks again Evan.
Update:
Our problem was a constant restarting. We would turn on the computer and it would restart. It would restart on awakening from sleep. It would restart 2 or 3 times in a row. No issues with striping, just the restarting issue.
With the help of a technician, we disassembled the computer to get access to the GPU. We used a heatgun on the 6970M for like 4 minutes (without a thermometer) and reassembled the whole thing. Problem wasn't solved and a new problem emerged, pin-striping.
2 weeks later (after waiting for the technician), my wife and i decided to give it a shot ourselves after she watched this video. She was hesitant before watching this video, but it encouraged her to try. We opened it up again and got the GPU, this time we did the oven bake (10 minutes: 200 Degrees Celsius).
Its been 5 days now and its running like new. No restarts. No striping. Everything is working wonderfully. Looks like a new machine. Now my wife, not a techy, is talking about making a Hackintosh. I asked her where she heard that phrase from. But now she is going on this rabbit-hole journey and its probably started from this video.
And now we know this computer in-and-out. We ended up opening it like 10 - 15 times. We know all the parts. She got shocked one time because she touched the PSU while it was plugged (life lesson). She wants to drill holes near the fan to allow more air to enter. Its just opened so many ideas.
For anyone reading this, you don't need to put the video card in the oven. You can just buy a pocket torch and evenly apply heat to the GPU chip instead. The key is to keep moving the flame back and forth and in circular motions over the GPU chip for a minute or two. Once you smell solder you know you're good. This happened to me a few years ago and worked like a charm.
Thanks for the vid. I did 2nd bake today after graphics card failed again couple of days ago. my imac27 is up and running again. I did 1st bake in 2018 using your video as well. I went about today's bake a lot more confidently and wasn't disappointed. By the way, I took pictures of most of the cable positions for a before & after guide. Thanks once again!
You saved me 400 USD. What a legend!
COOL! I wanna do the same now.. Did you preheated on 200 degrees?
yes a preheat is a good practice
Big usd drama
Do you have any issues now?
this is old computer, you can buy it for 150*250 euro complete...heheheh
My iMac's graphics card died Thursday night. Found this video on Friday morning, and spent a few hours disassembling and reassembling it. Works like a champ again! Enjoy your coffee as a thanks from me.
Great tip! Saved me a bundle man, you deserve a stronger drink!
Additional note to others trying to pull this off: If your iMac has a DVD unit, take it out as well or you'll have a hard time taking out and replacing the fan. And don't forget to take detailed pictures, there are several types of screws and you don't want to loose track of where they belong.
Hi Evan! My name is Andrew I am from Russia! Thank you so much for your awesome awesome cool great video! My wife and I have been working on the imac all evening. After dismantling the IMAC, we finally took out the video card and stuffed it in the oven for 8 minutes (200 degrees Celsius). And it worked! THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Little advice. We decided to install Windows on our imac. The video card works, but it heats up to 90 degrees Celsius! To fix this, we installed the Macs Fan Control program (the program is available for both Mac OS and Windows). We adjusted the speed of the fans and now when the video card warms up to 70 degrees, the fans work at full capacity and do not allow it to warm up more than 70 degrees. Thanks again! Guys, watch your cooling on the imac.
Thank you Evan, another success. It was hard to assemble it back, but I made it!!.
3 improvements to your video are:
1) take pics or video during disassembling for every screw and wire, since start
2) be more specific about pulling out the Motherboard since it is locked from the bottom, with the IR sensor (about behind the Apple logo). Without pulling this the MB won’t come out!
3) Remove the RAMs otherwise it wont be easy to replace the MB in the original position, then place them back through the aluminium panel from below
Thank you again, I made it yesterday and I hope it will work for long time.
I can confirm that this worked for my 27" 2011 iMac. Placed video card on middle shelf on bake for 390 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 minutes.
iMac 27" Mid 2011 here, how about yours now? Still working?
Thank you so much! Have a 27" iMac mid 2011 (purchased around then), and it stopped working a few weeks ago. Apple store said for the card and labour, it would be about $1000 CAD after tax. For a 7 year old Mac, not working that much to repair, but don't want to spend $2300 CAD for a new 27" iMac.
Found this video and that inspired me to try fixing it myself. After watching this (and a few other videos by others to get a sense of how different people did the fix), I took the plunge and tried.
