I got this idea a while ago about a headless imac server but never thought more into it until I decided to take my imac to the Apple store. It had been having this problem with the monitor that was really annoying. I was told it would take 400 - 500 dollars to repair!!!!!

 What You Need

Being the modder that I am I decided I would rip off the monitor and do some cool stuff to this puppy. After all of the planning here is what I was hoping to do:

1. 1. Light either the bottom or the top grills
2. 2.Take out the cd drive and replace it with a second HDD
3. 3.Add a hard drive light
4. 4. Overclock it

Not all of this was possable...

Tools:

• Torx 10
• Torx 15
• Small Philips screwdriver 
• Hot glue gun
• Soldering Iron
• Wire stripper/cutter 

Supplies:

• Circular cold cathode(should come with switch and inverter)
  
• Extra ATA HDD
• 1 blue LED
• 1 470 Ohm resistor
• 1 small self-contained temperature gauge
• Tie wraps
• Something to put the control panel board items on. Like foamboard, cardboard, plexi, ect.
• Mini-VGA converter or VNC running when you boot up
• Thermal Paste VERY IMPORTANT
• Take-Apart Guide from eServiceInfo.com
• Small guage wire
  

 How to do it

Now to say the usual stuff I take no responisibility in the accuracy of this guide or any injuries or loss of computer technology resulting from the information contained in the guide. Before you even think of opening your imac you need to know this there are two contacts on the CPU heatsink that you need to reapply thermal paste to every time you open something more than the user accesable area.You'll also want a way to keep track of the screws. I would suggest any box with a lot of small compartments.

 They are the spots at the end of the heat pipes a.k.a. metal strips

Now i will go through some dissassembly but most of all of it is in the take apart guide or just use common sense.

After unscrewing the Torx 15 screws in the user accessable plate you should get the image above.I recommend disconnecting all the cables that plug into the mother board except for the ones from the power outlet. Now you maybe wondering where is the VGA or DVI port. There is none. Instead it is a propriotary connector near the green pc board.

 There is a black cover over it that snaps right off. After that just pull it straight out.

Now take your Torx 10 and unscrew the drive carrier. There should just be 4 screws: 2 by the speaker and 2 by where the thermal paste should be applied.

Here is what it looks like when your done. Just put the carrier aside and don't disconnect any wires.

Next you want to take out the fan and its bracket. There are four screws that your Torx will not work in. Thats good because you are not supposed to undo those in this guide.

 There are two screws paralell to each other on the fan with blue washers. Unscrew those. On the bracket there are four screws holding it in place.

Have the imac on the ground now if you already don't because the arm will come off. To do this simply unscrew the white circular disk.

 You will notice that there are several other wires going into the arm. The only way to disconnect them is to cut them. Here is the tricky part if you want to put in a mic or sleep lightyou need to give more length to one wire. You know which ones are video so you can pull those right through. So that leaves two. Now look where those cables go to and you will find one is labeled inverter you can cut that one as short as you want and rig the remaining cable up for whatever.

To add some coolness to this I added a circular cold cathode to the top. To do this make sure you have just the cathode and not the fan it comes in like this
.

Now be carful in buying one because on mine a wire snapped off twice leaving a little les than a milimeter of wire protruding from the cathode. Thankfully my dad, who is amazing by the way and gets a quarter of the credit for this mod, somehow soldered the wire back on. I then promptly hot glued the connection. Once you have your cathode stick it on the fan grill area and screw the fan bracket back on with the wires coming out of one of the holes in the bracket. Next hot glue your cathode to a suitable spot on the grill.

Before you stick your carrier back intake out the cd drive by unscrewing four screws on the sides of it. Take your extra HDD, set the jumpers to slaveand lay it on the bottom of the other HDD. Get out your tie wraps and  attach your HDD to the bracket like this:

Now this pic has so many wires in it because I forgot to take a pic of just the HDD mounted. I originally was going to use a metal bracket but it was too big and after exploring several optoins (rubberbands, pci slots...) tie wraps were the best.

After looking at all the vaiable options I chose foamboard because it would give me the most flexability design wise and I already had some. My dad (thank you) cut holes for the HDD light, temp. gauge and cathode switch.  I then wired up the blue led with a 470 Ohm resistor and connected it to the 5V on the molex. If you do not know how to wire up an LED this is no the mod for you. It does not matter how you get to the 5V on the molex. Conviently it had a pop off back so you don't have to solder anything. I also hooked up the Temp gauge the same way..

The ground of the LED went to pin 39 on the second HDD but any way of getting to pin 39  is fine. I stuck a thin wire in the cable connector at pin 39 and  then plugged it into the HDD. The wire was then connected to the LED ground to make a HDD light. . I got the pin placement from PInouts.ru.

When the panel was all done it was placed here:

To get the CD door out there are two screws on the bottom that need too be taken out. Try and wiggle it the hole and it comes out. