Resolved Piecing out Dead 💀 iMac

[Chuckeee]

This is NOT an offer to sell anything. Just trying to get opinions on what makes sense to salvage

The victim:
Late 2012 27” iMac
2560x1600 screen (not a retina screen)
With optional 3.4GHz Quad Core i7 (Ivy Bridge) processor
With optional NVIDAV 675MX Graphics Card
32GB of DDR3 Memory
Dead HDD (that I will still physically destroy anyways)
Dead Power supply

Looking at what has recently SOLD (not just offer for sale) on eBay. The screen (not cracked, chipped, broken, no dead pixels, on stuck pixels) is salvageable (AKA I can sell it). But not enough listings for the other pieces for me to tell anything.

Is anything else worth harvesting off the dead corpse? If is not worth my effort to disassemble, sell & ship stuff for just a few bucks (e.g. 4 8GB DDR3 memory SIMMS)

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Some prices where I live for your reference
8GB DDR3 SODIMM: 8$
iMac 27" LCD panel: 100$
iMac 2012 logic board with CPU: 100~120$
CPU only (core i7-3770): 15$
iMac 2012 aluminum case: 50~70$
Dead 3.5$ HDD: 1$
Dead PSU: 0$

 

[Chuckeee]

Thanks for the reply but what I was really interested in was: what people were buying?

I know all types of old parts are for sale, I was looking for what would sell in a couple of weeks versus wasting my time for something that would take months and months to sell.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Thanks for the reply but what I was really interested in was: what people were buying?

I know all types of old parts are for sale, I was looking for what would sell in a couple of weeks versus wasting my time for something that would take months and months to sell.

A common user will not buy a dead iMac.
So your dead iMac will have the market of professional repairers or skillful DIYers.
Therefore, if you think that the total amount sellable is not justifiable comparing to your effort, I would suggest you simply place an ad like "Dead iMac for 5$, to be picked up at my place, etc." and be done with it.

Where I live, such deal will be gone in about 5 minutes.

 

[MultiFinder17]

I'd be super interested in the LCD for a 2013 that I recently got with a dead screen - if you decide to go ahead and sell the bits let me know!

 

[ToniCH]

Not a 2012 but I recently parted out my late 2009 iMac C2D 3.06GHz 27" when the logic board broke. Value of working such iMac is here about 50€. And loads are available so not many takers.

I have sold to happy buyers, who fixed their computers:
- Radeon 4670 GPU with the heat sink: 45€
- PSU: 35€
- Display glass: 25€

So, I still have plenty of parts to sell (display panel, case, CPU, RAM, Superdrive, fans etc.) but I am already at 2x the price what I could get for the whole thing in perfect state. And I have not even listed anything else yet, except the display panel.

People just need parts, not the whole thing. Its the same thing as with car parts or anything else mechanical. Parts are worth way more than the whole.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Not a 2012 but I recently parted out my late 2009 iMac C2D 3.06GHz 27" when the logic board broke. Value of working such iMac is here about 50€. And loads are available so not many takers.

I have sold to happy buyers, who fixed their computers:
- Radeon 4670 GPU with the heat sink: 45€
- PSU: 35€
- Display glass: 25€

So, I still have plenty of parts to sell (display panel, case, CPU, RAM, Superdrive, fans etc.) but I am already at 2x the price what I could get for the whole thing in perfect state. And I have not even listed anything else yet, except the display panel.

People just need parts, not the whole thing. Its the same thing as with car parts or anything else mechanical. Parts are worth way more than the whole.

If you are not a professional dealer with all the necessary packing materials ready to use, packing the glass so it won't break during transportation is tiresome and time consuming. This is the case of our OP.
I did have to buy the glass once in the past at 40$. But the shop was near and I just drop by to pick it up.

 

[ToniCH]

If you are not a professional dealer with all the necessary packing materials ready to use, packing the glass so it won't break during transportation is tiresome and time consuming. This is the case of our OP.
I did have to buy the glass once in the past at 40$. But the shop was near and I just drop by to pick it up.

Yes, I refused to ship the glass as I am very skeptical with our Post office. The buyer picked it up from me.

But, it could be done with enough hard cardboard and using more expensive shipping for fragile stuff but not IRL practical, considering the low price of the glass. Shipping and materials would cost much more than the product itself.

 

[Chuckeee]

I was also worried about shipping the glass screen. I was thinking on use a Dell monitor box (with its packaging) as a shipping container. Overkill and adds to the shipping cost (it’s big) but I believe it should be secure enough, and it is easy since I already have it.

 

[Chuckeee]

Ended up selling the screen (high value, easy/quick sale), especially since I had to remove it any ways to get [and physically disable] the failed internal HDD.

Sold the RAM. Super easy to remove and really easy to ship. And there was a wide enough market that there was a fairly good demand for previously used RAM

Kept and reused the keyboard and mouse with my replacement Mac mini.

There didn’t seem to be a big enough demand to spend my time to disassemble and sell anything else. The only other item with apparent high demand was the chassis and the shipping cost made its net value to low. I found a local charity conducting an electronic recycling event, so I donated the remnants to them.

 

[ToniCH]

Congrats!

I managed to sell the chassis+screen+glass to a local guy who wants to make a 27" display out of it. Went cheap, only 35€ but I was happy to get it out of way. So, in total I made from this iMac 140€, not bad for a machine worth max 50€.

I still have the fans, memory, processor+heat sink, wifi-card, the backlight board and the Superdrive. Probably just put them into my parts bin. Well, the backlight board might be worth few euros. I have learned not to sell old memory as I will end up needing it in some other vintage thing at some point for sure.

Maybe I'll take all my old processors and some other cool looking parts, worth pretty much nothing and make a framed art piece to my lair out of them?

EDIT: uh, I just had a thought. Wonder if the guy who wants to make a display out of it needs the backlight board? Or do the ebay driver boards also drive the backlight? I guess I need to go watch some video to figure it out. EDIT2: huh, no problem, its not needed the driver kits handle everything. 😅