It took me 5 hours (there are more cables than I expected), but it worked perfectly!
A few things people should note (as it may not be clear in the video):
- take your RAM out step 1! While your mother board may slide out easily with them in, the board won't go in without removing them)
- there are MANY cables. Get some very light painters tape and number them in pairs. Tape the cables on both sides so you can match them later
- almost all screws are slightly different sizes. Keep track of them.
- in fact, take photos of each screen and where it came from so you can review and match easily (Evan suggests taking a video of what you do anyway).
- take video of what you are doing at each step (close up) so you can review if needed
- make sure you have a small plastic tool to scrap the old thermal paste of with
Again, thanks for the video. The tools I needed to get plus the thermal paste cost be $45 CAD from Amazon. Way better than $1000 CAD.
A NOTE TO ALL OF YOU:
This video was created on September 2015. My iMac still works like a charm for 22 months now (June 2017) with heavy duty daily work! So YES it WORKS and LASTS! :)
Great, Man! And, THANKS A LOT. Mine works too.
Thank you!
You´re a life saver, i have the same issue and this week i´ll bake that shit!
By the way i hear at the end of the video a backgroud sound like your fans too loud or high RPM? I just say it because before my GPU problem happened, the fans started like 1 year ago so loud and high rpms. that i had to install "mac fan control"... (i upgraded my late 2009 iMac to an SSD+eliminate optic drive so maybe it was because of that but it happened much more months after the upgrade...)
Evan - Creative Tuts in
Evan - Creative Tuts it worked for me!! Thanks a lot!!
I have been looking EVERYWHERE to solve this problem. At first I thought it was a bug in latest MacOS Sierra or conflict with 3rd party software. Disconnected everything, complete reinstall, almost bought a new computer! I am now typing this response on my iMac that I could not access this morning. Now fixed and much appreciated... already sent some coffee money. Cheers.
OMG, it worked!!! I have a 2008 iMac with the video problem since August. I decided to try, spend 4 dollars on the thermal paste, 9.99 on a set of tools. Thanks, thanks, thanks...
It worked! Thank you. There's so much info about this problem I just had to try it, I had nothing to lose since the iMac (mid 2011) was dead. 8 mins in the oven and its back together and working! Im an electronic engineer so understand why this fix works. Pretty cool. Thanks again, you video is one of the best. Much appreciated. Jon, Scotland UK,
Thank you for taking the time to make this tutorial. I was soooo skeptical about baking, a computer in my oven, I’m not even a baker😉. I was also a little afraid tackle the innards of the IMac. It fired right up and worked great. Two extra screws leftover tgough🙏
WOW!!! Many thanks for this video. I just tried this last night (Jan 22, 2021) with awesome success. Went with 395 degrees Fahrenheit for exactly 8 minutes. Bam!!! All good!
Just tried it yesterday, and u saved me AUD$1000! I can say i enjoyed watching it bake like a kid watching biscuits bake ：）
Enjoy your iMac Anthony! :)
Wow. This actually worked. My mid-2007 iMac was hanging at the logo/progress bar screen while booting. I followed this video's instructions and I now have a perfectly working iMac again. Thank you, Evan! You have saved me a shit-ton of money, and I'm donating a GIANT cup of coffee via Paypal. :) Just in case anyone else encounters the same problem I did: After baking the graphics card and reinstalling it into the iMac, I booted to a black screen with no video at all. I could could still hear the chime and the hard disk whirring, but the screen was completely black. Some more Googling led me to someone who had replaced his graphics card only to have the same problem about the black screen. He resolved it by opening the box back up and re-seating the graphics card. It turns out that the card can look like it's properly seated, but you actually have to push it in pretty firmly, enough so that you can barely even see the gold contacts on the card. I re-seated mine and it booted up perfectly with no issues at all. Again, thanks so much, Evan, for taking the time to make this video. Enjoy your coffee, my friend!
This saved my 2011 iMac 27"! Thank you so much for sharing!
I live in Dominican Republic and after watching your video i did exactly as you showed here, foil balls and all, it worked like a charm, saved $800 USD the shop were trying to charge to replace the card, solved the problem all by myself in one evening thanks to you, so thank you very much for this video!.
