A million thank yous for this. Took four hours, and the first time I powered it on I'd forgotten to put the ram in and got the Tones of Doom and thought I'd ruined everything, but after that it started straight up. You deserve a medal.
last week my imac 2011 showed the green lines. Back in days apple replaced the GPU for the first time, after that a company placed a new GPU chip for the 2nd time..and now for the 3th time I did it myself with a helping hand from your video. Txs! It worked. I also used the 1,5 mm thermal pads en new paste for the chip. Now waiting for the new iMac (m3) to be introduced and hoping my 2011 beauty will hold until then.
I honestly can't believe this worked. Thank you so much!! I was getting the "white screen of death" not the green lines but I thought it was going to be dead for sure. First time putting it back together it wouldn't start up so I took it apart again and noticed I accidentally bent over 2 pins on one of the 5-pin connectors for the hard drive on the back of the logic board. Straightened them out and reconnected the cable, put everything back together and voila!
I still can't believe it, but after 2 and a half hours, my old iMac is working again. Let's hope it lasts for a long time. Thank you for this tutorial.
Thank you so much for doing this video. I followed it step-by-step and it worked perfectly. One bit of advice I would say to anyone else doing it is do a rough diagram on a piece of paper as you disconnect cables from the logic board as it’s easy to miss one when you reconnect like I did and I had no audio, but all sorted now. Thank you again
As someone in the tech field, this seemed too good to be true.... but when my 2011 did the same thing I figured, what the heck. worth a shot right? WELL I'LL BE, it TOTALLY resolved it. I am shocked, amazing! Great video describing all of the steps!
Thanks for the guide, I did this yesterday to my Mid 2011 21.5'' with success. I actually found this video after using an ifixit guide to get everything mostly broken down. This video would have been more helpful if I had found it first but I was able to do everything to fix my GPU. I also reapplied new thermal paste to my CPU while it was assessable. I've had this Imac for ages and just use it as a dedicated video player, hopefully this fix lasts longer then software support from Apple...
Terrific content. Just baked the GPU in my mid-2011 iMac and it works like a charm. So far. The hardest part was putting it back together. A sequel opportunity? Thanks again 🙂
Let's just say I'm glad I filmed everything... Cause putting it back together was quite challenging. I even forgot to plug in some cables into the ports in the back, so I couldn't get all the cables back in. lol
Well made video. Good explanation. Before opening, and after taking out the power cable, hold the powerbutton for 10 seconds to drain the capacitors. Still be careful with the ( exposed ) power supply. Switch the HDD for an SSD, upgrade processor and RAM as much as possible for your model. The graphics cards became expensive the last few years. Some models will prevent you seeing the bootscreen, so be sure to patch it ( OCLP ) before you change that. Well done Martin. You earned 1 like and subscribe mate!
I tried this with 2 graphics card breakdowns.....it didn't work! The theory is that baking the card reflows the solder joints on the whole PCB, but that may not be the problem with these cards. The culprits are all AMD cards with Radeon HD 6xx0M chips, in 2010 and 2011 iMacs, mostly the 27" ones (and also all their laptops!) This baking, if it works, is only a temporary fix as the real problem was the lead free solder AMD started using, long story short, the high operating temperatures of these Macs (from the power supply units) caused the logic boards to crack and with the inadequate lead free solder joints, these cards were doomed to a permanent failure. If you want to keep these old iMacs running, as I did with both models, instal a NVIDEA card that has been flashed to allow the unique Apply boot up screen.
Thank you for your insight. I remember looking at the NVidia mods when I started looking for a fix. It looked like the most optimal fix. It did require some cutting of some parts as well? I don't remember. And yeah, this it totally a temp fix and the iMac did die eventually.
Thank you very much for this guide!! I seem to have repaired my iMac succesfully (operational for 1.6 hour). You used 2mm pads for some parts of the cooling. I had some problems using that thickness and used paste instead. I also had the impression my GPU-board wasn't completely straight. Repair was succesful, though.
That's great :D I've seen other videos where paste has been used as well, so hopefully your iMac will keep running. I'm not expecting mine to run forever, but so far so good.
