Dear JDW, I just wanted to sincerely thank you for taking all the time to make this video and explaining things so well. Your video was the only reason I was able to navigate through my "project" today and it was a blessing being able to reference many of the stuff you did. Thank you so much for this!
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! My iMac was dead for over a year; it sat in limbo, in a corner, waiting for me to work up the courage to open it up. Your detailed videos helped me overcome the inertia of ignorance and fear. I watched both of your videos, purchased the tools from iFixIt and dove in. I even experienced the RAM alarm beeping because on my first three attempts, I had not seated the RAM properly so your first video really helped there also. I didn’t have any white thermal paste so I used red RTV. Had to work with what I had with the time I had. My iMac is working again! Thank you so much for your detailed videos.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! This worked like a charm. I'd never opened a computer before but the service shop wanted $900 to fix this 9 year old computer. Your video was fantastic at leading me through the steps. Thanks again for posting.
I purchased a new ATI Radeon HD 4850 512mb card and used this video to accomplish the replacement. Actually, I had to do it twice. The first time (last week) I replaced the video card and got all the way to attaching the screen's video cable (#3 label in the in the video), when the connector on the logic board came loose and about 5 of the pins were bent and 1 broke). I purchased a used logic board (another $215) and installed everything again today. I fired it up and everything works GREAT!!! I can't thank the gentleman that made this video enough. It was an invaluable tool in getting my iMac back up and running. Hopefully the video card and logic board will last me another couple of years. BTW, I also upgraded my RAM from 4MB to 16MB while I was at it. I spent a total of about $700 for everything. It's not going to be as fast as a new IMac, but I only invested about a 1/4 of what a new one would cost. I basically only use it for Microsoft Office, surfing and emails so I don't need a gaming setup. I'm a happy camper. Once again, thank you very much for the great video!!!
That's unfortunate to hear of your need to get a replacement motherboard, but it's good to see the price was somewhat reasonable at $215. If used boards are fetching that much, you might be able to sell your old board for parts, noting that it would work perfectly if that one connector was repaired. I too have 16GB and even with my user and my wife's user open all the time, it's enough RAM most of the time. And when insufficient, I just log out her user. But perhaps the biggest speed improvement came from my swapping out the spinning-platter 1TB internal HDD with a Samsung EVO 850 1TB. The SSD makes my old 2009 iMac feel like a modern computer. Anyway, thank you for your kind comments and best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
Thank you so much JDW! Just reassembled this morning and started right up. I have a mid 2011 imac with an ADM Radeon HD 6970 2G card. Was concerned that the different card might not respond. Only 4 hours in but wow!
took me about half a day but totally paid off. screen works flawlessly now. i was super sceptical at first but decided to give it a crack after seeing all the positive comments. my 2011 27" iMac was showing pink vertical lines. Not anymore. Thanks heaps mate!
I’m pleased to hear of your success, Gromov. Your experience will help others to know that the video card bake works well not only on the late 2009 iMac but also on the 2011 (and 2010) iMacs. Best wishes!
As of today, July 30, 2017, my video card is still running fine. My son is playing Team Fortress on it right now, in fact. But keep in mind this is after my "2nd bake." See that video for more information. My 1st bake lasted only 4 months. ruclips.net/video/6BJGLFCigdA/видео.html
This absolutely worked as described. Did this repair on my friend's 2009 iMac. Apple told him it was the mother board but I disagreed after reading comments here. If you follow this video, you will be successful. Only thing I did differently after watching this one and the 2nd Bake vid was to clean off the heat sinks and chips right away and did the bake for 10 minutes. Thank You!
Thank you for letting us know of your success, Victor! Yes, Apple is completely and hopelessly oblivious to this problem. Perhaps some people in the engineering department know of it, but most Apple store support staff do not, and support staff at Apple headquarters merely recite what they are taught. I have a PDF troubleshooting guide that Apple publishes for internal use and it says nothing about this video card problem at all. The card is clearly defective in its design, so I can see why Apple doesn't want to publish that fact. But as you have discovered, the good news is that, and quite miraculously so, the 10-minute bake really does work, especially if you wipe away all the stock thermal paste and replace it properly with better paste. That combined with boosted fan speeds should help most iMac users get more years of use out of their investment. Thanks!
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 for sharing your success story, Steadman! Your case will be very helpful and encouraging for 2011 27" iMac owners, proving that the bake is not merely for the late 2009 model that I own. It does indeed work for later models too. Best wishes!
Writing back again just to say THANK YOU!! repair completed following your instructions after watching both videos, i baked mine for 10 minutes and now it came to life again, i also took my time to add the screen dust cleaning inside, 1.000.000 times thank you!!!
Sorry for my 2-year-delayed reply, Eduki! For some reason, I never got a notification about your comment. Now that it has been two years, is your video card still working well? I ask because my 2nd bake lasted 2 years and 9 months. Anyway, thank you for watching and for the kind words!
@@JDW- No worries haha ;) Believe it or not, it stills working, I must admit that now it's just a secondary computer at home though, but yeah it works perfectly!
I did this and I'm here to say, it works. I used this video and a couple of more. There is a small connector for the fan that goes from the graphics board to the mother board and it is truly a mother to put in - nobody shows fully how it goes since it is in such a tight area, but combined together, each person's advice help. Give yourself about double the time you think it will take and really, really, really notice how the connectors go in. Mac has done everything in its power to make this difficult to work on. But, great video. So, JDW, thanks for all your help.
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, as per video 2 (10 minutes @ 200C) and I have now left it running now for a few hours. Many thanks for such a clear & helpful video!
Folks, I am the bearer of Good and Bad news. First the BAD. I am saddened to report that my 1st bake, shown in the video above, lasted only 4 months. Another RUclipsr who did the same repair reported 17 months of use on his bake as of Feb. 2017. He inspired me to do my 1st bake and create the video above. Why he got 17 months when I only got 4 months is anyone's guess. The GOOD news is I have done a 2nd bake and had success. I also used K4-Pro on the GPU & K5-Pro to replace the stock thermal pads. Neither of these pastes is electrically conductive. Here's the full video of my 2nd bake: ruclips.net/video/6BJGLFCigdA/видео.html There is nothing wrong with the video (above) of my 1st bake, and it still serves as a useful guide. The video of my 2nd bake is similar to my first video (above), except that I did NOT remove the motherboard in my 2nd video (because I'd already replaced the BR2032 battery in my 1st video). I hope both of these videos will serve to assist those of you who wish to follow in my footsteps. Best of luck to you!
Your graphics card is dead. It's a flip chip gpu. This is not a fix to last long. It works because the substrate starts moving at 140-170 degrees Celcius. 200 is not neccesarry. If you want a long term repair just get a mxm3 graphics card(from a laptop or so, ebay you know). If you don't care and only want a quick fix heat the chip directly to 170. gl :)
Tensor, my graphics card is not "dead"; If it was truly dead then it could never, ever be resurrected by an oven bake. But if you watch my 2nd Bake video, you will see the card is now alive and running again. Truly dead cards don't come back to life by an oven bake or heat gun. As such, the heat treatment seems to be reflowing solder in just the right spot to get everything working again, or perhaps it is fixing broken contacts inside the GPU chip (most likely the latter due to the temps involved). Regardless, my tests show the card is most assuredly "NOT dead." The correct label would be "fault by design." Apple really screwed up on this model iMac with regard to the video card.
Jose, a heat gun can potentially damage things too, which is why I did not use it. But in terms of how long a bake will last, keep in mind that what inspired me to do my 1st bake was another RUclipsr who reported in Feb. 2017 that he had 17 months of continuous use after his 1st bake. If an oven bake was truly inferior, I would not expect one to get 17 months of use out of it. Even so, my case was different, with me only getting 4 months on my 1st bake. Time will tell how long the 2nd bake lasts.
Solder does not melt at 200 degrees(217 min). But at the point of death you got me it's a zombie:D I think it's completely fine to do the oven method as a private repair if you don't care killing something completely. But I don't want someone doing this as a buissness operation for a repair center or so. I would recommend everyone interestet cheking out flip chip design and than related to that ltt's video about that where he "fixed" the gpu but not the ssd. And by the way today I repaired an 2011 iMac damaged by a lightning storm. 1 resistor near the cpu_fan connector was broken.10k OHM - R5700 Just in case anyone else has a fan spinning at full speed all the time
If it were not for this video and the next two, my family would have thrown away an iMac that was just a blank screen. After watching this video and Bake #2, and JDW’s 3rd video recap after 2.5 years, I decided this was the method I wanted to try and it worked great! We will start the clock to see how long we go! Thanks JDW!
William, thank you for your kind words, and an enormous thank you for your support of my channel via PayPal! It's wonderful to hear your success story. I'm truly thrilled to hear your family will get continued use out of that iMac. In many ways, Macs become a part of the family, and goodness knows my own family would hate to throw one out. Indeed, that was the inspiration for me to test the waters with my first bake. Best wishes to you and your family, William!
Thank you for your kind words, David. If you found my video because your iMac is having video card issues, I can only say that the bake really does work. The caveat is that it takes a long time and requires patience. But I consider it worth it versus buying a new iMac. I personally think that we should get at least 10 years of life out of expensive Apple products. My iMac will be 10 in late 2019.
Thanks for all the effort you put into making this video. I have never seen such a detailed video that really leaves no questions unanswered. Even I, as a woman, had no problems getting my iMac up and running again. I hope it lasts a little while.
Thank you for your kind words. I am certainly pleased to hear that you were able to get your iMac working again using my video as a guide. My first bake lasted only 4 months, but I think that was because I didn't clean off all the old thermal paste and apply all new paste. I did that in my second bake, which then lasted 2 years and 9 months. I can only hope yours functions as long or longer as mine did after my second bake. Best wishes!
I can not believe it, it actually works. I was skeptical about it but I had nothing to lose. Instead of using the oven, I used a heatgun and aim it for about 4 min. Thank you very much for your video.
Thank you for the kinds words and your report of success with a heat-gun, Phong! You said you applied the heat for 4 minutes, but what was the distance between the GPU chip and the heat gun? And did you keep that distance consistent during those 4 minutes? The reason I ask is so that your answer can help others who may wish to try it instead of an oven. Thank you!
I aimed my heat-gun and rotated in a circular motion at the chip only, not the entire card. The distance between my heat gun and the chip is about 1.5 inches.
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!
Today followed your instructions on an IMAC 27" late 2009 with video problems (yellow strips, stuck after several seconds). Never had to 'bake' any hardware so you might say I was a bit reluctant to actually put the videocard into the oven (9 minutes and 30 seconds!!). But since there where no other options I said, lets give it a try. And you know what? It actually did the trick, my so beloved IMAC 2009 is raised from the dead. I do not know for how long, or what other future problems will arise, but for now this is great! Thanks for taking the time to make this video. I suggest removing the memory sims before anything else, otherwise you might have problems putting the motherboard back in place. Again thanx alot!
Not only "remove" the memory but also remember to "put it back" when done too! I neglected to do that, and as you could see at the end of my video, I got the scary beep, beep, beep. Anyway, thank you for letting us know the bake was a success for you. Please note that I made 2 videos. This video was of my first bake which lasted 4 months. I then made a second video showing my 2nd bake, and that video was made the first week of July 2017. It's now the first week of February 2018, and my iMac's video is still going strong. Not sure if the longevity of my 2nd bake is due to my having twice-baked the video card or my having used different thermal paste the 2nd time. In any case, I hope your bake lasts years. Even so, in my experience, a brand new card lasted me 3 years TWICE, so I would be surprised if my 2nd bake lasted beyond that. Sadly, the card was designed badly, which is why we have this problem in the first place. Best wishes!
Hi. I have a problem, I did what you said, but it only gives me external video, if I connect the screen of it, it does not send the imac, but if I disconnect it works very well by external video.
Thank you so much for all your patience to make this videos. The instructions were completely helpful. I followed them one by one and my iMac 27'' Mid-2011 is working well again. I would say the label every single cable and screw have simplified the procedure. The only thing I didn't do was use thermal paste. I used the leftover. Cheers and best wishes to you from Colombia.
I am very happy to hear your success, Juan! By the way, you said you did not use new thermal paste. That may or may not be a problem. If you experience system freezing or unexplained crashes in the future, it could be related to the thermal paste, in which case you would have no choice but to buy some paste and apply it. That's a real pain because of the time it would take, but that is the reality of it. So long as the old paste had not hardened too much, and so long as it still moves a lot of heat from the chip to the heatsink, you should be ok. Best wishes!
Doing this today July 4th 2020 2011 27inch. Referencing your videos a third time and have my 2007 24inch iMac (bought new) on the side for guidance on your videos. My plan is 'just the video card dismount' just simply love your ability to keep it simple but through. The small things like reminding plug color direction and pin direction in reference to the screen and such. Those details are priceless!!
The ATI Radeon 4850 Video card for my Late 2009 iMac 27” machine stopped working after Thanksgiving. I bought my system back in 2010 and it worked consistently for 11 years until last month! It was noticeable slower over the past few years but until it stopped working I wasn’t ready to get rid of it. I bought a brand new Mac Mini to replace it before I saw this video. The bake was successful and I am back up and running with the iMac. While this system is WAY SLOWER than my new Mac Mini, it still can surf the net and do simply tasks pretty well. I might even put a SSD drive in the system to make it faster. While this is clearly a back up system for non critical needs, it is good to know that it still can function. Thanks for the video!
Great to hear that! But the single BEST upgrade for these old iMacs is an SSD. It's a night and day difference in performance. Be sure you have 16 or 32GB of RAM too, especially if you have two users open all the time. That can make a big difference as well. Merry Christmas!
I looked for this video pacifically to tackle the same issue/problem I had a year ago with applying thermal paste. I remember you gave excellent instructions on this procedure. Last year I used some watery thermal paste that only lasted few months. This time I will use either Arctics Silver 4 or 5 as you suggested. My main reason for my comment is to say "Thank You" for your detail information.