Thanks Evan, I just repaired my own iMac 27" (2009) using this method. Hope it will last at least another couple years. :)
Hey Cris, I have a early 2009, with NVIDIA GeForce 130 and it crashes when online. Just shuts off, not sure if it's driver issues, is your installed with a NVIDIA GeForce 130 card? Is your 2009 iMac still working?
I just patched Catilina to it.
@@reel_images I have the late 2009 iMac with ATI Radeon HD 4850. The graphics card gave out again about two years ago and I replaced it with an NVIDIA GeForce 765 but it runs quite slow and feels like it’s on its last legs now.
I've just performed this procedure on my late 2009 iMac 27" and it worked. It's great that there are people out there that make videos like this to help people to fix their Macs without having to go through Apple and pay through the nose. I'm totally chuffed to bits about the removal of those damned vertical lines which have plagued my Mac for too long.
Man, you get a thumbs up from me. Thanks for the vid
If the video helped you save your mac feel free to buy me a coffee if you like!
www.paypal.me/vlasopoulos
Hey great video. Thank you very much for making this. My graphics card on my 21" imac 2010, was overheating and I did exactly the same steps as you did here, and it works perfect now!! The inside of my mac was a bit different and i also used thermal grease instead of thermal paste, but now my mac is working so obviously this trick works for more than one generation of imac.
One more iMac is saved! Great to read that my friend!
It wasn't over-heating... Hint: The baking is usually because lead free solder is used in apple products. Lead free solder grows crystals and shorts itself over time. Baking removes the crystals... this was not necessarily caused by temperature and adjusting your internal fans will not necessarily solve this issue.... If this were a heat related problem. Baking wouldn't work.
I have read elsewhere, that this is not a good solution, at least long-term-wise. But since I did not have any real options, I chose it, and it worked! I am on a beloved iMac early 2008 24", really a great computer of its time. Good to see I can still use it and work on it, after 12 years! Still gets everyday jobs (and a few heavy ones), done. Great machine.
Thank You Thank You Thank You. My Imac packed up on fri last and I spent yesterday afternoon fixing it, just like you did in your video. I am eternally greatful for your help. God Bless you Sir
Hi Evan
Your calm behavior and thorough description of the procedure, gave me the courage to "bake" the graphics card in my childrens Mac. It worked, and I now have two very happy children who loves me more than ever. Peace, love and respect to you. Many danx!
Thank you for your comment Lars! I am really happy when my help brings smile to children! :) Enjoy your iMac! :)
Oh Evan, Thank you! We did this to our 2011, 27" imac and it WORKED!!!!!!!
+witznd I am glad my video helped you bring your iMac back to life! :) Enjoy!
Thank you, you saved my day. My computer went totally black no chime sound no video. I thought perhaps was the logic board and i was ready to buy a replacement when I come across your video and I decide to try it. A miracle has happened the computer come back to work again.
Just followed these steps and my old mac is back to life once more. hoping for the long term, but if not then it was nice to see it come alive again
Great video. I bet the 40plus thumbs down haters are people who make loads of money repairing Apple computers.
Operative word here is "REPAIR".
Thank you it worked! Fixed my 2011 iMac. A warning to others, be very careful with the little connections inside. I accidentally pulled the mother board and ripped off a wire from the WiFi card. No WiFi now but at can still use Ethernet. Many thanks.
Wow, man, where do I start, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, you saved my iMac, I will buy you a coffee! Again THANKS!
Thank you very much Tom! I am glad to help others to solve this shitty problem! :)
Thank you Evan for bringing this to our attention. The GPU on my 2011 27" iMac had been replaced preventively in the past by Apple when they repaired the HDD. Last week, the screen turned green and the iMac would not boot anymore. Since I was not looking forward to spending a ridiculous amount of money to get a replacement GPU or buying a new iMac, I decided to try your method. It was actually less hard than I expected. The iMac is working again. Let's hope it will last me another couple of years like yours.
Hi Evan... IT WORKS!! Thanks a lot..
Thank you for making this video. I have an iMac 24" from 2008 and this process worked to fix my graphics card. I now have an operational iMac again thanks to you!
JUST A NEW NOTE TO ALL OF YOU:
My iMac still works like a charm after 26 months (November 2017)!!!
So this trick actually works and rocks!!! Use also a free mac app that flows faster the fans (smcFanControl). Good luck to all of you!!! :)
Evan - Creative Tuts you are Serbian ?