Remember my 2011 27" imac. Had GPU fail once. Apple upgraded it to the 2GB GPU free of charge. Kept using it until 2019 with no issues. The USB 2.0 ports are the main draw back now days.
Apparently a known issue with this model. It was very cool to see that the oven bake trick actually worked :) have you considered using it as an external monitor? That’s my next project :)
@@MartinAaberge a reliable 2m thunderbolt cable costs £40. And a TB 3 to TB 2 adapter costs £45, and has some reliability concerns regarding target display mode. You'll also need to a spare spare magic keyboard available at all times to activate target display mode. I didn't think it was worth the hassle in my opinion, so I just sold the iMac. Also baking your GPU is only a temporarily fix, so it likely isn't worth the cost of the adapters, unfortunately.
I baked my old one. I would assume ebay might have some. Or you might be able to buy an iMac that is broken and sold for parts. Is there a reason you don't want to try to bake it first? It's the most satisfying thing ever.
Many thanks for sharing the knowledge! It helped me to spare some immediate expense. It's the first time in my life that something is working, but I don't understand why...
As long as it works :) from what I have herd (haven’t fact checked it) the hest generated over time affects the soldering. Because you bake it lying down, the soldering «goes back into place» and the connections work again. I wouldn’t expect it to last forever though :)
Yey!!! That’s awesome :) mine has been working for a year after the fix :) I’m not really expecting it to last forever, but it still works so Imm happy :)
Does this also help when having a totally black screen with the diagnostic LED #3 off? Hope so, because I feel guilty when I have to throw my 2011 iMac into the trash. 😂
It took me many hours to complete the project and most of my time I think went to just make sure I did everything right 😂 keep the ifixit guide open while working on it. That should help :)
Hey Martin! Great video, thanks for sharing. I did a bake on my GPU about 9 months ago and it fixed my computer. However, the problem occurred again, so I’m going to try your method. When I did it, I didn’t re-apply fresh paste to the CPU, and I used more paste where you’re using thermal pads. I also heard that switching your hard drive to a SSD can help to avoid the problem from reoccurring. Curious as to what effects you think these changes might have. Thanks!
Hi there. Happy to hear you fixed it, sad to hear the problem is back. Fresh paste I would always use. Either that or pads. There is a good(don’t remember the name) that looks like paste and you apply a THICK coat before reassemble you can use. I experience a lot of heat using the iMac after the fix. I don’t think switching to an ssd drive will affect this in any way. The gpu is not related to the drive at all. Keep me posted on your progress :)
@@MartinAaberge I will use fresh paste for sure, I’m using the same one you used for the graphics card and on the CPU, and then the K5-pro thermal pad replacement goo that I found on amazon and worked pretty well last time. I’m hearing that the reason to replace the HDD is that the ones from this year run super fast and create a lot of heat, and were later replaced by slower ones. Hoping that going to an SSD takes care of the problem ( I had a fan control app installed last time that didn’t seem to work)
That's fantastic! My iMac still works. I don't use it for much heavy work, but it is nice that the green lines haven't appeared again :D Hope yours lasts for years as well!
@@MartinAaberge i would say 3-4 hour.. and you? Btw i didnt used 3 screws between graphics card and motherboard for the future repair, then should be done in half hour ;)
@@Mikey_Official I don’t think it has to be any specific thermal paste. In the iFixit guide they link to their own thermal paste product. I can’t remember buying anything specific :)
how common is it for the 6750M to fail in the A1311 imac? i heard that there were alot of issues with the macbook pros with the 6000M series but i can't find a whole lot on the imacs
Thanks for the tip. I am not really expecting this to survive forever, but so far so good, so if it can survive 4-5 bakes, this thing will live for a long time. But good to know if you plan to make it a regular thing :D
Okay my mid-2011 iMac this spring displayed the green lines and failed to boot no matter what I tried. I finally got around to trying this Aug 13, 2023 and after baking the GPU, and adding thermal pads 1.5mm and 1mm to the chips along with paste to the GPU it is working again. I’ll post when it dies again via my kids using it so those wonder how long a repair like this could last. As a software developer I did not have much faith but knew service techs at times do something similar on cellphone board in an attempt to reflow the board and chips. Really glad I tried this before dropping it off at the recycling centre.