Thank you for watching and commenting! I highly recommend that before you do anything else you watch the following portion of my 2nd Bake video which discusses the K4 and K5 Pro thermal pastes I used. So far, my 2nd bake has lasted 1 year and 6 months, and the machine is still going strong. In my first bake, I used Arctic Silver V on the GPU, and a rather old and generic thermal paste on the memory chips, and I didn't fully clean off the old Apple thermal pads on the memory chips either. The first bake lasted only 4 months. So that was either due to the thermal paste I used, and/or due to the fact I didn't clean off all the old paste on the memory chips, or it could be my GPU simply needed two bakes. I'm not sure, but all I can say is that K4 & K5 Pro is still going strong. Also note you cannot use Arctic Silver V on the memory chips because it is electrically conductive and would have some overspill that would cause shorts. Plus Arctic Silver V cannot be used as a replacement for thermal pads, which is needed for the memory chips. Again, watch the portion of my 2nd bake video below for details on the thermal paste and application method I used. ruclips.net/video/6BJGLFCigdA/видео.html
@@JDW-, I did watch the other video this morning and don't remember if I had baked the chip the first time after replying new paste last year. My question is: can I use just one of the selected K-5 or K-4 thermal paste for both memory and CPU? I bought the K-5 kit and Gelid Extreme as an option. Should I use K-5 on CPU and Gelid on memory? Your suggestion will be greatly appreciated.
K5 Pro is made specifically to be a replacement for thermal pads. Thermal pads are used when there's a big gap between the heatsink and the chips you want to cool. That's why K5 Pro is a very thick paste and you can use a lot of it -- so much so that it shocks people who otherwise think I have applied to much of it in my video. But what is you see in my video is the proper amount and proper method of application according to the manufacturer. You cannot, however, use K5 Pro on the GPU because Thermal Pads (and thermal pad replacement pastes like K5 Pro) do not conduct heat as well as regular thermal paste like K4 Pro. So if you did use K5 Pro on the GPU, because it is not intended for that, the GPU would likely overheat (i.e., fry itself to death). That would be a very bad situation that would result in a dead video card that cannot be resurrected. Regarding Gelid Extreme, I've never used that before so I cannot offer you my personal experience with it, but it has great reviews on Amazon, and I see it is a normal thermal paste that you can apply to the GPU of your video card. So, yes, I think using Gelid Extreme on the GPU and K5 Pro on the memory chips will be just fine. You shouldn't have any problems doing that.
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
Hello, Yu! You know, it's very odd why I never saw your comment until today. It's been 2 years! Well, I guess now is a good time to ask how long your bake has lasted. My 2nd bake lasted 2 years and 9 months.
Actually i was looking for a tutorial on how to replace the video board and hence followed yours step by step, until you put the board into the oven... Wait!! THE OVEN?? :-)) Unbelievable! Surely i can imagine how/why this works, but i never would have come to that thought by myself... So THANKS A LOT for your great tutorial and this genius hack! :-)) Worked just perfectly!
You are one gutsy guy, very patient and methodical. Your card may have failed, but your explicit video will be helpful to those who have to change the vido card -- people like me who cannot afford the hourly rates of the tech people and wouldn't know where to start even in disassembling the iMac.
Thank you for your kind words, Doran. To the average person like you and I, cost matters. I would love to have a 2019 iMac, but the company I work for has been facing hard times and my salary has taken a huge hit as a result. (I don't make money from RUclips either.) As such, I simply cannot afford a new iMac. In times like this we need to be frugal, and repairing what we already own is one way to do that. Thankfully, and quite surprisingly, baking the video card in these old Macs really works. I'm therefore overjoyed every single time a person reports a successful bake here in the comments. Please be sure to let me know how your own bake goes. Best wishes.
you wont believe this 3 years ago i followed your steps to the letter of the law it did not work so i put it back in its box and one year later forked out on a new one .yesterday i was about to throw it out and rescue the hard drive and turned it on and hey presto .well done and thanks now i have two imacs
You didn't do anything other than remove it from the box 1 year later and try to power it on? It's interesting it didn't work after you baked it 1 year ago but now it works. I'm afraid I cannot explain that. But so long as you baked it at the right temperature and duration and applied a good thermal paste, you should be good to go in the long term. Best wishes!
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🙏
It's great to hear your story of success, Don! If those two screws are from your display, you're probably fine. Just don't throw them away. You might open the case again some day and want to put them back into place. Best wishes!
I wouldn't have had the confidence in this repair had I not heard so many positive stories from the comments! Now I am another success story, thanks to this video. iMac is back in action. I think it'll be on light-GPU duty for the foreseeable future. It seems like heat may have been what took it out in the first place- I was playing Minecraft. Time will tell!
Just put my IMac all together after doing exactly the same as the video. Started it right up and so far is running great! Thanks for making this video.
Amazing!!!!!!!!!! Amazing!!!!!!!!!! The Imac is working properly again! Thanks a lot for this video! The procedures absolutely worked as described. I can tell something: If you follow the steps on this video, you are ok. Once again, thanks a lot for this video. My Imac is working like a charm.
It worked perfect for me... exactly as you did it... 9 minutes... I also managed to broke 2 small condensers on the motherboard while pulling away the 3rd connector from the monitor (near the LCD temp sensor) and I managed to solder only 1 of them back. The second one was to difficult (too small). But it worked fine without it after that. It didn't make any problems for now. After baking it did't want to start, and I thought I must buy now a new motherboard. But the problem was that I forgot to put in the RAM :))))) You saved me 600$ on a new card or about 250$-300$ on reballing or soldering of a new ati chip from a third party repair company. Thanks!
Thank you for letting us know of your successful bake! As to the capacitors you broke off, please keep in mind that capacitors can serve different functions. Some act as noise filters. Some are required to keep the voltage from dipping. Regardless, the fact you were unable to solder back one of the capacitors (assuming it was a capacitor and not an inductor), may or may not cause problems for you down the line. As such, if you experience anything unexplainable and out of the ordinary in the future, such could be traced back to that missing electronic component. So you may need to prepare yourself for soldering that component (or an equivalent) back in the future. Until then, enjoy your "new" iMac!
Wow you are the best. Just did this on my wife’s 27” 2009 which is still a great machine. Works great now. I didn’t take out the motherboard to change the battery because I have a faint memory of doing this when I changed the HDD to an SSD, but not aure
Hi, my bake lasted 6 months, it worked like a charm for that period and it was an inexpensive way of bringing back to life a totally capatble computer. Going for a 2nd bake today.
Thank you for your comment. What kind of thermal paste did you use? My first bake lasted only 4 months, reason unknown. On my 2nd bake I switched to different thermal paste (K4 and K5 Pro). The only other change I made was to increase the bake time to 10 minutes. So far my 2nd bake has lasted just about 13 months and is still going strong, used daily.
Hi JDW, I used Arctic Silver Céramique 2 in the graphics cards main chip and used thermarl pads on the other 4 smaller chips. My first bake was 10 minutes. lasted 6 months. I did yesterday the 2nd bake, also 10 minutes, it's working again, let's see for how long. This is a 2008 iMac computer, still a great computer in 2018 and does eveything I need it to so I would like to maintain it as long as possible. The Graphic cards problems in Mac computers are related to planned obsolescence, they want you to buy a new computer and new iPhone every 2 years, even if you computer and phone serve you well they will plan the product to fail after some years or they will release a new operating systems that kills it for good.
Thank you for the information. The reason I was curious about your thermal paste is because I'm trying to determine the root cause of "1st bake failures." But since your machine is a 2008 model with different video card, it's difficult to make an exact comparison with the video card in my late 2009 iMac 27" model. So perhaps the reason my 2nd bake has lasted more than 1 year is due to better thermal paste (both on the GPU and the thermal pad replacement paste I used on the RAM chips), or perhaps my card just needed another bake. So while the reason for the success of my 2nd bake is yet unknown, I just hope it will keep going strong. I doubt it will last longer than a brand new card (which lasted all of 3 years in my experience), but who knows. Time will tell, and I will keep updating the text Description under the video monthly to keep everyone informed. Best wishes!
You rock, JDW - I have a mid 2011, 27” 1gb GPU the screen displayed Green Bars and would not boot up so had nothing to lose. After watching your video felt confident enough to remove the Motherboard, but what pain. FYI - I Baked the GPU for 12 mins at 400 degree F. Replaced the thermal grease with Artric silver 5. Also replaced the thermal grease on the CPU while I had it apart. After finally getting it back together it Booted right up . Thanks
Thanks for letting me know of your resurrection success! With your having replaced the CPU thermal paste too, I suspect your total time invested was more than mine. I do want to ask about the video card thermal paste though. You seem to have only used Arctic Silver V and nothing else. Did you replace the thermal paste on the video card memory chips? You would have needed either a replacement set of thermal pads, or K5-Pro, since Arctic Silver V isn't thick enough to fill the gaps between those chips and the heatsink.
Jeff, thank you for watching and for making time to comment. I read and reply to every single comment under both of my bake videos. It's always a joy to hear success stories like yours. I feel humbled and excited at the same time when hearing a video of mine played a positive role in getting a beloved machine repaired. It's always a special feeling when you get something useful working again rather than be forced into a new purchase. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
Just baked my card and my computer is working again!! It is like witchcraft. Makes no sense at all but thank you very much indeed for giving me the confidence to try it. Only fly in the ointment is the fan is working flat out. I never heard the fan before but now it is quite noticeable. Thank you once again.
Thank you for making time to let me know your bake was a success! There have been several people who have reported the same thing you have after their bake - the fans run at full speed. The reason is because you either forgot to connect a particular connector or you did not connect it properly. To fix that you can do one of two things. You can re-open your iMac and check all the connectors, which would take a while. Or you can expand out the text description underneath my video and download one of the fan control apps that I link there. Best wishes!
Thanks for the video JDW, have just done mine - and seems to be working, also downloaded a fan control for extra cooling. Did notice the screws on the back of the Spring screws were very loose this would make for a loose fitting against the heat paste/sink.
Thank you for making time to comment, Andrew. It's unfortunate to hear your spring-loaded heatsink screws were loose when you tested them. That obviously would create heat-transfer problems that could even lead to the death of the video card. I am pleased to hear the bake worked for you though. Best wishes!
dude, u r the man. seriously u make my iMac bring to life again, awesome work. I think I can't make it that u told, but I try about 3 hours and success. Thank you million times. if you will come to Turkey, I will order the best kebap for you :D
That is wonderful to hear, Awicenna! Thank you for your kind words. My video serves as a guide, but you did all the hard work. Three hours is a lot of work, but for those who can make the time, it's worth it in the end! By the way, I would love to visit your beautiful country some day! Kebaps are wonderful too! :-)
Thank you so much @JDM i fixed my shitty imac 2009 today with your fully detail tutorial. I baked my Radeon card at 200 fan force oven in 10 mins. At first, it has a big smell of burning plastic (or capacitor or somewhat) from the card. I was so worry about mine card was overbaked, but i had to tried no matter what as i had no turning back once i stepped into this baking method. After awhile review your video over and over, i had finished putting back everything together. And then, booom it workded like a dream, just as good as before it died out (even run cooler than before ; i guess because of the new thermal compound that i bought from the local shop). And now i'm typing on this computer to say thank you while i'm opening 11 tabs on Safari and playing music from one of the tab on RUclips. Awesome job that help me recused my imac and save me ton of money on buying a new one. :D sincerely thank you for all of your effort putting in this so much detail video.
Cool video - used as a guide. Only now I forgot to put a rubber gasket back on the chip. I remembered when I had already collected everything. As you think - strongly it is needed, I do not want to take everything apart again. Thank you
Actually, that black thing you saw in my video is made of some kind of foam, not rubber. I don't know the purpose, but since it is made of foam, I can only assume it is some kind of dust filter? Maybe it was intended to keep dust from collecting around those chips? Not sure, but it wasn't dusty at all when I first removed my video card. I don't think it was intended to keep thermal paste overspill at bay because if that was the case, why make it out of foam? In any case, I don't think it will hurt that you left it out. If anything, leaving it out would allow for more air flow.
I'm understood, thank you. Although I have another video card (HD6970), but the rubber gasket is the same. I do not think that it is necessary for a heat sink. I will not touch it, I'll see how much the chip will work after warming up.
Thank you so much. You video is very detailed (which I needed) and it worked. The only suggestion I have is when you are putting it back together, please don't speed that part up. I had to keep going back to the beginning to figure out how things went back together on some of the plugs. :-( But overall, excellent video. :-)
Thank you for watching and sharing your story if success, Dawne. I of course take all advice in the comments section to heart. The main reason I sped through reassembly was because some people complain if the video gets too long, and with it already being 1 hour and 6 minutes, I was afraid that going to slow at the end might be an issue for some people, especially since one can review the initial part of the video again. But again, I do appreciate your constructive advice and will consider that in future videos. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
@@JDW- When I was doing this procedure, I would watch you and stop the video and go do what you just had shown. 1 hr. 6 mins is nothing compared to about 10-12 hours. lol. Thanks again.
Excellent job JDW, the lights went out on my mac and I canned it. It was 10 years old but wish I had of seen your video before i pulled it to bits. I am now using the display as a 3rd monitor for the new mac.
Well, it's only natural that a veteran tool man such as yourself would want to tear that bad boy apart! ;-) But I am glad to hear you were able to put it to good use. Keeping these machines in service in some practical way is the ultimate goal.
Thanks so much for this excellent procedural video. It was easy to follow, and adapt from. I replaced the dead card in a 2009 iMac with an hd5750 1Gb Radeon from a mid 2010 iMac, and it works a treat. You will need the entire gpu & heat sink assembly to do that if anyone is wondering.
Thank you for sharing your experience with a more modern video card replacement. So you removed the video card and the entire heatsink assembly from an 2011 Mac and put it in your 2009 iMac, is that right? Did you have to cut anything? I've heard that newer cards and/or their heatsinks don't fit perfectly.
JDW I purchased the gpu/heat sink assembly, taken out of a mid 2010 iMac, from eBay, and replaced the 256mb failed one in my 2009 iMac. The actual gpu card is slightly taller, as is the heatsink, but I’d read other people saying it worked fine, so took the gamble, and they were right. The space where it sits in the case is where the psu cable runs to the logic board, and it doesn’t create any impediment at all. There is one tiny little fastener (top right little screw when you reassemble the machine), that you need to take off the 2009 assembly & attach to the 2010 one.