No, I am Greek! But we are really close! :)
Evan, thank you. I was really skeptical, I thought it was a joke. But my girlfriend had not the money to pay the reparation of her Imac. She needed her Imac fast, it was broken, so we gave it a shot. It was not that easy to open and so on, it took us a lot of patience... But a couple of hours later, we launched the Imac. We where really surprised and happy. Today my girlfriend worked the whole day on her Imac, and without any problems. So thank you again.
+Kristof Caluwaerts I am glad it works my friend! I hope your g/f will enjoy her iMac for a long time! I know how it feels when your favourite computes suddenly stops working. Please share the video so we could help others too! :)
Apple * yes we cant repair him just buy a new one * RUclips hold my beer
I've done this on a logic board for an LG tv due to the HDMI ports going bad. If you don't want to deal with the smell inside the house, if you have a toaster oven, you can use that outside. Works just as good! Great video!
i had to bake mine 3 different times before it finally was "fixed" it's been running for about a year now with no issues.
Can you tell me what issues you had after the first try? Prior to baking it, my machine wouldn't get past the startup screen but would power on, then I baked it and put everything back together and the screen remained all black, no startup screen.
Please let me know.
Thanks!
At what temperature?
I feel like I'm going to bake it at 400F for about 10 minutes just to be sure!
Good to know you gave an update after one year. is it still working today June 6th 2020?
Repairing my mac again, 3rd time using this trick. Seems to stay fixed using this method for about a year and a bit. Worth it! Thank you so much for sharing, this does actually work!
Thanks for your help saving me $600 CAN
I know very little about computers, I just use it to edit. But my graphics card died and the store wouldn't fix it and I was desperate and also very broke. Then I found this video. Evan, I don't know you but... I love you. By watching you over and over and over again I did it and... IT WORKS!!!! I can work again!!!
In my case, I ignored the stripes until finally the screen just went black. Still powered on, but nothing on the screen. Yes, this is graphics card failure. Yes, cooking the card works!
Additional tips for first timers:
1. Get some masking tape and mark each wire you pull, then draw a diagram so you'll remember where they all go.
2. Sometime before you put the Logic board back in, take out the RAM. This will help the Logic board slide in easier. Then you can put it back after everything else is re-assembeled at the bottom center vent under the monitor.
3. Consider taking the fans out while you're at it and cleaning out the gunk with isopropyl alcohol, a toothbrush and canned air.
4. The old goo on mine was in more places on the card than where Evan applied his. I wondered if some of it was a thermal cushion rather than paste and I debated a LONG time about if the Arctic Silver I used would be OK... I ended up trying anyway and it's fine. So don't stress about that. Save yourself a few hours of anguish.
5. Reserve 2 nights for this. Evan could do it in an hour, but if you're a noob like me you'll need lots of time.
I tried to save time by cooking it for 4 minutes at 500 Fahrenheit. I don't recommend it.
why stop there, i cooked mine for 1 second at 128 thousand °F
i cooked mine for 1ms at 1572549782301276 celcius
I just did this on my 2011 27" iMac, and it worked perfectly! It took me about 3 hours start to finish. Thanks for your guide!
tried this, now my mac can't be turned on even.
Victor Karimi same problem here
Yup same
I took mine apart like 3 times and finally found the problem. I forgot to plug in the power button chord. Once that was in, computer works again!!
I know there are naysayers, but I just completed the solution you suggested and my iMac is working again!! Plus, as long as I had it pulled apart, I was able to add in an SSD to become the new boot drive and speed thing up. Between your video on cooking the GPU and the OWC video on taking the iMac apart (and back together), I now one happy camper. Thank you! BTW- when I called the authorized Mac repair shop before trying your fix, they told me they had 9 iMac with the exact same GPU issue they were shipping back to recycling. Glad mine is not one of them.
I had to see this video twice I thought it was a sick joke or even some weird thing. I don't have this problem with my early 2009 24 inch iMac, however my hats off to you for either learning this procedure or pick it up somewhere and sharing it with the rest of us. It is said that necessity is the mother of all invention and certainly you kept $600/euros in your pocket but I think the feeling of you having fix this for yourself gives you a much better satisfaction knowing that you did this yourself and that you can help others👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Some things cannot be translated in money, so the happiness of this weird as you said fix made me make this video in order to help others get the courage to deal with the common problem! I am glad it helped so many people! :) Thank you very much my friend!
