This died in 2015 and it's been in the basement since then and I was going to use Target Disk Mode with a Firewire cable to erase the HDD and then bring it into the Apple Store for recycling. The screen died and we couldn't get it back to working again.
So of course I hook it up and put it into Target Disk Mode and guess what? The video works. So I disconnect the other computer and then boot it up and it boots right up. I'm formatting the Windows partition with Erase (1 pass) and am trying to decide what to do with it. My guess is that it had problems because the environment that it was in was quite warm and the fan went on a lot but the basement is cool (it's unheated) and it seems to run fine down here.
It's got 4 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD. It appears that I can put High Sierra on it so I'm going to copy over a High Sierra installation kit (I have kits saved from El Capitan to Big Sur exlcuding Catalina) and will install it to clean off anything on the HDD and then see if it is usable for web browsing, email, YouTube and watching videos. It would serve mainly as a TV in the basement. What I love about this thing is the gorgeous screen. I'm not crazy about the computer itself but you never know how usable something is. In retrospect I wish I had gotten the model with the Core i7.
It appears that I could add RAM pretty easily and that the easiest would be to add 2x4 GB DDR3 RAM to get to 12 GB of RAM. I'm going to put it on a table and use it for a while to see if it is reliable. If it is reliable, as in working for a week, I'll add some RAM and see how it runs. If it doesn't, then it goes to The Apple Store for recycling.
So of course I hook it up and put it into Target Disk Mode and guess what? The video works. So I disconnect the other computer and then boot it up and it boots right up. I'm formatting the Windows partition with Erase (1 pass) and am trying to decide what to do with it. My guess is that it had problems because the environment that it was in was quite warm and the fan went on a lot but the basement is cool (it's unheated) and it seems to run fine down here.
It's got 4 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD. It appears that I can put High Sierra on it so I'm going to copy over a High Sierra installation kit (I have kits saved from El Capitan to Big Sur exlcuding Catalina) and will install it to clean off anything on the HDD and then see if it is usable for web browsing, email, YouTube and watching videos. It would serve mainly as a TV in the basement. What I love about this thing is the gorgeous screen. I'm not crazy about the computer itself but you never know how usable something is. In retrospect I wish I had gotten the model with the Core i7.
It appears that I could add RAM pretty easily and that the easiest would be to add 2x4 GB DDR3 RAM to get to 12 GB of RAM. I'm going to put it on a table and use it for a while to see if it is reliable. If it is reliable, as in working for a week, I'll add some RAM and see how it runs. If it doesn't, then it goes to The Apple Store for recycling.