Thank you for the additional details. One last question, if you don't mind. Does the card generate more heat than the old, or would you say it's about the same as before? (Feeling the back of your Mac after it's been running a while, etc.)
I would appreciate that. And if you happened to have shot any video of photos of how the replacement card looked when installed in your 2009 iMac, I would love to see that as well.
Great video. It helped me get the things I needed unplugged so I could replace my video card. I had the whole video card assembly to replace, so I didn't need the bake potion, but it got me over the finish line to get my card replaced. - Thanks for doing this!
JDW he conseguido mi primera cocción de la tarjeta gráfica. Todo un éxito (succesful). El “lockdown” for the covid in Barcelona and your clear explenations. I hope it last more that 2 years,...Thanks for your vídeos....
¡Gracias por informar tu éxito! Si seguiste de cerca las instrucciones de mi video y usaste una buena pasta térmica como K4 y K5 Pro, tu tarjeta gráfica realmente podría durar más de 2 años. ¡Los mejores deseos!
Yes, it takes a very long time. That's why in my iFixit repair guide I mention that it will take at least 3 hours. It of course took me longer because I was making videos. But some of us don't mind the work if it can save us money in the end! Thanks for letting me know of your success, and best wishes!
I've been gearing up to do my 27 Inch that White Screen/Boot Looped last week & it occured to me....Can't I just buy another AMD Card instead of repairing mine? Or are they very difficult to procure? (I'm typing this before checking obv) Or they all just fail due to poor manufacturing? ALSO: Uploader, You made this seem fairly painless with your clear, helpful & honest tutorial.
It's much cheaper to do the bake than to buy a replacement video card. And even replacement cards have the same issues (bad design), so it's not like they will last forever. My new replacement from Apple lasted only 3 years, just like the stock card did. That's why so many give the bake a try first, then if that fails, Plan-B is a replacement card.
@@JDW- I see. Cost is a non-issue but I'd still be spending the time installing it. Perhaps a repair & a spare will be the way to go. Thank You x100 again!
Great work. Just one point- when replacing the motherboard I had to take the panel off the memory card access (on the bottom of the case) to feed the memory cards into their slots. Before that the board wouldn't go far down enough......
If you mean the aluminum "memory access door" that screws in at the very bottom of the iMac's housing, then yes, you would need to leave that off during the installation, and of course all RAM should be removed before the motherboard is removed. Thanks for watching!
Hi,FANTASTIC VIDEO.I have a mid 2007 iMac,that I just got.Is it normal for it to get really warm?Not like to gets to hot that you can't touch it,but pretty warm.Is there a fan control app that will fix it? Thanks for your time.
Yes, it is sadly very normal for Macs of that era to get very hot, seeing Apple did not design them very well. In fact, Apple didn't make a modern Intel iMac that ran cool to the touch until the 2015 5k 27" version. I use that at the office and can attest to how cool it runs, even at the stock fan speed. If you want your iMac to run cooler, you will need a fan control app. I posted links to 2 apps I myself have tried and tested in the Description under my 2nd Bake video here: ruclips.net/video/6BJGLFCigdA/видео.html
Just a little note..... To replace the video card, ONLY 4 screws are needed to be removed! I saw this on another video on youtube. Where you have some tape with the number 3, those 3 screws need to be removed, then in the top right corner of the video card heatsink , there is ONE more screws, and BAM, video card is removed WITHOUT having to remove the logic board! Your welcome :) *Video uploader, maybe make a note of this comment.... Thanks for the free information though, and trying to help people fix their Mac, that is a great thing to do to help the community, but you don't need to remove anything more than the screen, and 4 screws :D. I bought my video card ATI 4850 on ebay for $150 and it came with the heatsink already, so I didn't even need to swap out heatsinks. Hope I helped, not trying to be a know it all, I run a computer repair shop, watched this video, then found the other video showing 4 screws. :D (after screen removed)
You are correct, but you still need to at least partially pull out the motherboard in order to change the PRAM battery which sadly sits on the back side. You can see the easier method of video card removal (which ignores the PRAM battery) in my 2nd Bake video here: ruclips.net/video/6BJGLFCigdA/видео.html
This is great video.I was having problem in iMac. Randum restart, Grey & black lines, Pink & Grey lines, Blue screen, Blank screen anything was happening while working. I see this video & open my IMAC. Remove graphic card. Clean all thermal paste.If you have any rubber seat or plastic seat around graphic card chip, you must remove it. You don't need that anyway. Heat oven 200 C. Put graphic card on Aluminium foil balls. Leave in oven about 10 min. Let it cool 1 hour. Apply new thermal paste properly on graphic cards & all I.C. See other video. It woks 100000% I was also too aftraid of opening IMAC & remove graphic card before this video. Thanks you sooooo much friend.
Thank you very much for this tutorial! I just bought an iMac with a supposedly power button issue that caused a black screen when it turned on and it does eventually come on after putting it on and off many times, but after many hours of research it turned to be the GPU and I wasn't prepared to buy a new since shipping is so expensive where I'm from, hence finding your video and I got it right on the first try ( on an old school oven), just to see if it will last for a very long time. Again thank you very much for this!
Thank you for sharing your success story, Luigi! I'm so happy the Bake was able to get your GPU up and running! The Bake doesn't last forever, but it usually lasts long enough to make the effort worthwhile, especially if you used the right thermal paste. Best wishes!
hey man, you fixed my iMac, although the br and cr series difference doesn't matter, it will never get close to that temperature, it usually hovers around 30 in case temp, so if I were you, don't wast your time. cheers, Ethan
You are correct about the PRAM battery. But there is one point of consideration... Apple "wasted their time" :-) in choosing the BR-series, so if one has the means to get a BR-replacement, why not? The BR series would be more robust over time in hot environments, even if the heat of the said environment didn't exceed 30°C. This is more of a concern for iMacs that run 8 hours or more per day. But thank you for mentioning it nonetheless, as many people will get by just fine with the CR-series battery. It's also great to hear your iMac was fixed. I hope it lasts as long or longer than my 2nd bake (2 years 9 months)!
Have used your video 3 times and about to do a 4th bake, probably don’t need the video anymore but it’s very thorough and I commend you for that. My first bake lasted a year and the two after only a couple months. I’m using rather cheap thermal paste and I am wondering if that’s the problem? Should I order the stuff you use or is the short life span possibly due to something else?
Thank you for providing me with an update on your bakes. I myself have gone through 2 bakes, but my 2nd back has lasted 1 year and 11 months. My first bake failed after only 4 months and I think it was because of the thermal paste I used and the fact I did not clean off all the old thermal pads either. But on my 2nd bake I used K4 Pro and K5 Pro and I really think that makes all the difference. So if you did not use K4 or K5 Pro for any of your bakes, assuming you wish to try again, I highly recommend the K4 and K5 Pro. Please follow my 2nd bake video on how to properly apply them, and you should be good to go. And hopefully you will have a longer span of usage as a result.
@@TheEthanwilson I am certainly no god but mere mortal man just like you. And I hope that you can join me in long-term baking success by using K4 and K5 Pro. Best wishes to you, Ethan! Feel free to follow-up with a comment anytime!
JDW so I waited for the k4 and 5 to arrive and did the bake and I think it worked. No signs of artifacts or pink lines BUT from the time the apple logo appears the lower part of the screen shifts over abruptly then back. I’m worried I damaged the connection where the big wire in the right connects just beside the video card. Do you think this could be the issue? I can upload a quick video showing the problem since it’s sort of hard to explain. Thanks again for the quick replies Edit: video of display ruclips.net/video/ID-g-x2GE4k/видео.html
@@TheEthanwilson What I see in your video is obviously a problem that needs to be solved. But I am not sure of the cause. Without a doubt, it is either a cable or the video card itself. Why do you think you damaged the connection near the video card? I do know cables inside these iMacs are very sensitive. They break easily, especially the ribbon cables. But pulling hard on the other cables can dislodge wire terminals from their connectors. With that said, I never baked my video card 5 times, so I cannot say if baking it too much repeatedly could cause this. The best you can do for now is to recheck all the cables. Especially check the ribbon cable that connects in the upper left, as that thin and narrow cable broke on me when I was attempting my 2nd bake. There is also another wider cable that connects to the back of the display, and that could cause what I see in your video. But if there is another cable that you think is suspect, it too could be a problem. It might be difficult to jiggle the cables with the machine turned on, and obviously risky too if you aren't careful, but jiggling the cables with the machine on might show a bad cable more easily. You just need to remove all rings and metal from you so you don't touch something and short it out by accident.
I’ve removed the glass from my 27” without suction cups by slipping guitar picks into the top right and left corners and carefully prying open. Did this after I heard some one say they did the same with their finger nails. So save your suction cup money for good thermal paste
Great tip for the guitar players out there, but folks such as myself prefer to use the suction cups over a potential broken fingernail. :-) Thanks for the tip!
I thank you very much my guy!!!! This is that lil peace of luck i needed in my life and found myself believed it myself and did it myself. Its working perfectly again!
Followed your instructions to perform a number of repairs and while the screen was out I did a number of upgrades to my Imac.Installed a 1TB SSD, removed DVD player and installed a second SSD to backup the operating system, replaced the battery. I did the repair on the video card as per your instructions and now I get the system as far as the Apple logo, the boot line goes all the way across and then it freezes up. Reloaded the operating system base system and its still doing it, any ideas on how to get it to boot up fully e.g the rotating wheel and onto the desktop? I purchased the Imac for $250 bucks it's a late 2009 27 inch model A1213 Intel 5 chip. Thanks for the very detailed video , helped me build the confidence to do the repair.
I'm very sorry to hear about the freeze during boot, Keith. Because you purchased your iMac as a second hand machine, you don't know the entire history of what its been through. There very well could be problems other than the video card. Also, it seems you performed the bake and added upgrades all at the same time, which means it is now difficult for you to know if the bake failed or if it is your new SSD or even the DVD player that is causing boot problems. As such, I am very sorry to say that you will need to remove the screen again and perform troubleshooting steps. Namely, you need to determine if the bake worked. To do that, you would need to restore the original spinning platter HDD and optical drive and otherwise make the machine exactly like it was when you received it, except for the baked video card and new PRAM battery. If your machine boots fine in that stock condition, then you know the problem lies in one of your upgrades. But if your machine does not boot even in the stock condition, then its either the video card or the data on the spinning HDD is corrupt -- which can happen if the machine locks up frequently due to the bad video card. You may want to try booting off a known good external drive. While rare, I have read a couple reports in the comments where one bake didn't resolve the problem but a second bake did. Indeed, even I had to perform two bakes, albeit 4 months apart. I know this is a lot of trouble. Believe me, I know! Removing the card, the paste, baking, reapplying paste -- ah! What a pain! But if during your troubleshooting you isolate the problem back to the video card, then you really only have two choices: (1) bake it again (which I would strongly recommend) or (2) but another video card of the same type and use that instead. I would recommend the same type of video card to ensure it fits perfectly and it doesn't generate more heat than the stock card. Please let me know if this advice is a help to you.
@@JDW- I figured it out last night, when you buy a hard drive or ssd they are already formatted to receive Windows, I did some research and figured out the drive needs formatting using Apples Guid format, I did that and it loaded the software in a hell of a lot faster. One tip to anybody is ssds generate a lot less heat so the video card is not subjected to extreme heat. I installed the thermal sensors on both drives so the fans are regulated to a lower speed. Now figuring out if I want to run two operating systems eg partition the 1TB drive to 500GB , then install Apple on one virtual drive and Windows on the other. It was worth doing and is very cost effective. I learnt a lot , sure its a pain but learning new stuff takes time to master it, microsoft use exfat or MSDos, if you want to use files on both systems you need one drive formatted to exfat , then you save files to that drive.
So, Keith, you are saying that you resolved your boot problem by reformatting your SSD (inside your iMac) to GUID and then reinstalling the OS and your files, is that correct? It is true that some Macs won't boot off a drive with the wrong format. I always reformat my new drives before I do anything else, which is probably why I normally don't have boot problems. But yes, the GUID partition scheme is an important format for Intel Macs. Older PPC Macs need the Apple Partition Map. Windows needs the Master Boot Record scheme. And then on top of that you have file system formats like FAT or ExFAT (Windows) and HFS+ or APFS (Mac). When you install High Sierra or Mojave, the OS installer will automatically choose APFS and reformat the drive accordingly.
True, but you'll notice in my video that I did not hold onto the bed as I removed the RAM, nor did I drag the RAM across the bed nor sit the RAM atop the bed after removal. You are correct that there are more electrically grounded soft surfaces, but honestly, most people won't use those so I showed what most people will probably use, regardless of good advice given about grounding the soft surface onto which one should sit the iMac during RAM removal. But again, so long as you yourself are grounded as I was in the video (via anti-static wristband) when you remove RAM, and so long as you put the removed RAM into an anti-static bag or onto an anti-static surface (not a bed), then all will be well.
You shall have the same "ground potential" as the item you are working with. And it's not just the Ram that are sensetive for static discharge, just saying.
