01-05-2010, 12:40 PM

Firstly as a new member to the forums - Hello

I'm sure you get thousands of similar questions similar to mine especially from a avid PC user moving to a Mac, so my apologies in advance.

Simply I have a Apple iMac;

early 2009 educational model
20" screen
1GB Ram
160GB HDD

Which i would like to upgrade, I have done some brief investigation in regards to upgrade but nothing conclusive to what I wish to achieve.

Basically I have a spare Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 and spare 500GB Samsung Spinpoint HDD that ideally instead of sitting there I would like to get into my iMac

Now im completely happy with opening her up and fitting the parts but i don't wish to waste anytime!

So my question is where would i be able to find out the relevant information to if at all my spare hardware will be compatible with the iMac - more so Duo to Quad? Presumably the HDD is simply SATA II ?

I have a slight consideration with cooling of the Q6600 but I'm willing to go with tiral and error - well if i can determine if it will actually work in the first place.

Anyways thats my question, thanks for taking the time to read and I hope to hear from at least someone lol

thanks

Daniel

01-05-2010, 01:12 PM

Your iMac sports a SATA interface, so the HDD upgrade is definitely possible. You'll want to google how to transfer your current data to the newer drive for this purpose.

The CPU on the other hand is a no-go, since the P7350 in your iMac currently uses a Socket P connection, and the Q6600 you have is a LGA 775 socket type..

Regards

01-05-2010, 01:20 PM

Thank you Raz0rEdge..

for some reason I was under the impression it was the same socket type?! presumably from what I read on CPU-X, although I will double check tomorrow as I may well be mistaken

Thanks again

01-05-2010, 01:24 PM

My searches for the Early 2009 education 20" iMac yielded: iMac "Core 2 Duo" 2.0 20-Inch (Early 2009) Specs (Early 2009/Edu Only, MC015LL/A, A1224, iMac9,1) @ EveryMac.com and looking for the P7350 Socket type yielded: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_2...77SH0413M.html.

And looking up Q6600 Socket type yields: Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

Regards

01-05-2010, 03:10 PM

a search of my serial brings me here;
apple-history.com
but I have a 2Ghz CPU & NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics chipset
however no reference to the socket type.. are the any alternatives to CPU-X that i could use just to be sure?

01-05-2010, 03:14 PM

well and theres this;
Processor Upgrade: Soldered* FPU: Integrated
Details: *Officially, Apple provides no support for upgrading the processor in any Intel-based iMac models, but many models have the processor socket-mounted which makes upgrading the processor feasible. As this model has much in common with the "Early 2009" Mac mini, which has the processor soldered to the motherboard, it seems probable that this model does as well. However, please note that this information is speculative, and may be subject to change.
oh dear lol

01-05-2010, 03:29 PM

Well that puts an end to the processor upgrade, I guess..

Regards

01-06-2010, 04:59 AM

indeed!

Thanks for your assistance Raz0rEdge

01-06-2010, 08:23 AM

Anytime..that's one of the downsides of these kinds of system..they're great looking, very compact and all that. But not being able to upgrade key components means that system upgrades are usually in order..

Regards