Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Broken iMac Teardown

I received a broken iMac G5 that someone found in a junk bin. I was told it was a bad PSU since it didn't even turn on, but further investigation revealed otherwise. It didn't even have a back panel or stand when i got it, so its internals were easily accessible. After it didn't turn on the first time, I looked at the logic board(aka Mobo) and found that the Ethernet or wireless IC blew up(or was surged through the LAN port) because the whole area around it was black with soot, and some of ICs were also missing. Also, at least 50 SMD resistors or capacitors were missing from the board(someone exploring the insides of their broken iMac?).

So, i took out all the cool stuff that was left as someone already took the HDD and ODD. I got:
1. 3 - those fancy apple blower fans
2. 2 - 16ohm .5W speakers
3. 1 - scratched, but probably working 1440x900 widescreen 17in LCD
4. PSU
5. Scratched up front case(maybe sand it down, and use for a Hackintosh build case?)
6. Huge heat sink that covered the North Bridge, 1.6Ghz CPU, and Geforce MX Graphics chip
7. 1/8in chuck of copper plate for cooling other side of Logic Board
8. De-soldered all the caps, ICs, interconnects, etc from Logic Board.
9. Sata power cable that connected to Logic Board.
10. A working 24v LCD backlight driver. Note: The LCD driver was built into logic board so i couldn't test it, but the backlight driver was separate.


I figured out the pinout for the 6 and 4 pin fan power connectors(I haven't quite exactly figured out what the solid grey wire is, I'm guessing something with RPMs):



Pics below:
Front Case

Sata power cable, LCD backlight driver, and caps/connectors etc from Logic Board

Heatsink


Speakers, and blower fans powered from a benchtop PSU



Logic Board mounting hardware inside front case, PSU, and copper plate :)
Lots of fun stuff to tinker with!


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