Indeed. But again, most people aren't going to work on their Macs in a perfectly grounded work environment anymore than they will enter a certified clean room to remove the front glass -- and believe me, I wish I had one of those because putting the glass back on without dust getting inside is a major feat! Perhaps I've been lucky, but in my 47 years on earth, I've yet to fry RAM or any other IC via accidental static discharge. (But honestly, I don't think I am that lucky.) You are correct about the words of caution, but again, realistically, most people are not so cautious or even able to be. And so far, not a single person has complained their RAM or video card or logic board has been damaged by static due to having followed the advice given in my video. Those numerous individual repair experiences are something we must ponder consider along side your sage advice. And so to anyone reading this who is concerned about static discharge I can only advice placement of the iMac on soft anti-static mat while working on and inside it, while also wearing a grounded wrist-strap... iFixIt has a 70x100cm anti-static Mat for sale here: www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools/Anti-Static-Mat/IF145-036-3 And you can read debates about static and Mac repairs here: forums.macrumors.com/threads/is-a-antistatic-mat-absolutely-neccessary.1170472/
:-D I'm 47 years old as well, and have worked with electronics and computers since 1986, and have never "killed" an electronic component by static, but it's good to show and educate people of the risks. But by doing so, show them the right way. You can accually kill a component by using a wrist strap, using it the wrong way. And keep the cat away from rubbing against your projects :-D
Just did the baking with my late 2009 27 inch iMac (HD4850). Worked great. Wew will see for how long. Btw. can I just put in a HD6970M? Without bigger modifications? Thanks alot for that GREAT video. Bug
Thank you for sharing your successful experience! Yes, you can put in newer video cards, but be aware that they are not exactly the same shape or size and therefore you may need to do a little cutting to make it fit. And newer cards may also run hotter, which would not necessarily be best for your Mac.
I wonder if spreading your arctic silver that way whether you are creating air pockets under the heatsink.... If only one drop were applied and have that splashed by the heatsink it would spread. Now it won't. You got air in between just like on the heatsink chewing like material with cracks in it. Dried up... Curious. Nice vid btw. thinking of buying an old that is broken and fixing it. this is gonna help a lot. thnx.
That was my 1st bake video. Be sure to see my 2nd bake because I use different thermal paste. My latest bake was done using Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut in an X pattern, which tends to get an even better spread than a dot in the middle. The dot method tends to spread in a circle, whereas the X method reaches the very edge of each corner of the GPU. But what I can say though is that 4 months later when I did my 2nd bake and removed the heatsink, the Arctic Silver V was still very moist. It was not dried out, nor did I see evidence of air bubbles. Best wishes on your first bake!
Hey, wanted to say massive thanks this video helped loads. I’ve just screwed it all back and happy to report the fix worked. 200 degrees for 9 minutes. Thanks. 👍🏻
Your video inspired me to perform the bake repair on my mid-2011 iMAC's graphic card. So many connectors, I thought for sure I'd screw one or more of them up, but despite my cursing Apple for making such a convoluted and complicated mechanical design, it actually booted up when I was done putting it back together. After sitting half taken apart for over a year! I realize this repair is often temporary, so I'd like to try and get a new card. Any tips on 1) how to identify the card version in my machine and 2) where to find a new card, not a re-worked imposter? Thank you!
If you have a 27" iMac, then the 2GB 6970M is the best STOCK card you can buy, and I actually bought the 6970M from the following EBAY seller to use in my 2009 iMac, which works. But if your heatsink is different, then you'd want to buy the higher priced version that comes with the heatsink, otherwise you could just buy the card. The heatsink is very important though since the 6970M runs hot. www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_ssn=shawn882014&LH_PrefLoc=&_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=6970m&_sacat=0
Thank you for excellent video. I will use your video to open the iMac, and then remove the hard disk, and later back it up via usb-converter. I had no idea that the glass is so easy to remove.
Thank you, Riku! The glass is easy to get off, but putting it back in is the hard part because you have to blow out all the dust before you put the glass back on. Because none of us have a "clean room" to do that job in, there will always be a bit of dust that flies behind the glass before you get it back on. It's perhaps the most frustrating part, actually.
@@JDW- I had a bit hurry today so I did not buy those vacuum-tools like the one you used. Instead, I used the one that I had at WC; the rubber one for plumber. It sucked the glass all right but I was surprised how easily it got off, and tilted the glass too much. Yep, it broke....my main goal was to find the hard disk which I was able to remove, mother board or display circuit was broken, so no use to trying to fix the iMac further. Now I need an SATA-USB adapter for data recovery. I wish the iMac would have the hard disk as module that you can change from outside...like the ram-memory.
@@rikunevalainen8154 Oh no! I am terrible sorry to hear you broke your front glass! That certainly would have made my heart sink. The good news is that you can find replacements on Amazon for surprisingly respectable prices like this one (affiliate link): amzn.to/3p688OR
RocketPlayz do you mean with no sound too? Mine had power and sound but no screen showing. And this is the method that brought it back to working. It still works fine now too. I recommend to record and take pictures of where wires go and where screws go incase you forgot, overall it wasn’t too complicated to remember as they’re quite obvious fits
BRUCE LUI When I power on the imac I do hear the startup chime but the screen keeps being black. Also shining a light at the screen doesnt show an image. So the backlight inverter is fully working. When connected to an external display, the imac is working great. I have literally tried to put my gpu in my oven for 9 minutes at 200 degrees and it works like a new gpu. Im super thankful for this video. I checked the motherboard and it seems that a diode has broken in half. So tomorrow I am going to replace that diode and hope it will work again. Never tried something like this before but we will see (:
Friend, you are the fucking master. I had the problem of vertical stripes in my imac late 2009 and I have solved it by following your video. If you go through Spain you have a few paid beers. A big hug
Only 2 weeks of use before the problem returned? I'm terribly sorry to hear that. But that seems much too short for a failed bake. My 1st bake lasted 4 months. I'm still on my 2nd bake, well over 6 months. One change I made though was the thermal paste. Please be sure to watch my 2nd Bake Video to see the paste I used and how I applied it. You would need to remove the video card again to redo the paste, so you might as well do a 2nd bake. But using good paste in the right amount is important. Again, please watch my 2nd Bake Video for that. Link is in the description above.
After the next baking I will use quality thermal paste. I have already asked for amazon the same pasta that you have used. Thanks for answering. A big hug
Great video. Thanks. I decided to try it on my 2011 iMac and it worked . Well so far it's only been 5 minutes... Took me a long time and learned a lot.. will update if it goes down again.
I will proceed to repair my mac!! gr8 video! 1 small question. the oven set in 200C from 0C we put the graphics in, or do we preheat to 200C and then we put the graphics inside? THANKS A LOT!!
I preheated my oven to 200°C for 15 minutes before I put my video card inside. I would recommend that you do the same. Please be sure to let me know how it goes for you after the bake!
Thanks , Took it apart found one loose wire,still black screen, thinking to take it apart once again.Maybe reply the compound? Maybe over cooked the card.
Did you use K4 Pro on the GPU and K5 Pro on the memory chips? If not, what pastes did you use after your bake? The pastes should not cause a black screen, however, since the black screen would happen immediately on power on, which isn't enough time for the card to heat up due to a bad thermal paste job. What temperature and duration was your bake? And did you check your oven temperature with an oven safe thermometer to ensure that temperature was accurate? If not, I would suggest you measure it. I read and reply to every comment under all my bake videos. Until now, almost every case of a black screen has been due to something disconnected or improperly seated, rather than a failed bake or bad thermal paste. The two ribbon cables are usually the culprit. It could be the ribbon cable wasn't seated back in its connector properly. It could be there's a break in the cable. It could be the cable was yanked on too strongly during disassembly and the connector on the motherboard was partly ripped off the motherboard. I've had people report on all of those things. So opening the iMac once again to check your connections is necessary, unfortunately.
No need to remove the motherboard. I just performed the same operation to renew the thermal paste on the heat sink. If you remove the three screws connecting the bracket to the motherboard and one screw at the top of the heat sink, the graphics card and heat sink can be pulled upwards out of the edge connector. Be careful not to pull on the temperature senor wire and you can dis-assemble the heat sink and remove the graphics card. After re-assembling the graphics card can be lined up with it's connector and pushed back in. Doing it this way saves lots of time. Also, when you have the graphics card out you have access to the area where a SSD would be fitted form the factory allowing a two drive setup. Mine has a factory fitted 250GB SSD for the OS etc and a 2TB spinner for mass storage.
Thank you for watching and for your comment, but please be sure to read the extensive text description I put under the video above. I’ve already covered the issue of motherboard removal there, as well as having created a second video which shows the entire procedure without removing the motherboard. Thank you.
I did this 2 months ago and it worked EXACTLY as described here. AWESOME. Today I started having a similar problem, the screen going black while working and the only way to get it back is to turn off, wait a few minutes and turn back on, it stays lit for 5 minutes then goes black. Have you had this happen before? Do you know of a fix? Thank you very much,
Hi, Jeff. As mentioned in the closing paragraph of the text description beneath my video above, my first bake lasted only four months. But the good news is that my second bake is still going strong, now 2 years and 2 months later. The reason your bake lasted only two months is unknown, but it could be the thermal paste you used, or the fact you didn’t clean off all of the stock thermal paste and thermal pads prior to applying new paste, or it could just be that your card needs a second bake. In any case, my second bake video below should help you resolve the problem. m.ruclips.net/video/6BJGLFCigdA/видео.html
@@JDW- Thanks, I saw that but just had to ask the question. Sorry. Is it OK if I use Artic 4 (non-conductive) for a areas that need the paste? I noticed you mentioned I can use the 4 versus the 5 in the paragraph above. OR must I use both, conductive and non-conductive. Sorry, but I want to make sure. Thank you
It’s not a problem at all, Jeff. I’m happy to help. Arctic MX-4 is fine for the GPU but not for the memory chips. You either need thermal pads of the appropriate thickness or K5 Pro. Since I had no way to measure the gap between the memory chips and the heat sink that would let me know the thickness of the thermal pads I would need, I went with K5 Pro (after my second bake) and have no regrets.
thankyou for taking the time and effort to post the video,apple sure makes it as hard as possible to repair any of there products,which usually means its not cost effective to do unless you can attempt the repair yourself,your video gives some hope to some that can attempt the repair themselves with a minimum outlay money wise,thanx again
Thank you for your kind word, Patrick, DIY repairs are especially important now that Apple considers these old iMacs "obsolete" and therefore doesn't carry repair parts for them anymore. For most people who try the bake though, it works, and if you use the correct thermal pastes, it often can last long enough to have made the effort worthwhile.
@@JDW- just an update managed to do mine with your help,i did mine in a combo microwave oven thats got an oven feature as well so i set in on the oven setting at 200 but checked it first with a thermo couple multimeter and it read 195 - 200 so i gave it a go and it seemed to work thanx for your help hope this might help others as well
Your oven seems to be just like mine. So long as it’s set to oven mode and not microwave mode, it really does work great and the temperature is stable too. I’m certainly glad to hear it seems to have brought your graphics card back to life! Best wishes!
@@JDW- yes certainly seems to have worked for mine,forgot to ad that i put my card in the bottom part of the oven and not near the top part of the oven as the bottom part is where i tested the temperature,good luck to anyone who tries this way,and thanx again for your input
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
Dear JDW, I just wanted to sincerely thank you for taking all the time to make this video and explaining things so well. Your video was the only reason I was able to navigate through my "project" today and it was a blessing being able to reference many of the stuff you did. Thank you so much for this!
Thank you for your kind words, Tak. I am so pleased to hear the video helped you restore your iMac to working condition again. Best wishes!
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
My iMac was dead for over a year; it sat in limbo, in a corner, waiting for me to work up the courage to open it up. Your detailed videos helped me overcome the inertia of ignorance and fear.
I watched both of your videos, purchased the tools from iFixIt and dove in. I even experienced the RAM alarm beeping because on my first three attempts, I had not seated the RAM properly so your first video really helped there also.
I didn’t have any white thermal paste so I used red RTV. Had to work with what I had with the time I had.
My iMac is working again! Thank you so much for your detailed videos.
It's truly a joy to hear your story of success, Valerie. Thank you for letting me know, and best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! This worked like a charm. I'd never opened a computer before but the service shop wanted $900 to fix this 9 year old computer. Your video was fantastic at leading me through the steps. Thanks again for posting.
I'm so pleased to hear of your success, Dee. Thank you for taking time to let me know! Best wishes!
I purchased a new ATI Radeon HD 4850 512mb card and used this video to accomplish the replacement. Actually, I had to do it twice. The first time (last week) I replaced the video card and got all the way to attaching the screen's video cable (#3 label in the in the video), when the connector on the logic board came loose and about 5 of the pins were bent and 1 broke). I purchased a used logic board (another $215) and installed everything again today. I fired it up and everything works GREAT!!! I can't thank the gentleman that made this video enough. It was an invaluable tool in getting my iMac back up and running. Hopefully the video card and logic board will last me another couple of years. BTW, I also upgraded my RAM from 4MB to 16MB while I was at it. I spent a total of about $700 for everything. It's not going to be as fast as a new IMac, but I only invested about a 1/4 of what a new one would cost. I basically only use it for Microsoft Office, surfing and emails so I don't need a gaming setup. I'm a happy camper. Once again, thank you very much for the great video!!!
That's unfortunate to hear of your need to get a replacement motherboard, but it's good to see the price was somewhat reasonable at $215. If used boards are fetching that much, you might be able to sell your old board for parts, noting that it would work perfectly if that one connector was repaired. I too have 16GB and even with my user and my wife's user open all the time, it's enough RAM most of the time. And when insufficient, I just log out her user. But perhaps the biggest speed improvement came from my swapping out the spinning-platter 1TB internal HDD with a Samsung EVO 850 1TB. The SSD makes my old 2009 iMac feel like a modern computer. Anyway, thank you for your kind comments and best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
Thank you so much JDW! Just reassembled this morning and started right up. I have a mid 2011 imac with an ADM Radeon HD 6970 2G card. Was concerned that the different card might not respond. Only 4 hours in but wow!
Jack, thanks for making time to let me know your success story. Best wishes to you and that 2011 iMac! :-)
took me about half a day but totally paid off. screen works flawlessly now.
i was super sceptical at first but decided to give it a crack after seeing all the positive comments.
my 2011 27" iMac was showing pink vertical lines. Not anymore.
Thanks heaps mate!
I’m pleased to hear of your success, Gromov. Your experience will help others to know that the video card bake works well not only on the late 2009 iMac but also on the 2011 (and 2010) iMacs. Best wishes!
Doing this today. You really worked hard on that video! Helped me a lot. Thanks!
You're welcome, Boyd. Just be sure to take your time, label everything, and you should be okay. Please let us know if you were successful.
