What you need when you need it.
Apple made some lemons around 2009-2011 and I bought one - a 27" iMac with AMD Radeon 6770M video card. The cards are notorious for the solder joints going bad, causing pixellation on the screen and freezing or crashing of the computer. In fact, Apple replaced many of these cards in iMacs at no charge, but alas, my model was about 6 months outside of that window. I chose to ignore the problem and limped along for almost a year before caving in and buying a replacement video card.
If you are into DIY, then you can actually repair the older iMacs. (Google a bit to see if your iMac is covered by Apple's warranty fix first!) If not, iFixit has a number of good writeups for how to open and repair the iMac (again, the OLDER ones not the newer ones). I bought the 6770M and thought it would be easy to replace the card based on their writeup of a 2009 iMac graphic card repair. Turns out the 2011 cards have the screws on the opposite side, requiring removal of the power supply and fan before getting the logic board loose to remove the graphics card. There are other techniques out there that will reflow the solder on the video card but I needed a working computer, not a project PC.
Again, if you have ever assembled a PC before, if you have the proper torx bits, some tweezers, and take it slow, you too can replace your graphics card. These cards typically run several hundred dollars but since the computer was effectively broken already, I figured what's the difference? Why not give it a shot? Turns out it was a bit more involved than I thought, but again, if you know how computers are assembled, it's just a matter of gaining access to the smaller confines of the iMac. I was able to do it in about 2 hours and so can you. I rate a repair of this type an 8 on a scale of 10, for advanced users.
Given the fact that I had a perfectly good iMac, a few hundred dollars was a way better investment than purchasing a replacement. Actually swapping the card once you've gained access to it is a matter of removing three screws and unplugging it from the socket, then reversing the process with the new card.
If you are getting flashing pixels, scrambled text, random crashes and freezes on your 2009-2011 iMac, it could be the graphics card. If you're up for it, take a shot at replacing the card. It's cheaper than an out of warranty repair or a new computer.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
