Hi,
I bought an iMac 20" 2008 on a flea market for 25USD. It works great, but I don't have any use-case at the moment for it, and also there is 3 vertical line on the screen (green, red, and blue). I have a MacBook pro and a hackinthos for work and daily use, so I don't want to use this iMac as a daily driver or workstation. So I decided to use it for hacking it just for fun, maybe later I place it into my garage and use it to slice models for 3D printing. The main goal is to make it as useful as I can, for a low price.
At the moment:
-I completely disassemble it and cleanout
-new thermal paste for CPU and GPU (paste from the shelf)
-RAM upgraded to 4GB (2x2) (from an old non-working laptop)
-I try to get a T9300 CPU (16-17 USD), the T9500 for 45-50 USD is not worth the price.
-HDD replaced with 256GB SSD (from the shelf)
-Elementary OS 6.1 installed, with WhiteSur GTK theme to make it look like macOS
I wanted to get some help because there are three more components that I wanted to upgrade, but I don't find which are compatible, and I looking for the best price-value ratio.
-WiFi card
-Bluetooth
-GPU
Now I have a wifi card that is support 2,4 and 5Ghz but I got only 15Mbps throughput with it. Is there any budget recommendation to upgrade it? I wanted to get around 80-120Mbps. It is possible around 10-20 USD?
I have a MI mouse that I wanted to use with Bluetooth, but it's not detected with the current BT card. It is built into the WiFi card?
I was looking for a GPU upgrade (it's not soldered) because this iMac came with mobility Radeon 2400 XT. Can I upgrade to any card which has the same MXM-II connector? I wanted some video acceleration for youtube or movies and also for Cura 3d. The heatsink incompatibilities are not a huge problem, I try to manage it, but is there any limitation not to upgrade to a newer GPU? (I use Linux, not macOS). Or if a card fits into the socket I can use it? If I can only upgrade to HD2600, can I use anything other than the apple version? I can find some mobility Radeon HD 2600 HP Compaq version on ebay around 30-35 USD.
I bought an iMac 20" 2008 on a flea market for 25USD. It works great, but I don't have any use-case at the moment for it, and also there is 3 vertical line on the screen (green, red, and blue). I have a MacBook pro and a hackinthos for work and daily use, so I don't want to use this iMac as a daily driver or workstation. So I decided to use it for hacking it just for fun, maybe later I place it into my garage and use it to slice models for 3D printing. The main goal is to make it as useful as I can, for a low price.
At the moment:
-I completely disassemble it and cleanout
-new thermal paste for CPU and GPU (paste from the shelf)
-RAM upgraded to 4GB (2x2) (from an old non-working laptop)
-I try to get a T9300 CPU (16-17 USD), the T9500 for 45-50 USD is not worth the price.
-HDD replaced with 256GB SSD (from the shelf)
-Elementary OS 6.1 installed, with WhiteSur GTK theme to make it look like macOS
I wanted to get some help because there are three more components that I wanted to upgrade, but I don't find which are compatible, and I looking for the best price-value ratio.
-WiFi card
-Bluetooth
-GPU
Now I have a wifi card that is support 2,4 and 5Ghz but I got only 15Mbps throughput with it. Is there any budget recommendation to upgrade it? I wanted to get around 80-120Mbps. It is possible around 10-20 USD?
I have a MI mouse that I wanted to use with Bluetooth, but it's not detected with the current BT card. It is built into the WiFi card?
I was looking for a GPU upgrade (it's not soldered) because this iMac came with mobility Radeon 2400 XT. Can I upgrade to any card which has the same MXM-II connector? I wanted some video acceleration for youtube or movies and also for Cura 3d. The heatsink incompatibilities are not a huge problem, I try to manage it, but is there any limitation not to upgrade to a newer GPU? (I use Linux, not macOS). Or if a card fits into the socket I can use it? If I can only upgrade to HD2600, can I use anything other than the apple version? I can find some mobility Radeon HD 2600 HP Compaq version on ebay around 30-35 USD.