2012 iMac - Not Working (Bishops Castle)

For parts or possible repair only. The machine doesn’t start up. Please be aware, this is not like working on a desktop PC. The boards are specific to the Mac, and the power supply is inside the case, and exposed. It has no protection on it, and there is nothing to prevent mains shocks if you touch an exposed terminal on the power supply board. Removing the power supply requires handling it close to the capacitor terminals, and these can deliver a large shock which could be very damaging.

Please keep this in mind if requesting this machine, as there is much more risk working on these than a desktop pc. Power supplies on desktop pcs are enclosed and the high voltage gubbins are not accessible on them. This computer has no such protection.

I was given this machine alone with a second one some two years ago, and never got round to doing anything with it. It did power up when I got it, so it was assumed working.

Today, I’ve swapped the processor and ram, and it won’t boot. I didn’t check it before starting so it might be that the cpu I’ve installed is faulty, but it could be a logic board fault.

The leds on the board show a trickle power supply is reaching the board but it never boots. The screen is believed working, so might be a suitable donor for another machine or if you have the time and resources, it might be repairable.

There is a 4gb stick of ram installed and I also have another 3x 4gb sticks. I also have the CPU that came out of it originally (it’s a 4 core i5), in case you wanted to try swapping it back in.

Most of the adhesive strips needed to hold the screen in place are present (I installed a set), but the strips on the bottom of the display are not there as I had to remove them again to access the screws holding the lower retaining bar.

Please keep in mind, this is not a running machine, and these are more difficult to work on than desktop pcs. The power supply has exposed terminals and this makes it potentially dangerous to work on if you’re not sure how to handle these boards.

There is a guide on iFixIt describing how to dismantle and rebuild them.

I’ve tried to describe this machine as well as I can, but if you have questions, please do contact me. If it can be of use to somebody, that would be fantastic. Otherwise it will just be going to recycling.

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