As of today, July 30, 2017, my video card is still running fine. My son is playing Team Fortress on it right now, in fact. But keep in mind this is after my "2nd bake." See that video for more information. My 1st bake lasted only 4 months. ruclips.net/video/6BJGLFCigdA/видео.html
This absolutely worked as described. Did this repair on my friend's 2009 iMac. Apple told him it was the mother board but I disagreed after reading comments here. If you follow this video, you will be successful. Only thing I did differently after watching this one and the 2nd Bake vid was to clean off the heat sinks and chips right away and did the bake for 10 minutes.
Thank You!
Thank you for letting us know of your success, Victor! Yes, Apple is completely and hopelessly oblivious to this problem. Perhaps some people in the engineering department know of it, but most Apple store support staff do not, and support staff at Apple headquarters merely recite what they are taught. I have a PDF troubleshooting guide that Apple publishes for internal use and it says nothing about this video card problem at all. The card is clearly defective in its design, so I can see why Apple doesn't want to publish that fact. But as you have discovered, the good news is that, and quite miraculously so, the 10-minute bake really does work, especially if you wipe away all the stock thermal paste and replace it properly with better paste. That combined with boosted fan speeds should help most iMac users get more years of use out of their investment. Thanks!
Still easier than assemble literally anything from Ikea 👍🏼
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 for sharing your success story, Steadman! Your case will be very helpful and encouraging for 2011 27" iMac owners, proving that the bake is not merely for the late 2009 model that I own. It does indeed work for later models too. Best wishes!
Thank you so much from Ukraine! It helped me very much! God bless you!
I am so happy to hear my video helped you. Thank you for your gracious words and blessing!
Writing back again just to say THANK YOU!! repair completed following your instructions after watching both videos, i baked mine for 10 minutes and now it came to life again, i also took my time to add the screen dust cleaning inside, 1.000.000 times thank you!!!
Sorry for my 2-year-delayed reply, Eduki! For some reason, I never got a notification about your comment. Now that it has been two years, is your video card still working well? I ask because my 2nd bake lasted 2 years and 9 months. Anyway, thank you for watching and for the kind words!
@@JDW- No worries haha ;)
Believe it or not, it stills working, I must admit that now it's just a secondary computer at home though, but yeah it works perfectly!
@@eduki That's great to hear. Thank you for making time to let me know!
Some great explanations and heads up on possible gotchas. Much appreciated.
You're very welcome, John! Thanks for watching!
I did this and I'm here to say, it works. I used this video and a couple of more. There is a small connector for the fan that goes from the graphics board to the mother board and it is truly a mother to put in - nobody shows fully how it goes since it is in such a tight area, but combined together, each person's advice help. Give yourself about double the time you think it will take and really, really, really notice how the connectors go in. Mac has done everything in its power to make this difficult to work on. But, great video. So, JDW, thanks for all your help.
Thank you for sharing the tip and the story of your success, Velo!
Woow thank you for this Tutorial. Helped me a lot!!!!
You're very welcome, Mehdi! Best wishes!
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, as per video 2 (10 minutes @ 200C) and I have now left it running now for a few hours.
Many thanks for such a clear & helpful video!
That's wonderful news, Charlie. Thank you for letting me know of your success. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
Folks, I am the bearer of Good and Bad news. First the BAD. I am saddened to report that my 1st bake, shown in the video above, lasted only 4 months. Another RUclipsr who did the same repair reported 17 months of use on his bake as of Feb. 2017. He inspired me to do my 1st bake and create the video above. Why he got 17 months when I only got 4 months is anyone's guess. The GOOD news is I have done a 2nd bake and had success. I also used K4-Pro on the GPU & K5-Pro to replace the stock thermal pads. Neither of these pastes is electrically conductive. Here's the full video of my 2nd bake:
ruclips.net/video/6BJGLFCigdA/видео.html
There is nothing wrong with the video (above) of my 1st bake, and it still serves as a useful guide. The video of my 2nd bake is similar to my first video (above), except that I did NOT remove the motherboard in my 2nd video (because I'd already replaced the BR2032 battery in my 1st video). I hope both of these videos will serve to assist those of you who wish to follow in my footsteps. Best of luck to you!
Your graphics card is dead. It's a flip chip gpu. This is not a fix to last long. It works because the substrate starts moving at 140-170 degrees Celcius. 200 is not neccesarry. If you want a long term repair just get a mxm3 graphics card(from a laptop or so, ebay you know). If you don't care and only want a quick fix heat the chip directly to 170. gl :)
Tensor, my graphics card is not "dead"; If it was truly dead then it could never, ever be resurrected by an oven bake. But if you watch my 2nd Bake video, you will see the card is now alive and running again. Truly dead cards don't come back to life by an oven bake or heat gun. As such, the heat treatment seems to be reflowing solder in just the right spot to get everything working again, or perhaps it is fixing broken contacts inside the GPU chip (most likely the latter due to the temps involved). Regardless, my tests show the card is most assuredly "NOT dead." The correct label would be "fault by design." Apple really screwed up on this model iMac with regard to the video card.
Jose, a heat gun can potentially damage things too, which is why I did not use it. But in terms of how long a bake will last, keep in mind that what inspired me to do my 1st bake was another RUclipsr who reported in Feb. 2017 that he had 17 months of continuous use after his 1st bake. If an oven bake was truly inferior, I would not expect one to get 17 months of use out of it. Even so, my case was different, with me only getting 4 months on my 1st bake. Time will tell how long the 2nd bake lasts.
Solder does not melt at 200 degrees(217 min). But at the point of death you got me it's a zombie:D I think it's completely fine to do the oven method as a private repair if you don't care killing something completely. But I don't want someone doing this as a buissness operation for a repair center or so. I would recommend everyone interestet cheking out flip chip design and than related to that ltt's video about that where he "fixed" the gpu but not the ssd. And by the way today I repaired an 2011 iMac damaged by a lightning storm. 1 resistor near the cpu_fan connector was broken.10k OHM - R5700 Just in case anyone else has a fan spinning at full speed all the time
And ya Apple had a extended warranty programm for that. I think AMD screwed everyone from 2009-2012 (my Asus laptop too:( )
If it were not for this video and the next two, my family would have thrown away an iMac that was just a blank screen. After watching this video and Bake #2, and JDW’s 3rd video recap after 2.5 years, I decided this was the method I wanted to try and it worked great! We will start the clock to see how long we go! Thanks JDW!
William, thank you for your kind words, and an enormous thank you for your support of my channel via PayPal! It's wonderful to hear your success story. I'm truly thrilled to hear your family will get continued use out of that iMac. In many ways, Macs become a part of the family, and goodness knows my own family would hate to throw one out. Indeed, that was the inspiration for me to test the waters with my first bake. Best wishes to you and your family, William!
Dude, you are a super patient and chill guy. I think I would have quit by the time I saw the video card lying behind that mobo. Cheers man.
Thank you for your kind words, David. If you found my video because your iMac is having video card issues, I can only say that the bake really does work. The caveat is that it takes a long time and requires patience. But I consider it worth it versus buying a new iMac. I personally think that we should get at least 10 years of life out of expensive Apple products. My iMac will be 10 in late 2019.
Thanks for all the effort you put into making this video. I have never seen such a detailed video that really leaves no questions unanswered. Even I, as a woman, had no problems getting my iMac up and running again. I hope it lasts a little while.
Thank you for your kind words. I am certainly pleased to hear that you were able to get your iMac working again using my video as a guide. My first bake lasted only 4 months, but I think that was because I didn't clean off all the old thermal paste and apply all new paste. I did that in my second bake, which then lasted 2 years and 9 months. I can only hope yours functions as long or longer as mine did after my second bake. Best wishes!
Just want to add my voice to the avalanche of successes here! Mid 2011 27" iMac i7. Wow... It's alive again! Thanks so much!!!
That's wonderful to hear. Thank you for taking time to let everyone know about your success, Anthony!
I can not believe it, it actually works. I was skeptical about it but I had nothing to lose. Instead of using the oven, I used a heatgun and aim it for about 4 min. Thank you very much for your video.
Thank you for the kinds words and your report of success with a heat-gun, Phong! You said you applied the heat for 4 minutes, but what was the distance between the GPU chip and the heat gun? And did you keep that distance consistent during those 4 minutes? The reason I ask is so that your answer can help others who may wish to try it instead of an oven. Thank you!
I aimed my heat-gun and rotated in a circular motion at the chip only, not the entire card. The distance between my heat gun and the chip is about 1.5 inches.
This is the best step by step easy to understand iMac dismantle instruction on RUclips by far and I have watched many . Thank you 🙏
Thank you for your very kind words, Healthy Finesse!
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!
Today followed your instructions on an IMAC 27" late 2009 with video problems (yellow strips, stuck after several seconds). Never had to 'bake' any hardware so you might say I was a bit reluctant to actually put the videocard into the oven (9 minutes and 30 seconds!!). But since there where no other options I said, lets give it a try. And you know what? It actually did the trick, my so beloved IMAC 2009 is raised from the dead. I do not know for how long, or what other future problems will arise, but for now this is great! Thanks for taking the time to make this video. I suggest removing the memory sims before anything else, otherwise you might have problems putting the motherboard back in place. Again thanx alot!
Not only "remove" the memory but also remember to "put it back" when done too! I neglected to do that, and as you could see at the end of my video, I got the scary beep, beep, beep. Anyway, thank you for letting us know the bake was a success for you. Please note that I made 2 videos. This video was of my first bake which lasted 4 months. I then made a second video showing my 2nd bake, and that video was made the first week of July 2017. It's now the first week of February 2018, and my iMac's video is still going strong. Not sure if the longevity of my 2nd bake is due to my having twice-baked the video card or my having used different thermal paste the 2nd time. In any case, I hope your bake lasts years. Even so, in my experience, a brand new card lasted me 3 years TWICE, so I would be surprised if my 2nd bake lasted beyond that. Sadly, the card was designed badly, which is why we have this problem in the first place. Best wishes!
Hi. I have a problem, I did what you said, but it only gives me external video, if I connect the screen of it, it does not send the imac, but if I disconnect it works very well by external video.
Thank you so much for all your patience to make this videos. The instructions were completely helpful. I followed them one by one and my iMac 27'' Mid-2011 is working well again. I would say the label every single cable and screw have simplified the procedure. The only thing I didn't do was use thermal paste. I used the leftover. Cheers and best wishes to you from Colombia.
I am very happy to hear your success, Juan! By the way, you said you did not use new thermal paste. That may or may not be a problem. If you experience system freezing or unexplained crashes in the future, it could be related to the thermal paste, in which case you would have no choice but to buy some paste and apply it. That's a real pain because of the time it would take, but that is the reality of it. So long as the old paste had not hardened too much, and so long as it still moves a lot of heat from the chip to the heatsink, you should be ok. Best wishes!
Doing this today July 4th 2020 2011 27inch. Referencing your videos a third time and have my 2007 24inch iMac (bought new) on the side for guidance on your videos. My plan is 'just the video card dismount' just simply love your ability to keep it simple but through. The small things like reminding plug color direction and pin direction in reference to the screen and such. Those details are priceless!!
The ATI Radeon 4850 Video card for my Late 2009 iMac 27” machine stopped working after Thanksgiving. I bought my system back in 2010 and it worked consistently for 11 years until last month! It was noticeable slower over the past few years but until it stopped working I wasn’t ready to get rid of it. I bought a brand new Mac Mini to replace it before I saw this video. The bake was successful and I am back up and running with the iMac. While this system is WAY SLOWER than my new Mac Mini, it still can surf the net and do simply tasks pretty well. I might even put a SSD drive in the system to make it faster. While this is clearly a back up system for non critical needs, it is good to know that it still can function. Thanks for the video!
Great to hear that! But the single BEST upgrade for these old iMacs is an SSD. It's a night and day difference in performance. Be sure you have 16 or 32GB of RAM too, especially if you have two users open all the time. That can make a big difference as well. Merry Christmas!
I looked for this video pacifically to tackle the same issue/problem I had a year ago with applying thermal paste. I remember you gave excellent instructions on this procedure. Last year I used some watery thermal paste that only lasted few months. This time I will use either Arctics Silver 4 or 5 as you suggested. My main reason for my comment is to say "Thank You" for your detail information.
Thank you for watching and commenting! I highly recommend that before you do anything else you watch the following portion of my 2nd Bake video which discusses the K4 and K5 Pro thermal pastes I used. So far, my 2nd bake has lasted 1 year and 6 months, and the machine is still going strong. In my first bake, I used Arctic Silver V on the GPU, and a rather old and generic thermal paste on the memory chips, and I didn't fully clean off the old Apple thermal pads on the memory chips either. The first bake lasted only 4 months. So that was either due to the thermal paste I used, and/or due to the fact I didn't clean off all the old paste on the memory chips, or it could be my GPU simply needed two bakes. I'm not sure, but all I can say is that K4 & K5 Pro is still going strong. Also note you cannot use Arctic Silver V on the memory chips because it is electrically conductive and would have some overspill that would cause shorts. Plus Arctic Silver V cannot be used as a replacement for thermal pads, which is needed for the memory chips. Again, watch the portion of my 2nd bake video below for details on the thermal paste and application method I used. ruclips.net/video/6BJGLFCigdA/видео.html
@@JDW-, I did watch the other video this morning and don't remember if I had baked the chip the first time after replying new paste last year. My question is: can I use just one of the selected K-5 or K-4 thermal paste for both memory and CPU? I bought the K-5 kit and Gelid Extreme as an option. Should I use K-5 on CPU and Gelid on memory? Your suggestion will be greatly appreciated.
K5 Pro is made specifically to be a replacement for thermal pads. Thermal pads are used when there's a big gap between the heatsink and the chips you want to cool. That's why K5 Pro is a very thick paste and you can use a lot of it -- so much so that it shocks people who otherwise think I have applied to much of it in my video. But what is you see in my video is the proper amount and proper method of application according to the manufacturer. You cannot, however, use K5 Pro on the GPU because Thermal Pads (and thermal pad replacement pastes like K5 Pro) do not conduct heat as well as regular thermal paste like K4 Pro. So if you did use K5 Pro on the GPU, because it is not intended for that, the GPU would likely overheat (i.e., fry itself to death). That would be a very bad situation that would result in a dead video card that cannot be resurrected. Regarding Gelid Extreme, I've never used that before so I cannot offer you my personal experience with it, but it has great reviews on Amazon, and I see it is a normal thermal paste that you can apply to the GPU of your video card. So, yes, I think using Gelid Extreme on the GPU and K5 Pro on the memory chips will be just fine. You shouldn't have any problems doing that.
