ADDED: Footage of OS X Leopard intro screen running after successful install on this headless Intel iMac Headless iMac video (MPEG4)
I recently found a supposedly broken iMac with suspicious conflicting model numbers advertised in Yahoo Auctions Japan.
There was no other info listed except that it was a junker, 17 inch G5
iMac and a model number which when Googled, listed an Intel iMac Russian
model number… I outbid the other scavengers and got it for about
US$250. When it arrived at my house, I was delighted to find it was a
2Ghz Core 2 Duo with a Gig of Ram and the only damaged part was the
screen.
I found a mini-DVI to VGA adapter cable and hooked it up to my Iiyama 22
inch CRT monitor and in a couple of seconds, was looking at what the
previous owner had forgot to erase from his system (Japanese hip-hop,
some documents and of course, being a guy’s computer, it was stuffed
full of Japanese porn – thanks!).I found a little hack to reset the
master password from single user mode, which I had to do blind as single
user mode doesn’t support dual displays. Once reset, I was able to add
my own administrator account and delete the previous owners’ (after
backing up all his music and videos ;).
Life was peachy for a while, but what I really wanted to do was perform a
clean install. Having no Intel Tiger Disks handy, I attempted to use a
developer’s beta of OS X 10.5 Leopard. It looked OK, but then the
installer also didn’t support display mirroring, only extended desktop
mode, so I needed to get my external display working as the main
display.I had been waiting on some Torx screwdrivers to arrive so I
could take apart the Intel iMac as shown in the XLR8yourmac guide here – Notes on Intel CPU iMac Take-Apart. Last night, they were delivered and I took the LCD off of the iMac.
When I tried to boot up as it was, without the LCD, I got a flashing
power button light and no response. I thought maybe I have to reconnect
the iSight/microphone or the LCD’s inverter cable – no luck. I quickly
realised I’d forgotten to put the RAM chips back in I’d taken out before
disassembling the case, oops! The headless Intel iMac now booted up
perfectly. Without the case on and with LCD removed, I’m getting the
following temperatures (maybe better with the case back on for airflow,
will test again later):
Ambient air 28 C
CPU A 35 C
Graphics Processor 50 C
Hard Drive Bay 1 37 C
*If you can compare these with your stock 17 inch 2Ghz Core 2 Duo Intel iMac, please add your temperatures below.
I’m pretty happy with my headless iMac, it shows the external monitor as
the default monitor and doesn’t show any other monitors in the Apple
System Profiler since removing the LCD monitor. I was able to install
Leopard and check that out, which is cool too. If anyone would like some
close-up photos of the motherboard or parts, please drop me an email at
leon.stafford@mac.com or leave a comment here.