Hi Stephen. That’s awesome! I honestly had the “I’ll try it, and if it works then great, but if not it was a fun experiment”. I was a bit shocked when it worked. And it’s been working ever since. The machine still has many good years left as a non-heavy task machine so it’s good that it didn’t have to die yet :) let me know how it goes moving forward
Jag har en fråga. Jag fick samma linjer på min dator. Startade om och det hände igen. Efter några försök ville inte datorn gå hela vägen in i OSX eller min Windows-partition. Så är läget nu. Fråga: Har mitt grafikkort gett upp eller går det fortfarande att "baka" det och få det att fungera igen. Trodde först att det var HDD'n som fått något fel, men undrar om det inte är GPU'n som det är knas med. Vad tror du? Vad kan jag göra? Måste jag köpa nytt grafikkiort? Vilken är då det senaste som min 2011 iMac 27' klarar av med stock moderkort? Tack för synpunkter och tips.
I would try to bake it even if you’re not getting anywhere at boot time. The reason, as far as I know, the baking works is because it gets the soldering back in place. You don’t really have anything to lose. Either it gets fixed or you buy a new card. In both cases, you have to open your machine ;)
@@MartinAaberge DO you know is there any better solution? Some one said this problem only happened in AMD company. can we replace it at other brand? we need permanent fix.
Martin i wanna ask something i have a iMac Intel 24" EMC 2267 early 2009 i have a similar problem like you the yellow horizontal lines and i am also gonna bake the gpu but i want to ask something when i get the gpu out do i need to remove thermal paste and bake it is it necessary to remove cause i cant find the thermal paste nor thermal pads
I would definitely remove all the thermal paste I could find and replace with new. The 27 and 24 inch models aren’t identical inside so check if there is anything you’re missing over at ifixit before you go at it :)
My understanding is that the soldering on the GPU suffers from the vertical position it is in when in heavy use. It simply melts and runs off. Then, this bake, when the GPu is in a horizontal state, the metal in the soldering runs back into place :)
Hello Martin I was watching your video great tutorial but I was going to ask you instead of baking the graphic card trick I thought of buying one I saw on eBay pre use it came out from a broken iMac but the seller says their are tested and work,I also saw one brand new but is sold from China and to me is not an original apple video card so I don’t trust it.it’s says Nevidea.this one that I’m interested is originally AMD Raedeon for $43 bucks and the seller got good reviews. So you think that’s a good idea?
Hi Gary. Buying a pre-used one is also a good bet. One factor is that depending on how many hours (and how much it was stressed) this unit was used, it will eventually suffer from the same issue because of heat over time. So you need to be lucky and get a unit that has not been stressed so much over time. This is impossible to know, but you can trust the seller if they say it hasn't been used that much. I have seen people get new graphics cards as well where they have even modded some Nvidia MX cards to fit. I would not buy a cheap knockoff like the one you refer to, but I would probably be willing to bet on a used card that still works. Especially if it hasn't been used that much :) Good luck and let me know how it goes!
You mentioned that the thickness of the thermal pads you chose was 2mm, but you did not say anything about what the thermal conductivity was of the pads you chose and why. Were they 3.2 watts per meter-kelvin or something more like 6 W/(m-K) or maybe 12 W/(m-K) or greater. This is an important parameter (like the proper thickness) and should be chosen to match what is required.
Hi Roger. Thanks for your input. I couldn’t find any info on the pads or the packaging themselves. I’ll have a look through the receipt and check the website I bought them from.
hey my imac only loading halfway and then showing only white screen and reboot itself after a while, do you think its the gpu aswell? i also cant boot to recovery mode / boot from usb installer, reply soon please.. thanks
@@LucasLane hey bro thanks for the reply, no there wasn't any flashing folder, and i try to reflow my gpu couple days back, it got back on 👍. thanks for the response appreciate it
I honestly don’t know. It could be a Drive, Ram, GPU. If it reboots like that it could be a number of things. Did you manage to figure out what it was?