@@JDW-, Thank You Sir for your knowledge and input on this subject. Your videos and responding narratives are very detailed. Cheers!
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
Hello, Yu! You know, it's very odd why I never saw your comment until today. It's been 2 years! Well, I guess now is a good time to ask how long your bake has lasted. My 2nd bake lasted 2 years and 9 months.
@@JDW- It's still going after that one bake. Amazing! Follow the tutorial, and take your time.
Actually i was looking for a tutorial on how to replace the video board and hence followed yours step by step, until you put the board into the oven... Wait!! THE OVEN?? :-)) Unbelievable! Surely i can imagine how/why this works, but i never would have come to that thought by myself... So THANKS A LOT for your great tutorial and this genius hack! :-)) Worked just perfectly!
I'm pleased you found the video useful. Thanks for watching!
You are one gutsy guy, very patient and methodical. Your card may have failed, but your explicit video will be helpful to those who have to change the vido card -- people like me who cannot afford the hourly rates of the tech people and wouldn't know where to start even in disassembling the iMac.
Thank you for your kind words, Doran. To the average person like you and I, cost matters. I would love to have a 2019 iMac, but the company I work for has been facing hard times and my salary has taken a huge hit as a result. (I don't make money from RUclips either.) As such, I simply cannot afford a new iMac. In times like this we need to be frugal, and repairing what we already own is one way to do that. Thankfully, and quite surprisingly, baking the video card in these old Macs really works. I'm therefore overjoyed every single time a person reports a successful bake here in the comments. Please be sure to let me know how your own bake goes. Best wishes.
you wont believe this 3 years ago i followed your steps to the letter of the law it did not work so i put it back in its box and one year later forked out on a new one .yesterday i was about to throw it out and rescue the hard drive and turned it on and hey presto .well done and thanks now i have two imacs
You didn't do anything other than remove it from the box 1 year later and try to power it on? It's interesting it didn't work after you baked it 1 year ago but now it works. I'm afraid I cannot explain that. But so long as you baked it at the right temperature and duration and applied a good thermal paste, you should be good to go in the long term. Best wishes!
@@JDW- i would like to say a huge thank you again to you and for your patient well presented video
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🙏
It's great to hear your story of success, Don! If those two screws are from your display, you're probably fine. Just don't throw them away. You might open the case again some day and want to put them back into place. Best wishes!
I wouldn't have had the confidence in this repair had I not heard so many positive stories from the comments! Now I am another success story, thanks to this video. iMac is back in action. I think it'll be on light-GPU duty for the foreseeable future. It seems like heat may have been what took it out in the first place- I was playing Minecraft. Time will tell!
That's great to hear. Thank you for making time to let me know about your successful bake. Best wishes!
This worked perfectly! Thank you. Without the video..... Not possible. Ever so grateful. May the force be with you!
Thanks for letting us know of your success!
Just put my IMac all together after doing exactly the same as the video. Started it right up and so far is running great! Thanks for making this video.
I'm so happy to hear that, Armando. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
My friend, you give me an entire lesson. Thank you very much for your video. Regards from Cuernavaca, Mexico.
¡Gracias por mirar!
Thanks so much, my first bake lasted from 2020 until last week, so, thanks for the detailed advice and information, bake two was a breeze
Amazing!!!!!!!!!! Amazing!!!!!!!!!! The Imac is working properly again! Thanks a lot for this video! The procedures absolutely worked as described. I can tell something: If you follow the steps on this video, you are ok. Once again, thanks a lot for this video. My Imac is working like a charm.
Thank you for sharing your story of success, Larry! Best wishes!
You are and the other bloke are LEGENDS! I thought my mac was fried, but thanks to your video It is alive again. Thanks Bro!
Thank you for your kind words, Joe. I’m pleased to hear that my video helped you resurrect your iMac. Best wishes!
It worked perfect for me... exactly as you did it... 9 minutes... I also managed to broke 2 small condensers on the motherboard while pulling away the 3rd connector from the monitor (near the LCD temp sensor) and I managed to solder only 1 of them back. The second one was to difficult (too small). But it worked fine without it after that. It didn't make any problems for now. After baking it did't want to start, and I thought I must buy now a new motherboard. But the problem was that I forgot to put in the RAM :))))) You saved me 600$ on a new card or about 250$-300$ on reballing or soldering of a new ati chip from a third party repair company. Thanks!
Thank you for letting us know of your successful bake! As to the capacitors you broke off, please keep in mind that capacitors can serve different functions. Some act as noise filters. Some are required to keep the voltage from dipping. Regardless, the fact you were unable to solder back one of the capacitors (assuming it was a capacitor and not an inductor), may or may not cause problems for you down the line. As such, if you experience anything unexplainable and out of the ordinary in the future, such could be traced back to that missing electronic component. So you may need to prepare yourself for soldering that component (or an equivalent) back in the future. Until then, enjoy your "new" iMac!
Wow you are the best. Just did this on my wife’s 27” 2009 which is still a great machine. Works great now. I didn’t take out the motherboard to change the battery because I have a faint memory of doing this when I changed the HDD to an SSD, but not aure
That's great to hear. Thanks for making time to let me know your bake was a success. Best wishes!
Hi, my bake lasted 6 months, it worked like a charm for that period and it was an inexpensive way of bringing back to life a totally capatble computer. Going for a 2nd bake today.
Thank you for your comment. What kind of thermal paste did you use? My first bake lasted only 4 months, reason unknown. On my 2nd bake I switched to different thermal paste (K4 and K5 Pro). The only other change I made was to increase the bake time to 10 minutes. So far my 2nd bake has lasted just about 13 months and is still going strong, used daily.
Hi JDW, I used Arctic Silver Céramique 2 in the graphics cards main chip and used thermarl pads on the other 4 smaller chips. My first bake was 10 minutes. lasted 6 months. I did yesterday the 2nd bake, also 10 minutes, it's working again, let's see for how long. This is a 2008 iMac computer, still a great computer in 2018 and does eveything I need it to so I would like to maintain it as long as possible. The Graphic cards problems in Mac computers are related to planned obsolescence, they want you to buy a new computer and new iPhone every 2 years, even if you computer and phone serve you well they will plan the product to fail after some years or they will release a new operating systems that kills it for good.
Thank you for the information. The reason I was curious about your thermal paste is because I'm trying to determine the root cause of "1st bake failures." But since your machine is a 2008 model with different video card, it's difficult to make an exact comparison with the video card in my late 2009 iMac 27" model. So perhaps the reason my 2nd bake has lasted more than 1 year is due to better thermal paste (both on the GPU and the thermal pad replacement paste I used on the RAM chips), or perhaps my card just needed another bake. So while the reason for the success of my 2nd bake is yet unknown, I just hope it will keep going strong. I doubt it will last longer than a brand new card (which lasted all of 3 years in my experience), but who knows. Time will tell, and I will keep updating the text Description under the video monthly to keep everyone informed. Best wishes!
This was my last option and boy am I glad I found your video! Thank you, worked 100% perfect! Saved me so much money!!
Thanks wonderful to hear, Niall. Thank you for making time to let me know your success!
You rock, JDW - I have a mid 2011, 27” 1gb GPU the screen displayed Green Bars and would not boot up so had nothing to lose. After watching your video felt confident enough to remove the Motherboard, but what pain. FYI - I Baked the GPU for 12 mins at 400 degree F. Replaced the thermal grease with Artric silver 5. Also replaced the thermal grease on the CPU while I had it apart. After finally getting it back together it Booted right up . Thanks
Thanks for letting me know of your resurrection success! With your having replaced the CPU thermal paste too, I suspect your total time invested was more than mine. I do want to ask about the video card thermal paste though. You seem to have only used Arctic Silver V and nothing else. Did you replace the thermal paste on the video card memory chips? You would have needed either a replacement set of thermal pads, or K5-Pro, since Arctic Silver V isn't thick enough to fill the gaps between those chips and the heatsink.
PERFECT!! Followed all the steps start to finish and the iMac video came back to life. Thank you very much, I was ready to buy a new one.
Jeff, thank you for watching and for making time to comment. I read and reply to every single comment under both of my bake videos. It's always a joy to hear success stories like yours. I feel humbled and excited at the same time when hearing a video of mine played a positive role in getting a beloved machine repaired. It's always a special feeling when you get something useful working again rather than be forced into a new purchase. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
Just baked my card and my computer is working again!! It is like witchcraft. Makes no sense at all but thank you very much indeed for giving me the confidence to try it. Only fly in the ointment is the fan is working flat out. I never heard the fan before but now it is quite noticeable. Thank you once again.
Thank you for making time to let me know your bake was a success! There have been several people who have reported the same thing you have after their bake - the fans run at full speed. The reason is because you either forgot to connect a particular connector or you did not connect it properly. To fix that you can do one of two things. You can re-open your iMac and check all the connectors, which would take a while. Or you can expand out the text description underneath my video and download one of the fan control apps that I link there. Best wishes!
Thank you very much! Thanks to this tutorial I was able to bring back to life my iMac that had died 1 year ago.
You're very welcome, Oscar. Thank you for letting us know it worked for you!
Thanks for the video JDW, have just done mine - and seems to be working, also downloaded a fan control for extra cooling. Did notice the screws on the back of the Spring screws were very loose this would make for a loose fitting against the heat paste/sink.
Thank you for making time to comment, Andrew. It's unfortunate to hear your spring-loaded heatsink screws were loose when you tested them. That obviously would create heat-transfer problems that could even lead to the death of the video card. I am pleased to hear the bake worked for you though. Best wishes!
dude, u r the man. seriously u make my iMac bring to life again, awesome work. I think I can't make it that u told, but I try about 3 hours and success. Thank you million times. if you will come to Turkey, I will order the best kebap for you :D
That is wonderful to hear, Awicenna! Thank you for your kind words. My video serves as a guide, but you did all the hard work. Three hours is a lot of work, but for those who can make the time, it's worth it in the end! By the way, I would love to visit your beautiful country some day! Kebaps are wonderful too! :-)
Awesome! Thank you for posting, with your guidance i got my dead imac 27 2009 back working again. 10mins at 205 deg.c in my case. Thanks again
That’s wonderful to hear! Thank you for letting me know, Will!
So it just wouldn't start? I have 2011 imac and I start it with a hairdryer but if it turns off it won't start
Thank you so much @JDM i fixed my shitty imac 2009 today with your fully detail tutorial. I baked my Radeon card at 200 fan force oven in 10 mins. At first, it has a big smell of burning plastic (or capacitor or somewhat) from the card. I was so worry about mine card was overbaked, but i had to tried no matter what as i had no turning back once i stepped into this baking method. After awhile review your video over and over, i had finished putting back everything together. And then, booom it workded like a dream, just as good as before it died out (even run cooler than before ; i guess because of the new thermal compound that i bought from the local shop). And now i'm typing on this computer to say thank you while i'm opening 11 tabs on Safari and playing music from one of the tab on RUclips.
Awesome job that help me recused my imac and save me ton of money on buying a new one.
:D sincerely thank you for all of your effort putting in this so much detail video.
I'm thrilled to hear of your success, Addy. Thank you for sharing your story and best wishes as you enjoy that newly resurrected Mac!
Cool video - used as a guide. Only now I forgot to put a rubber gasket back on the chip. I remembered when I had already collected everything. As you think - strongly it is needed, I do not want to take everything apart again. Thank you
Actually, that black thing you saw in my video is made of some kind of foam, not rubber. I don't know the purpose, but since it is made of foam, I can only assume it is some kind of dust filter? Maybe it was intended to keep dust from collecting around those chips? Not sure, but it wasn't dusty at all when I first removed my video card. I don't think it was intended to keep thermal paste overspill at bay because if that was the case, why make it out of foam? In any case, I don't think it will hurt that you left it out. If anything, leaving it out would allow for more air flow.
I'm understood, thank you. Although I have another video card (HD6970), but the rubber gasket is the same. I do not think that it is necessary for a heat sink. I will not touch it, I'll see how much the chip will work after warming up.
Thank you so much. You video is very detailed (which I needed) and it worked. The only suggestion I have is when you are putting it back together, please don't speed that part up. I had to keep going back to the beginning to figure out how things went back together on some of the plugs. :-( But overall, excellent video. :-)
Thank you for watching and sharing your story if success, Dawne. I of course take all advice in the comments section to heart. The main reason I sped through reassembly was because some people complain if the video gets too long, and with it already being 1 hour and 6 minutes, I was afraid that going to slow at the end might be an issue for some people, especially since one can review the initial part of the video again. But again, I do appreciate your constructive advice and will consider that in future videos. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
@@JDW- When I was doing this procedure, I would watch you and stop the video and go do what you just had shown. 1 hr. 6 mins is nothing compared to about 10-12 hours. lol. Thanks again.
Excellent job JDW, the lights went out on my mac and I canned it. It was 10 years old but wish I had of seen your video before i pulled it to bits. I am now using the display as a 3rd monitor for the new mac.
Well, it's only natural that a veteran tool man such as yourself would want to tear that bad boy apart! ;-) But I am glad to hear you were able to put it to good use. Keeping these machines in service in some practical way is the ultimate goal.
Thanks so much for this excellent procedural video. It was easy to follow, and adapt from. I replaced the dead card in a 2009 iMac with an hd5750 1Gb Radeon from a mid 2010 iMac, and it works a treat. You will need the entire gpu & heat sink assembly to do that if anyone is wondering.
Thank you for sharing your experience with a more modern video card replacement. So you removed the video card and the entire heatsink assembly from an 2011 Mac and put it in your 2009 iMac, is that right? Did you have to cut anything? I've heard that newer cards and/or their heatsinks don't fit perfectly.
