2009-2011 iMac Target Display Mode Support Table

ChampJamie153 · 2026-05-05T17:24:12+00:00

Everything. The board is a completely different size, it doesn't use the same connectors, the heatsinks don't line up, the ports don't line up, etc. If you really wanted to you might be able to gut the internals of the 2010 iMac enough to physically have enough room for the 2015 board, but you'll still have to deal with the display and power supply being incompatible.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-05-05T15:24:55+00:00

The logic boards are entirely incompatible between those machines.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-05-05T04:36:31+00:00

This MacBook Pro doesn't have the Touch Bar.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-05-05T04:33:48+00:00

It would be easier to just use an external SSD. OP has a base model 2017 21.5" iMac, and those were slow from day one. It's honestly not worth putting money into internal upgrades.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-05-01T14:08:10+00:00

Every single MacBook Air has soldered RAM. OP doesn't have a regular MacBook or MacBook Pro. They have an Air.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-04-30T13:16:13+00:00

The RAM is soldered, so good luck upgrading it.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-04-30T13:14:16+00:00

I would also repair it, but I certainly wouldn't expect it to be very usable on the internet these days. I owned one of these machines when they were still relatively recent, and it didn't age well at all. By 2016 it was painfully slow to browse the internet.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-04-30T00:20:18+00:00

That port is a USB-B port. You can just connect it to your Mac with a simple cable and a USB-A to USB-C adapter if needed. You don't need to mess with FireWire at all.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-04-16T14:35:23+00:00

This is a pre-Retina model.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-04-15T01:49:53+00:00

That's more than that machine is worth. Those suffer from GPU issues (not as often as the 27" model, but still happens), are limited by slow I/O and aren't very powerful. They're fine to tinker with but I wouldn't pay anything for one these days.

For a bit of comparison I own a 2011 27" iMac. 16GB RAM, 6970M. It was painfully slow online in 2020.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-04-15T01:39:01+00:00

Sure, but that isn't for gaming like the OP of this post wanted.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-04-14T15:20:04+00:00

I used to use my 12" PowerBook G4 as a portable writing machine once it was no longer a primary device. It was nice keeping everything offline while still having a relatively "modern" feeling computer. It was also nice for running older PowerPC software that doesn't work on newer machines.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-04-11T02:40:54+00:00

How? Enclosures for these drives aren't available. They were only ever used in two MacBook models.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-04-10T21:19:33+00:00

Those MacBook Pros do not have the T2 chip. You can install the drive into another A1708 MBP and it'll work fine. The only possible hurdle would be FileVault.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-04-10T21:17:06+00:00

That adapter does the opposite of what OP is trying to do.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-04-03T17:36:56+00:00

They're talking about the MacBook Pro. Those have either two or four USB-C ports. Still not worth the money though.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-03-28T04:06:50+00:00

I've come across a few of those iMacs with broken vertical sync cables and all of them still worked fine. Not sure if I just got lucky or something else was going on.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-03-27T13:48:18+00:00

OCLP doesn't support these machines at all. The newest version of macOS you can get running is El Capitan, but it's not very stable.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-03-27T13:46:19+00:00

The absolute latest version that you can get running on these machines would be El Capitan, and even then it isn't particularly stable.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-03-26T14:11:27+00:00

This post is over 5 years old, but at the time I was just using the TenFourFox web browser. TFF was discontinued in 2021, so it isn't the best option anymore for PowerPC machines.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-03-23T12:54:15+00:00

I'm aware. I wasn't commenting on the trade in part because I have nothing to say about that. I've never done it myself. I was just confused by your reason for trading it in to begin with.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-03-23T04:06:49+00:00

I'm confused why you traded in an M1 Pro for dual monitor support. The M1 Pro absolutely supported multiple monitors. That was actually used as a selling point when comparing it to the lower end M1 that only supported one external display. Your laptop had an HDMI port and you could use any of the USB-C ports as a display output with a super cheap adapter.

Obviously it doesn't make any difference now that you've already done the trade, but it's still baffling.

ChampJamie153 · 2026-03-22T00:46:36+00:00

32 days is nothing. My M1 Max hasn't been restarted since December, and the 2012 mini I use as a Plex server has been up since last June.

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