Evan my friend! I must be honest, I saw several tutorials about this method, and was sceptical about it, but as my iMac presented yellow vertical lines, this was my last resort. I baked my graphic card as you instructed, and I waited for 24hours before writing this comment just to be sure the imac si working again. Thank you very much and I hope it will last few more years.
I just did this and it was a pain in the ass and it took me about 4 hours because I struggled with getting the main board in and out but when I finished I just about teared up when it turned on. You saved me like 600 bucks you're the real mvp. Thanks!
Worked perfectly on mine too..... I was all set to dump the machine but now it's been given a new lease of life. Thank you!
Well, I was a bit sceptic when I first watched your video about "burning" the graphics card will be fixing the issue... but it worked. My iMac is up and running again. Thanks for the tutorial, Evan!
Evan, Thank you very much for this tutorial. I had my iMac 27" with intermittent display issues until it completely ceased to work, I followed your instructions from this video and am happy to say that the issue was completely resolved, my iMac is fully functional again!!! My system is a 27 inch iMac from late 2011. Thanks again from Mexico!
+Dany I am really happy that my video helped you! Have fun my friend and enjoy your healthy iMac! :)
Evan my friend, you can add another to your list of viewers that successfully utilized your process and fixed their (actually my brother-in-law's) 27" iMac!!! It took several hours for me to get it done, even with my brother-in-law's assistance, but IT WORKS!!! I also immediately installed the SMC fan control program and greatly increased all three fans RPM, so hopefully the issue won't crop up again for a very long time! THANK YOU!!!
Hi Evan. I solved the problem on your way and my computer is now working perfectly. I am immensely grateful that you shared this knowledge with us. Thank you very much. All praise to you.
I was very sceptical about this but alas I managed to resurrect my friend's iMac 2010 by following the video. Amazing!
You've got to be kidding me. This worked for me. I was so ready to find out my computer was ruined after trying this but it totally worked. Dude you saved my $3000+ computer. No one makes these parts anymore apparently so this is really the only option. Such a legend. To anyone wanting to try this, watch a couple videos on actually taking the mother board out and reinstalling it, that is really the only difficult part so be prepared and know what you're getting into. Be super careful, lots of screws, lots of cables, and not much room to work with. This trick definitely works though!!!! Thank you!
Thanks for your post It really helped my wife & I! We were able to repair our 27" iMac! Thanks again & enjoy the coffee, your earned it!
My iMac worked for 18 months after this repair but I have been working with 4k video for the last year, this time I managed to remove the graphics card only by leaving the heat sink with the wire attached to the mother board in place, just be careful and take your time. I have also installed the Fan Control app. Thanks again for the info Evan, my iMac is alive again.
Nicely done my friend. I did this as well on my iMac about 2 years ago, and I still have a great working machine today. I did not use the oven method, I have a hot air soldering station that I used instead. Look for an App called SMC Fan Control and install that. It allows you to adjust your internal fan speeds on your iMac to prevent the over-heating of the components. It helps a lot. Cheers.
Hint: The baking is usually because lead free solder is used in apple products. Lead free solder grows crystals and shorts itself over time. Baking removes the crystals... this was not necessarily caused by temperature and adjusting your internal fans will not necessarily solve this issue.... If this were a heat related problem. Baking wouldn't work.
Evan , you don't need to take the motherboard out just loosen the 3 screws on the heat sink at the bottom and the top screws and it will come out without taking the main board out. Also consider replacing the hard drive and the dvd player with SSD drives.
The Imac benefits two ways 1) the system will run a lot faster , 2) the heat generated is considerably less.
I used a 1TB in the main drive location and a smaller SSD in a drive caddy for the dvd location.
Heat, dust contamination & poor ventilation kill all electrical items, the heat sucks in the dust which kills the card. If you still want a dvd drive you can buy a dvd enclosure on ebay or amazon, most people stream these days or use usb sticks so dvd drives are not used that much.
One other thing when you drop in a SSD the temperature sensor that plugs into the hard drive cannot be used, so I took the thermal stick stick on sensor off the dvd drive and placed that on the SSD. If you don't use a sensor the system fans will be running 100% all the time eg noisy .