JDW I purchased the gpu/heat sink assembly, taken out of a mid 2010 iMac, from eBay, and replaced the 256mb failed one in my 2009 iMac. The actual gpu card is slightly taller, as is the heatsink, but I’d read other people saying it worked fine, so took the gamble, and they were right. The space where it sits in the case is where the psu cable runs to the logic board, and it doesn’t create any impediment at all. There is one tiny little fastener (top right little screw when you reassemble the machine), that you need to take off the 2009 assembly & attach to the 2010 one.
Thank you for the additional details. One last question, if you don't mind. Does the card generate more heat than the old, or would you say it's about the same as before? (Feeling the back of your Mac after it's been running a while, etc.)
JDW Only been up & running about 15/20mins since I finished the job. Will let you know how it feels in an hour or so.
I would appreciate that. And if you happened to have shot any video of photos of how the replacement card looked when installed in your 2009 iMac, I would love to see that as well.
UR ACTUALLY THE BEST!!! works September 2022 on a late 2011 imac 27”
Thank you for your kind works and for making time to let me know your bake was a success! Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
Great video. It helped me get the things I needed unplugged so I could replace my video card. I had the whole video card assembly to replace, so I didn't need the bake potion, but it got me over the finish line to get my card replaced. - Thanks for doing this!
I’m please my video could help. Thanks for letting me know!
Thank you for that clear video , it give me the courage to do it myself... with success I may add 😊✌🏼
Congratulations on your successful bake, Benoit!
Success. Baked today. White screen of death on boot up fixed! Many thanks.
Yet another success! Thanks for letting us know, and best wishes to you and your resurrected iMac!
JDW he conseguido mi primera cocción de la tarjeta gráfica. Todo un éxito (succesful). El “lockdown” for the covid in Barcelona and your clear explenations. I hope it last more that 2 years,...Thanks for your vídeos....
¡Gracias por informar tu éxito! Si seguiste de cerca las instrucciones de mi video y usaste una buena pasta térmica como K4 y K5 Pro, tu tarjeta gráfica realmente podría durar más de 2 años. ¡Los mejores deseos!
IT WORKED!!!! Thanks for the brilliant video. It only took me about 5 hours!
Yes, it takes a very long time. That's why in my iFixit repair guide I mention that it will take at least 3 hours. It of course took me longer because I was making videos. But some of us don't mind the work if it can save us money in the end! Thanks for letting me know of your success, and best wishes!
Yes, your video saved me a bunch of time and money. Thanks again!
I've been gearing up to do my 27 Inch that White Screen/Boot Looped last week & it occured to me....Can't I just buy another AMD Card instead of repairing mine? Or are they very difficult to procure? (I'm typing this before checking obv) Or they all just fail due to poor manufacturing? ALSO: Uploader, You made this seem fairly painless with your clear, helpful & honest tutorial.
It's much cheaper to do the bake than to buy a replacement video card. And even replacement cards have the same issues (bad design), so it's not like they will last forever. My new replacement from Apple lasted only 3 years, just like the stock card did. That's why so many give the bake a try first, then if that fails, Plan-B is a replacement card.
@@JDW- I see. Cost is a non-issue but I'd still be spending the time installing it. Perhaps a repair & a spare will be the way to go. Thank You x100 again!
Great work. Just one point- when replacing the motherboard I had to take the panel off the memory card access (on the bottom of the case) to feed the memory cards into their slots. Before that the board wouldn't go far down enough......
If you mean the aluminum "memory access door" that screws in at the very bottom of the iMac's housing, then yes, you would need to leave that off during the installation, and of course all RAM should be removed before the motherboard is removed. Thanks for watching!
Hi,FANTASTIC VIDEO.I have a mid 2007 iMac,that I just got.Is it normal for it to get really warm?Not like to gets to hot that you can't touch it,but pretty warm.Is there a fan control app that will fix it? Thanks for your time.
Yes, it is sadly very normal for Macs of that era to get very hot, seeing Apple did not design them very well. In fact, Apple didn't make a modern Intel iMac that ran cool to the touch until the 2015 5k 27" version. I use that at the office and can attest to how cool it runs, even at the stock fan speed. If you want your iMac to run cooler, you will need a fan control app. I posted links to 2 apps I myself have tried and tested in the Description under my 2nd Bake video here: ruclips.net/video/6BJGLFCigdA/видео.html
Just a little note..... To replace the video card, ONLY 4 screws are needed to be removed! I saw this on another video on youtube. Where you have some tape with the number 3, those 3 screws need to be removed, then in the top right corner of the video card heatsink , there is ONE more screws, and BAM, video card is removed WITHOUT having to remove the logic board! Your welcome :) *Video uploader, maybe make a note of this comment.... Thanks for the free information though, and trying to help people fix their Mac, that is a great thing to do to help the community, but you don't need to remove anything more than the screen, and 4 screws :D. I bought my video card ATI 4850 on ebay for $150 and it came with the heatsink already, so I didn't even need to swap out heatsinks. Hope I helped, not trying to be a know it all, I run a computer repair shop, watched this video, then found the other video showing 4 screws. :D (after screen removed)
You are correct, but you still need to at least partially pull out the motherboard in order to change the PRAM battery which sadly sits on the back side. You can see the easier method of video card removal (which ignores the PRAM battery) in my 2nd Bake video here: ruclips.net/video/6BJGLFCigdA/видео.html
This is great video.I was having problem in iMac. Randum restart, Grey & black lines, Pink & Grey lines, Blue screen, Blank screen anything was happening while working. I see this video & open my IMAC. Remove graphic card. Clean all thermal paste.If you have any rubber seat or plastic seat around graphic card chip, you must remove it. You don't need that anyway. Heat oven 200 C. Put graphic card on Aluminium foil balls. Leave in oven about 10 min. Let it cool 1 hour. Apply new thermal paste properly on graphic cards & all I.C. See other video. It woks 100000%
I was also too aftraid of opening IMAC & remove graphic card before this video.
Thanks you sooooo much friend.
Thank you for sharing your great experience, Nehal! Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
Thank you so much this is the best video of the entire RUclips it’s so amazing you took the time to record every single piece thanks a lot
Thank you for your very kind words. I'm overjoyed to hear my video was a help to you. Best wishes!
😂😂😂the card of sorrows and pains
Thank you very much for this tutorial! I just bought an iMac with a supposedly power button issue that caused a black screen when it turned on and it does eventually come on after putting it on and off many times, but after many hours of research it turned to be the GPU and I wasn't prepared to buy a new since shipping is so expensive where I'm from, hence finding your video and I got it right on the first try ( on an old school oven), just to see if it will last for a very long time. Again thank you very much for this!
Thank you for sharing your success story, Luigi! I'm so happy the Bake was able to get your GPU up and running! The Bake doesn't last forever, but it usually lasts long enough to make the effort worthwhile, especially if you used the right thermal paste. Best wishes!
hey man, you fixed my iMac, although the br and cr series difference doesn't matter, it will never get close to that temperature, it usually hovers around 30 in case temp, so if I were you, don't wast your time.
cheers,
Ethan
You are correct about the PRAM battery. But there is one point of consideration... Apple "wasted their time" :-) in choosing the BR-series, so if one has the means to get a BR-replacement, why not? The BR series would be more robust over time in hot environments, even if the heat of the said environment didn't exceed 30°C. This is more of a concern for iMacs that run 8 hours or more per day. But thank you for mentioning it nonetheless, as many people will get by just fine with the CR-series battery. It's also great to hear your iMac was fixed. I hope it lasts as long or longer than my 2nd bake (2 years 9 months)!
@@JDW- very valid point you made there, I like the video too, keep it up
Have used your video 3 times and about to do a 4th bake, probably don’t need the video anymore but it’s very thorough and I commend you for that. My first bake lasted a year and the two after only a couple months. I’m using rather cheap thermal paste and I am wondering if that’s the problem? Should I order the stuff you use or is the short life span possibly due to something else?
Thank you for providing me with an update on your bakes. I myself have gone through 2 bakes, but my 2nd back has lasted 1 year and 11 months. My first bake failed after only 4 months and I think it was because of the thermal paste I used and the fact I did not clean off all the old thermal pads either. But on my 2nd bake I used K4 Pro and K5 Pro and I really think that makes all the difference. So if you did not use K4 or K5 Pro for any of your bakes, assuming you wish to try again, I highly recommend the K4 and K5 Pro. Please follow my 2nd bake video on how to properly apply them, and you should be good to go. And hopefully you will have a longer span of usage as a result.
JDW you are a god amongst men. Will be trying soon, will see what my local shop has first then get some K4 and K5 ready for the inevitable 5th bake
@@TheEthanwilson I am certainly no god but mere mortal man just like you. And I hope that you can join me in long-term baking success by using K4 and K5 Pro. Best wishes to you, Ethan! Feel free to follow-up with a comment anytime!
JDW so I waited for the k4 and 5 to arrive and did the bake and I think it worked. No signs of artifacts or pink lines BUT from the time the apple logo appears the lower part of the screen shifts over abruptly then back. I’m worried I damaged the connection where the big wire in the right connects just beside the video card. Do you think this could be the issue? I can upload a quick video showing the problem since it’s sort of hard to explain. Thanks again for the quick replies
Edit: video of display ruclips.net/video/ID-g-x2GE4k/видео.html
@@TheEthanwilson What I see in your video is obviously a problem that needs to be solved. But I am not sure of the cause. Without a doubt, it is either a cable or the video card itself. Why do you think you damaged the connection near the video card? I do know cables inside these iMacs are very sensitive. They break easily, especially the ribbon cables. But pulling hard on the other cables can dislodge wire terminals from their connectors.
With that said, I never baked my video card 5 times, so I cannot say if baking it too much repeatedly could cause this. The best you can do for now is to recheck all the cables. Especially check the ribbon cable that connects in the upper left, as that thin and narrow cable broke on me when I was attempting my 2nd bake. There is also another wider cable that connects to the back of the display, and that could cause what I see in your video. But if there is another cable that you think is suspect, it too could be a problem. It might be difficult to jiggle the cables with the machine turned on, and obviously risky too if you aren't careful, but jiggling the cables with the machine on might show a bad cable more easily. You just need to remove all rings and metal from you so you don't touch something and short it out by accident.
I’ve removed the glass from my 27” without suction cups by slipping guitar picks into the top right and left corners and carefully prying open. Did this after I heard some one say they did the same with their finger nails. So save your suction cup money for good thermal paste
Great tip for the guitar players out there, but folks such as myself prefer to use the suction cups over a potential broken fingernail. :-) Thanks for the tip!
I thank you very much my guy!!!! This is that lil peace of luck i needed in my life and found myself believed it myself and did it myself. Its working perfectly again!
That’s wonderful to hear! Thank you for letting me know.
Followed your instructions to perform a number of repairs and while the screen was out I did a number of upgrades to my Imac.Installed a 1TB SSD, removed DVD player and installed a second SSD to backup the operating system, replaced the battery.
I did the repair on the video card as per your instructions and now I get the system as far as the Apple logo, the boot line goes all the way across and then it freezes up. Reloaded the operating system base system and its still doing it, any ideas on how to get it to boot up fully e.g the rotating wheel and onto the desktop?
I purchased the Imac for $250 bucks it's a late 2009 27 inch model A1213 Intel 5 chip.
Thanks for the very detailed video , helped me build the confidence to do the repair.
I'm very sorry to hear about the freeze during boot, Keith. Because you purchased your iMac as a second hand machine, you don't know the entire history of what its been through. There very well could be problems other than the video card. Also, it seems you performed the bake and added upgrades all at the same time, which means it is now difficult for you to know if the bake failed or if it is your new SSD or even the DVD player that is causing boot problems. As such, I am very sorry to say that you will need to remove the screen again and perform troubleshooting steps. Namely, you need to determine if the bake worked. To do that, you would need to restore the original spinning platter HDD and optical drive and otherwise make the machine exactly like it was when you received it, except for the baked video card and new PRAM battery. If your machine boots fine in that stock condition, then you know the problem lies in one of your upgrades. But if your machine does not boot even in the stock condition, then its either the video card or the data on the spinning HDD is corrupt -- which can happen if the machine locks up frequently due to the bad video card. You may want to try booting off a known good external drive.
While rare, I have read a couple reports in the comments where one bake didn't resolve the problem but a second bake did. Indeed, even I had to perform two bakes, albeit 4 months apart. I know this is a lot of trouble. Believe me, I know! Removing the card, the paste, baking, reapplying paste -- ah! What a pain! But if during your troubleshooting you isolate the problem back to the video card, then you really only have two choices: (1) bake it again (which I would strongly recommend) or (2) but another video card of the same type and use that instead. I would recommend the same type of video card to ensure it fits perfectly and it doesn't generate more heat than the stock card. Please let me know if this advice is a help to you.
@@JDW- I figured it out last night, when you buy a hard drive or ssd they are already formatted to receive Windows, I did some research and figured out the drive needs formatting using Apples Guid format, I did that and it loaded the software in a hell of a lot faster. One tip to anybody is ssds generate a lot less heat so the video card is not subjected to extreme heat. I installed the thermal sensors on both drives so the fans are regulated to a lower speed. Now figuring out if I want to run two operating systems eg partition the 1TB drive to 500GB , then install Apple on one virtual drive and Windows on the other. It was worth doing and is very cost effective.
I learnt a lot , sure its a pain but learning new stuff takes time to master it, microsoft use exfat or MSDos, if you want to use files on both systems you need one drive formatted to exfat , then you save files to that drive.
So, Keith, you are saying that you resolved your boot problem by reformatting your SSD (inside your iMac) to GUID and then reinstalling the OS and your files, is that correct? It is true that some Macs won't boot off a drive with the wrong format. I always reformat my new drives before I do anything else, which is probably why I normally don't have boot problems. But yes, the GUID partition scheme is an important format for Intel Macs. Older PPC Macs need the Apple Partition Map. Windows needs the Master Boot Record scheme. And then on top of that you have file system formats like FAT or ExFAT (Windows) and HFS+ or APFS (Mac). When you install High Sierra or Mojave, the OS installer will automatically choose APFS and reformat the drive accordingly.
