Howdy--
I'm kind of a neophyte on these forums, so hopefully someone will take pity on me. I somewhat fortuitously found an iMac kicking around the lobby of my building-- its previous owner bundled it neatly with the cord, as well as with little screws freshly taped to the back. I've got a lot of faith in humankind and have deduced that it's not totally trash, but I'm not sure what to do with it. I plugged it in, and it turns on, but it only shows a grey screen before going black. I know that it's possible to use iMacs as monitors for laptops, but does anyone know how I can find out more about its functionality before buying a bunch of expensive cables that will turn out to be useless? It looks like its previous owner messed with the bottom of the screen, where Google has told me the computer's memory may be altered. I'm not totally averse to spending fifteen bucks on a cable, but I've read some stuff about how certain iMacs requires a Belkin’s Mini DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort cable to work with certain laptops (I have a 2009 MacBook.) I don't even know what year this bad boy is from (though it looks superficially like the one Apple's currently selling).
My thoughts are:
1. Plug in a mouse/keyboard to try and see if it's really just the display that's broken by lots of random clicking and listening to hear if anything happens.
2. Buy a bunch of expensive cables and Devil take the hindmost.
If anyone has any better suggestions on a way to figure out if this iMac works or at least what type it is, it'd be greatly appreciated!
I'm kind of a neophyte on these forums, so hopefully someone will take pity on me. I somewhat fortuitously found an iMac kicking around the lobby of my building-- its previous owner bundled it neatly with the cord, as well as with little screws freshly taped to the back. I've got a lot of faith in humankind and have deduced that it's not totally trash, but I'm not sure what to do with it. I plugged it in, and it turns on, but it only shows a grey screen before going black. I know that it's possible to use iMacs as monitors for laptops, but does anyone know how I can find out more about its functionality before buying a bunch of expensive cables that will turn out to be useless? It looks like its previous owner messed with the bottom of the screen, where Google has told me the computer's memory may be altered. I'm not totally averse to spending fifteen bucks on a cable, but I've read some stuff about how certain iMacs requires a Belkin’s Mini DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort cable to work with certain laptops (I have a 2009 MacBook.) I don't even know what year this bad boy is from (though it looks superficially like the one Apple's currently selling).
My thoughts are:
1. Plug in a mouse/keyboard to try and see if it's really just the display that's broken by lots of random clicking and listening to hear if anything happens.
2. Buy a bunch of expensive cables and Devil take the hindmost.
If anyone has any better suggestions on a way to figure out if this iMac works or at least what type it is, it'd be greatly appreciated!