I used a system cleaner to removed the old thermal paste and then cooked it and used a chemical cleaner to remove the contaminants before applying the silver paste sparingly to the chips.
I have 2008 imac with Nvidia graphics. Following symtoms were present: Loading bar will load 75% or 50% way and it will boot looop / Stuck in grey screen / Imac will crash with error code. I tried everything like reinstalling / recovery, safe mode........ Finally I gave up and disassembled the entire thing and this is method. Now it works like charm. Thank you so much for this video. ( I baked mine in 400 F degree in toaster oven for 10 minutes. foil was used as feet. New thermal paste was applied )
Just did this for the first time to my mid-2010 21.5” iMac and it works again! Thank you! Hope you’re safe and healthy!
Hey, Amazing trick. I was in the Apple Support and they wanted more than 800$ to reppear my Mid2011 iMac. I just followed this intructions and Works Again!!!!!
My computer was completly dark (no picture at all). But now is perfect.
Thank you very much!!!!!! Just Great!!!
I was a bit skeptical, but it actually worked. My mid 2011 imac had been resurrected!! Thank you so much for posting. Saved me a ton of money.
If the video helped you save your mac feel free to buy me a coffee if you like!
www.paypal.me/vlasopoulos
I baked my Video card just like the RUclips video stated and had a technician R&R the card. Cost me $80.00 in labour. It works great now for over a week. THANKS
Thank U! I did this and my imac is still alive!! I see why it over heated... the thermal paste had completely dried up and the screws to the heat sink were pretty loose... so there you have it... BTW 200 degrees C... is 392F... my oven won't let me turn both elements on at the same time, so i just turned it to broil and let the top element do the work... It still worked!!.. Thanks again...
Evan you are a Legend!! Can't believe my Imac 27' is back on bussines, it's definetlly works, follow all the steps by carefully and miracullous works. My graphics card is ready to go hopefully for quite longer more. Thanks Champ.
I am glad to see that this tricks works for the most here! Enjoy your iMac my friend! Make sure to download an app to control the speed of your computer's fans. I am using the smcFanControler which is free! :)
hey bought 27 iMac i7 12 gigs with bad graphics card paid 150 took it apart like you showed us put it all back together and works like new thanks for your video and all your help i scored big time with this 150 dollar 27 inch iMac he even threw in the magic keyboard and mouse Im one happy guy..
On my second graphics card iMac 27" 2011...first time cost £700 to fix so followed this video and it works. Thanks!
I am glad that my video helped you to save so much money my friend!
Well, after many grueling hours I can say this actually appears to have worked!! Thermal throttling is gone after adding high quality paste to the CPU and GPU + VRMs (Oh yeah and I baked it too!) All temps are now in the 30s! Even if your mac isn't broken and you're competent with computers, give it a shot. It sucks.. a lot. But if you're having bad heating issues and you're out of warranty than it may be worth it. Also helps to have a friend around to give you a hand when needed. AND TAKE PICTURES/VIDEO, AND KEEP SCREWS ORGANIZED!
Thanks so much for the guide, you've saved my ass. CHEERS!
Also may I add, hitting that power button and hearing the startup noise was one of the best things that I've heard in quite some time.
This is just for me. This successfully fixed my iMac! Working as February 2019. Thank you for sharing this!
I just want to thank you my friend for your idea. I just fixed a 2011 27inch iMac that I found at the garbage dump. I have a fully working free iMac now! It really did work for me.
I am an idiot and used a program called Mac Fan Control to turn down the fans on my iMac because they were so loud. Now my GPU is messed up just like yours. I am going to attempt this because it has the i7, 16gb of ram and 2TB harddrive and is an awesome computer. Thanks for this helpful video and glad it worked out for you!
It worked! I wrote my old iMac mid 2010 off but you just saved it! Thank you SO much! You are a hero.
If the video helped you save your mac feel free to buy me a coffee if you like!
www.paypal.me/vlasopoulos
Thank you so much Evan. Baked mine this morning and it is like new. Had it boxed for over a year and a half and used a lower model C2D iMac, but now my i7 is rocking it again.
Hi Evan, Fixed our Imac using your clear tutorial. It's running fine for a few day's now. Thanks!
