iMac 27 (mid 2010) help

[Toche28]

Hi everyone!

I just recently bought an iMac 27 inch for 550 bucks (40 for delivery). It was cheap I know but it came with some issues that the previous owner got tired of and decided to sell it.

These are the stats and message from the seller:

"I'm the original owner and have taken extremely good care of it as you can see from the pictures. About a year ago I decided to speed up the machine by installing a 250GB SSD hard drive and creating a fusion drive. The result is a 1.25TB speed demon. This thing boots up from a cold start in less than 8 seconds and applications run blazingly fast. In order to make room for the SSD I had to remove one fan and the CD/DVD player. Today, the fans need to be controlled by downloading a free app called Mac Fan Control.

This iMac is partially working. It will turn on, boot up normal, respond to all commands, but will eventually freeze up after a period of time. It could be 5 minutes or 5 days between the freeze. I noticed about a month ago I started to see the spinning colored wheel of death during various applications. Disk utility could find no errors so I completely wiped all my data and installed Mavericks fresh. Twice. It's still occurs and I've given up trying to fix it. If you fancy yourself a technical guru then this may be the fixer-up job for you".

Here are the specs:

8GB 1333MHz DDR3
1TB Apple HD
250GB Crucial M500 SSD
2.8 GHz Intel Core i5
ATI Radeon HD 5750 1024 MB
Running Mountain Lion

********************************

So far the iMac was performing good but I then experienced the freezing. Opening computer is not the problem for me but I would like to do my troubleshooting list.

I am not an expert so I wonder from this list what do you guys think needs to be checkup or might be the issue or some other issue needs to be added.

1. Fusion drive might be the issue.
2. Missing the ODD fan could give overheating problems. I noticed after using the fan up to the highest level it will keep the computer temperature to 45-50 celsius.
3. Maybe the guy did not connected the hardware properly.
4. HDD or SDD need a replacement.
5. Maverics for a 2010 iMac too heavy perhaps? I am not a mac expert btw but the stats of the computer are high.

I have been playing starcraft 2 at high level and it was performing fine but it froze after the 3rd game.

I have hope to repair this iMac and then give it to my folks.

Thanks in advance

 

[-RockMan-]

Hi everyone!

I just recently bought an iMac 27 inch for 550 bucks (40 for delivery). It was cheap I know but it came with some issues that the previous owner got tired of and decided to sell it.

These are the stats and message from the seller:
Today, the fans need to be controlled by downloading a free app called Mac Fan Control.

This iMac is partially working. It will turn on, boot up normal, respond to all commands, but will eventually freeze up after a period of time. It could be 5 minutes or 5 days between the freeze. .

Here are the specs:
8GB 1333MHz DDR3
1TB Apple HD
250GB Crucial M500 SSD
2.8 GHz Intel Core i5
ATI Radeon HD 5750 1024 MB
Running Mountain Lion

Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory and determine how much RAM is being used (OS X Mountain Lion and earlier)
First thing is first read this link and follow the directions.
We want to pinpoint which applications or services is causing the freeze ups.
Personally I believe the application you downloaded maybe the problem.

 

[werd2yomutha]

Do the fans need to be controlled with Mac Fan Control because the original owner removed one to make room for the SSD? That's a bit strange.

My guess would be that it's the fusion drive. The OS being too "heavy" can't be the source of the issue because I run Mavericks on an even older MacBook Pro and haven't had any problems whatsoever. If the original owner reconnected a hardware component improperly, then in all likelihood the problem would be more serious and noticeable immediately. 45° - 50° Celsius doesn't seem hot enough to cause any overheating issues. Problems with the HDD or SSD are unlikely, but could be checked for using Disk Utility.

$550 on that computer seems like a great deal, by the way!