Good Temporary fix, but will die quickly again, recommend looking into MXM graphics card from different PC's which work but no boot screen, option boot or brightness control, however if your lucky enough to find some that can be flashed for Mac that will have the boot screen..
Hey, first I want to say thanks for the good video, just finished my baking action and my iMac works again. As I usually like to double check if everything is fine I started to observe a bit he GPU temperatures to see if I added the thermo pads and paste well. I'm a bit concerning about the temperature of the GPU Diode, when not doing much it is about 60°C and when I'm on facetime it almost reaches 100°C. That looks a bit high for me. Do you have any values for me to compare? At the same time the GPU Heatsink =71°C and GPU PECI is about 60°C and GPU proximity at 75°C. Do I understand it right, that the GPU Diode is the main temperature measuring part in the GPU? So it basically refers to the chip where the thermal paste was applied? Thanks for any help or advice!
I haven’t checked, but I was thinking about giving it a go since it’s important to not overheat. In my case, this iMac is very old and not my main computer so if it dies, it dies. But I’ll double check mid august when I’m back from vacay :)
@@MartinAaberge After a little observing the temperature I came to the conclusion that the thermal connection of GPU and Heatsink is too bad due to the big temperature difference between them. Further my GPU was easily rising to 60°C by just watching a youtube video in HD. Ok, My room temperature at the moment due to hot summer days is about 28°C. I decided to not wait any longer and open it all again, and check the GPU/Heatsink connection. I noticed that the Chip shows a little gap which gets bigger to one side. That was because the 2mm thermal pads on the VRAM are too high and pushing it away. I replaced it by 1mm. The same for most of the grey square parts. Now everything is together and the temperature is way lower. It stays about 50°C and even with facetime not really much more than 60°C. Looks way nicer now. However, suddenly all fans run on full speed even the whole iMac is still cool. Apparently my Ambient-Sensor is dead now. Don't know if I damaged the cable (actually it looks fine) or it just died as also often reported in the internet. I use Macs Fan Control so I let that program handle it and everything is fine. Just wanted to mention it for completeness and and to help others with similar issues.
I have 2011 27” 3.4ghz. I baked the GPU in 2019 and it’s broken in Dec. 2021. I baked it again and this time it only lasted for 10 days. I guess the GPU needs to be replaced.
lol i found a freakin spider in my imac 🤣 also i love how apple made those gpu screws inaccessible, they really love making it hard, even if it's doing so for themselves too. how long does this fix last? i'm wondering if i should bother or just get the nvidia gpu as taking this apart again is giving me ptsd. this is like those x360/ps3 fixes and they only lasted so long.
@@Macho_Man_Randy_Savage a spider! Haha. That’s a first. If you are able to replace the whole GPU, that would most likely last longer. My fix lasted for a while, like a year or two. Don’t remember. But it doesn’t last forever. It’s a temp fix :)
It looks like it finally died today. This means that the bake might have given it 2.5 more years to live :D An, I do get a grey screen, so it could be the drive that failed and not the GPU tbh.
It’s not a permanent fix. It’s good practice of disassembling your iMac though. The only way to ‘fix’ the iMac is to install a different gpu. Yes, it’s very possible!
Oh, you’re right :) I don’t trust this to permanently fix it. It is more a fun exercise. I don’t really use the iMac all that much anymore, but when I do, I notice it gets warm
@@MartinAaberge I have an iMac 21.5" mid 2011, and I think that is the 2,5GHz one, I don't remember... I tried to fix it a couple years ago, someone partially disassembled it for me and told me that the graphics card was integrated, should I check it myself?
@@kromanoidx The 2011 iMac 21.5" should have an actual graphics card. Even the base model should have an AMD radeon. Could it be that he/she thought it was integrated because the screws are on the back like I show in the video?
According to my research, the constant heat the gfx card is has to handle melts the soldering a bit. Because of this, the connections are weakened. When you place the gfx card horizontally and add the heat from the bake, you make the metal “move back into place” before hanging it back into a vertical position again.
@@MartinAaberge Thanks - it's like soldering the connections again (if I understand it correctly) Thank you I have a late 2009 27-inch iMac and the screen displays vertical lines, must be the GFX card too