I thought all hope was lost for my Imac. It is a late 2009 model so I wasn't so surprised that it happened, I mean it has been working great for almost 7 years. But it was still sad, then I found this video. And I sure as hell didn't believe this could work. But today we took apart the computer with help from this tutorial, and baked the graphic card in the oven. It is now working again!!! I cannot believe it! I am so happy! :) :) :)
If the video helped you save your mac feel free to buy me a coffee if you like!
www.paypal.me/vlasopoulos
Thanks you so much for your help... My Mac has been dead for over a year now and i thought i would give it a try as i had nothing to loose. I worked a treat, i have installed the software to keep the fan running high and keep it cool ..
Hats off to you mate I can not thank you enough and you saved me over $600 .....
If the video helped you save your mac feel free to buy me a coffee if you like!
www.paypal.me/vlasopoulos
Man, thank you so much for this video, this helped me a lot. I did the entire procedure just following your steps and it worked!!! I really thought that i would be forced to spend really money on the fix (here in Brazil is really expensive) and I just watched this video a couple times, did the thing and my Imac is alive! Incredible! Greetings from Brazil!
Same problem with my iMac - nothing to loose so I tried your remedy - fantastic! it worked. I now have a fully working iMac again - so I then swopped the HD for an SSD. Thank you for the tutorial - brill :)
I did this on Saturday and it freaking worked. I really wasnt sure it would work but it freaking did. Holy moly. Thanks man!
I took my Mid 2011 IMac to the Apple store to see if they would honor the recall on the 6970M video card which I suspected was bad. Needless to say that was a waste of time other than them confirming my suspicion and hitting me with a $525 dollar estimate to replace it. I decided to take the time to do your fix. I became skeptical in the process as the haters were posting videos saying it doesnt work.. there were several methods to do the fix and haters claiming it doesn't work. I also found several methods to do the fix including : heat gun, oven, and small hand held torch. I decided on the oven method. I baked it for just over 8 minutes at 400 degrees and let it cool on the top of the stove. I proceeded to reassemble the machine and was pleased to find it works again. Simply amazing. In my case I suspect it was a solder joint not a bad chip so it worked! For the haters, try it before you assume it doesn't work! Thank you for taking the time to produce the video on a fix that should have been on Apple.
I had to do this trick twice in the last 6 months and it worked both times. Thank you!!!!
Thank you. I did this and brought my 27 inch iMac back to life! A challenge to put it back together, but well worth it!! Thanks for taking the time to make this tutorial. Amazing!
This works! The hardest part is putting the parts back together. Make sure you take pictures so you don't forget.
Thank you very much, The Apple store wanted to charge me $500 Dollars for a new video card(same model#) with 3 month warranty only. I told them No. I went home and I followed your instructions and now My IMAC is working again. Thanks!!
After 248282817 hours, 27373 mistakes, hidden wires, motherboard on and off for infinite times... MY IMAC WORKS AGAIN AFTER 3 YEARS!!!! I only can say THANK YOU VERY MUCH! I owe you 1 l coffee at least!! Tanks thanks thanks! 🥳🥳🥳💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽 (I was skeptical too I confess!!!)
Hello! Just to let you know I had this problem in my mid 2011 27" iMac. Thank you very much for your video, I used information from yours and other youtube videos, and the bake of the GPU in the oven WORKED!!! AT FIRST!!! I just can't believe :) One thousand thanks!
You are a fantastic guy and everyone would like to be friend with you ! That kind of friend to drink a beer with ! Thanks for such generousity ! Thanks to share
Hi Evan I just wanna say "Thanks" my Imac 27 " has a continus rebooting problem, I sent it to Apple Store support and the apple technical said me the Imac Need a replacement , the cost is 2.300 US.. (OMG) with that price I had brind it to my home again,,,, . when I see your video I followed all that you teach, burn my video card in my electrical oven as 200 degree por 8 minutes , and woalaaaaa! fix all my imac problem--- just pay the price of thermal creme and my hands. Thanks. thanks , thanks ,.. I am Happy!!
Just tried this, took me about 4 hours to complete and so far so good! Thank you so much!
Tip: create some kind of contraption to jam the screen fully back tilted. Been reading a lot about people accidently dropping the lcd and damaging the fragile cables when the screen suddenly tilts forward. Makes it a whole lot easier when fiddling with the cables connecting the lcd!
Hey Marcus, I have a similar issue. Just double checking that everyones not trolling in the comments. Does this indeed work?