THIS FIXED MY MAC! YOU'RE THE BEST MAN!
I'm thrilled to hear of your success! Thanks for letting us know it worked for you!
Talking about static disscharge, and you have it put on a mattress/bedcover that defenetly not are equlizing your ground potential.
True, but you'll notice in my video that I did not hold onto the bed as I removed the RAM, nor did I drag the RAM across the bed nor sit the RAM atop the bed after removal. You are correct that there are more electrically grounded soft surfaces, but honestly, most people won't use those so I showed what most people will probably use, regardless of good advice given about grounding the soft surface onto which one should sit the iMac during RAM removal. But again, so long as you yourself are grounded as I was in the video (via anti-static wristband) when you remove RAM, and so long as you put the removed RAM into an anti-static bag or onto an anti-static surface (not a bed), then all will be well.
You shall have the same "ground potential" as the item you are working with. And it's not just the Ram that are sensetive for static discharge, just saying.
Indeed. But again, most people aren't going to work on their Macs in a perfectly grounded work environment anymore than they will enter a certified clean room to remove the front glass -- and believe me, I wish I had one of those because putting the glass back on without dust getting inside is a major feat! Perhaps I've been lucky, but in my 47 years on earth, I've yet to fry RAM or any other IC via accidental static discharge. (But honestly, I don't think I am that lucky.)
You are correct about the words of caution, but again, realistically, most people are not so cautious or even able to be. And so far, not a single person has complained their RAM or video card or logic board has been damaged by static due to having followed the advice given in my video. Those numerous individual repair experiences are something we must ponder consider along side your sage advice. And so to anyone reading this who is concerned about static discharge I can only advice placement of the iMac on soft anti-static mat while working on and inside it, while also wearing a grounded wrist-strap...
iFixIt has a 70x100cm anti-static Mat for sale here:
www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools/Anti-Static-Mat/IF145-036-3
And you can read debates about static and Mac repairs here:
forums.macrumors.com/threads/is-a-antistatic-mat-absolutely-neccessary.1170472/
:-D I'm 47 years old as well, and have worked with electronics and computers since 1986, and have never "killed" an electronic component by static, but it's good to show and educate people of the risks. But by doing so, show them the right way. You can accually kill a component by using a wrist strap, using it the wrong way. And keep the cat away from rubbing against your projects :-D
Thank you very much for this video of disassembly and GPU baking. it definitely took me more time than you but my late 2009 imac is back to life !
That's great to hear. Thank you for making time to let me know your bake was a success!
Just did the baking with my late 2009 27 inch iMac (HD4850). Worked great. Wew will see for how long. Btw. can I just put in a HD6970M? Without bigger modifications?
Thanks alot for that GREAT video.
Bug
Thank you for sharing your successful experience! Yes, you can put in newer video cards, but be aware that they are not exactly the same shape or size and therefore you may need to do a little cutting to make it fit. And newer cards may also run hotter, which would not necessarily be best for your Mac.
I wonder if spreading your arctic silver that way whether you are creating air pockets under the heatsink.... If only one drop were applied and have that splashed by the heatsink it would spread. Now it won't. You got air in between just like on the heatsink chewing like material with cracks in it. Dried up... Curious. Nice vid btw. thinking of buying an old that is broken and fixing it. this is gonna help a lot. thnx.
That was my 1st bake video. Be sure to see my 2nd bake because I use different thermal paste. My latest bake was done using Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut in an X pattern, which tends to get an even better spread than a dot in the middle. The dot method tends to spread in a circle, whereas the X method reaches the very edge of each corner of the GPU. But what I can say though is that 4 months later when I did my 2nd bake and removed the heatsink, the Arctic Silver V was still very moist. It was not dried out, nor did I see evidence of air bubbles. Best wishes on your first bake!
Hey, wanted to say massive thanks this video helped loads. I’ve just screwed it all back and happy to report the fix worked. 200 degrees for 9 minutes. Thanks. 👍🏻
Your video inspired me to perform the bake repair on my mid-2011 iMAC's graphic card. So many connectors, I thought for sure I'd screw one or more of them up, but despite my cursing Apple for making such a convoluted and complicated mechanical design, it actually booted up when I was done putting it back together. After sitting half taken apart for over a year!
I realize this repair is often temporary, so I'd like to try and get a new card. Any tips on 1) how to identify the card version in my machine and 2) where to find a new card, not a re-worked imposter?
Thank you!
If you have a 27" iMac, then the 2GB 6970M is the best STOCK card you can buy, and I actually bought the 6970M from the following EBAY seller to use in my 2009 iMac, which works. But if your heatsink is different, then you'd want to buy the higher priced version that comes with the heatsink, otherwise you could just buy the card. The heatsink is very important though since the 6970M runs hot. www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_ssn=shawn882014&LH_PrefLoc=&_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=6970m&_sacat=0
I can’t wait to try this I’ll let you know if this work for me
Thank you for taking the time to do this.
I hope you find it helpful; but admittedly, it is a lot of work. Best wishes.
The best video about this topic so far. Thanks
Thank you for your kind words, Leonardo!
Thank you for excellent video. I will use your video to open the iMac, and then remove the hard disk, and later back it up via usb-converter. I had no idea that the glass is so easy to remove.
Thank you, Riku! The glass is easy to get off, but putting it back in is the hard part because you have to blow out all the dust before you put the glass back on. Because none of us have a "clean room" to do that job in, there will always be a bit of dust that flies behind the glass before you get it back on. It's perhaps the most frustrating part, actually.
@@JDW- I had a bit hurry today so I did not buy those vacuum-tools like the one you used. Instead, I used the one that I had at WC; the rubber one for plumber. It sucked the glass all right but I was surprised how easily it got off, and tilted the glass too much. Yep, it broke....my main goal was to find the hard disk which I was able to remove, mother board or display circuit was broken, so no use to trying to fix the iMac further. Now I need an SATA-USB adapter for data recovery. I wish the iMac would have the hard disk as module that you can change from outside...like the ram-memory.
@@rikunevalainen8154 Oh no! I am terrible sorry to hear you broke your front glass! That certainly would have made my heart sink. The good news is that you can find replacements on Amazon for surprisingly respectable prices like this one (affiliate link): amzn.to/3p688OR
Thank you!! This finally got my computer working after trying heaps of other ways to get my screen working 🙏🙏🙏
That's wonderful to hear, Bruce! Thank you for making time to let me know!
BRUCE LUI Hey! Nice that it works again. But I have one question. Does this trick also help when I have a complete black screen?
@@rocketplayz4565 Yes it does: ruclips.net/video/teV_atLUlpM/видео.html
RocketPlayz do you mean with no sound too?
Mine had power and sound but no screen showing. And this is the method that brought it back to working. It still works fine now too.
I recommend to record and take pictures of where wires go and where screws go incase you forgot, overall it wasn’t too complicated to remember as they’re quite obvious fits
BRUCE LUI When I power on the imac I do hear the startup chime but the screen keeps being black. Also shining a light at the screen doesnt show an image. So the backlight inverter is fully working. When connected to an external display, the imac is working great. I have literally tried to put my gpu in my oven for 9 minutes at 200 degrees and it works like a new gpu. Im super thankful for this video. I checked the motherboard and it seems that a diode has broken in half. So tomorrow I am going to replace that diode and hope it will work again. Never tried something like this before but we will see (:
Hey, i just wanted to say thank you!!!! I repaired my iMac like you did in this Video and it works! Thank you very much!!! :)
That's great to hear. Thanks for letting me know!
Friend, you are the fucking master. I had the problem of vertical stripes in my imac late 2009 and I have solved it by following your video. If you go through Spain you have a few paid beers. A big hug
I’m so pleased to hear of your success with the video card bake, Manuel! Best wishes!
Bad news, the vertical stripes have returned. I will try to do a second cooking following your new video and I will tell you the result. Regards
Only 2 weeks of use before the problem returned? I'm terribly sorry to hear that. But that seems much too short for a failed bake. My 1st bake lasted 4 months. I'm still on my 2nd bake, well over 6 months. One change I made though was the thermal paste. Please be sure to watch my 2nd Bake Video to see the paste I used and how I applied it. You would need to remove the video card again to redo the paste, so you might as well do a 2nd bake. But using good paste in the right amount is important. Again, please watch my 2nd Bake Video for that. Link is in the description above.
After the next baking I will use quality thermal paste. I have already asked for amazon the same pasta that you have used. Thanks for answering. A big hug
Great video. Thanks. I decided to try it on my 2011 iMac and it worked . Well so far it's only been 5 minutes... Took me a long time and learned a lot.. will update if it goes down again.
Thank you for sharing your success story! I look forward to hearing how your iMac does over time.
8 month working without any problem
Thanks a lot
That's truly wonderful to hear, Manuel! Thank you for the update, and best wishes!
I will proceed to repair my mac!! gr8 video! 1 small question. the oven set in 200C from 0C we put the graphics in, or do we preheat to 200C and then we put the graphics inside? THANKS A LOT!!
I preheated my oven to 200°C for 15 minutes before I put my video card inside. I would recommend that you do the same. Please be sure to let me know how it goes for you after the bake!
i will let you know. i'm buying the components and the k4&k5 pastes
Thanks , Took it apart found one loose wire,still black screen, thinking to take it apart once again.Maybe reply the compound? Maybe over cooked the card.
Did you use K4 Pro on the GPU and K5 Pro on the memory chips? If not, what pastes did you use after your bake? The pastes should not cause a black screen, however, since the black screen would happen immediately on power on, which isn't enough time for the card to heat up due to a bad thermal paste job. What temperature and duration was your bake? And did you check your oven temperature with an oven safe thermometer to ensure that temperature was accurate? If not, I would suggest you measure it.
I read and reply to every comment under all my bake videos. Until now, almost every case of a black screen has been due to something disconnected or improperly seated, rather than a failed bake or bad thermal paste. The two ribbon cables are usually the culprit. It could be the ribbon cable wasn't seated back in its connector properly. It could be there's a break in the cable. It could be the cable was yanked on too strongly during disassembly and the connector on the motherboard was partly ripped off the motherboard. I've had people report on all of those things. So opening the iMac once again to check your connections is necessary, unfortunately.
No need to remove the motherboard. I just performed the same operation to renew the thermal paste on the heat sink. If you remove the three screws connecting the bracket to the motherboard and one screw at the top of the heat sink, the graphics card and heat sink can be pulled upwards out of the edge connector. Be careful not to pull on the temperature senor wire and you can dis-assemble the heat sink and remove the graphics card. After re-assembling the graphics card can be lined up with it's connector and pushed back in. Doing it this way saves lots of time. Also, when you have the graphics card out you have access to the area where a SSD would be fitted form the factory allowing a two drive setup. Mine has a factory fitted 250GB SSD for the OS etc and a 2TB spinner for mass storage.
Thank you for watching and for your comment, but please be sure to read the extensive text description I put under the video above. I’ve already covered the issue of motherboard removal there, as well as having created a second video which shows the entire procedure without removing the motherboard. Thank you.
Totally worked! Thanks for the upload, the Mac is aliiiive!
That's great to hear, Skyler. Thanks for letting me know. Best wishes!
This was a great help. I used the video as reference when I fixed mine. Thanks for your post
Thank you for letting me know of your success, Tony! Best wishes!
Excellent video that has saved my iMac. Thank you so much.
Thank you for taking time to post an update on your success, Aby! Best wishes!
I did this 2 months ago and it worked EXACTLY as described here. AWESOME. Today I started having a similar problem, the screen going black while working and the only way to get it back is to turn off, wait a few minutes and turn back on, it stays lit for 5 minutes then goes black.
Have you had this happen before? Do you know of a fix?
Thank you very much,
Hi, Jeff. As mentioned in the closing paragraph of the text description beneath my video above, my first bake lasted only four months. But the good news is that my second bake is still going strong, now 2 years and 2 months later. The reason your bake lasted only two months is unknown, but it could be the thermal paste you used, or the fact you didn’t clean off all of the stock thermal paste and thermal pads prior to applying new paste, or it could just be that your card needs a second bake. In any case, my second bake video below should help you resolve the problem.
m.ruclips.net/video/6BJGLFCigdA/видео.html
@@JDW- Thanks, I saw that but just had to ask the question. Sorry.
Is it OK if I use Artic 4 (non-conductive) for a areas that need the paste? I noticed you mentioned I can use the 4 versus the 5 in the paragraph above.
OR must I use both, conductive and non-conductive. Sorry, but I want to make sure.
Thank you
It’s not a problem at all, Jeff. I’m happy to help. Arctic MX-4 is fine for the GPU but not for the memory chips. You either need thermal pads of the appropriate thickness or K5 Pro. Since I had no way to measure the gap between the memory chips and the heat sink that would let me know the thickness of the thermal pads I would need, I went with K5 Pro (after my second bake) and have no regrets.
thankyou for taking the time and effort to post the video,apple sure makes it as hard as possible to repair any of there products,which usually means its not cost effective to do unless you can attempt the repair yourself,your video gives some hope to some that can attempt the repair themselves with a minimum outlay money wise,thanx again
Thank you for your kind word, Patrick, DIY repairs are especially important now that Apple considers these old iMacs "obsolete" and therefore doesn't carry repair parts for them anymore. For most people who try the bake though, it works, and if you use the correct thermal pastes, it often can last long enough to have made the effort worthwhile.
@@JDW- just an update managed to do mine with your help,i did mine in a combo microwave oven thats got an oven feature as well so i set in on the oven setting at 200 but checked it first with a thermo couple multimeter and it read 195 - 200 so i gave it a go and it seemed to work thanx for your help hope this might help others as well
Your oven seems to be just like mine. So long as it’s set to oven mode and not microwave mode, it really does work great and the temperature is stable too. I’m certainly glad to hear it seems to have brought your graphics card back to life! Best wishes!
@@JDW- yes certainly seems to have worked for mine,forgot to ad that i put my card in the bottom part of the oven and not near the top part of the oven as the bottom part is where i tested the temperature,good luck to anyone who tries this way,and thanx again for your input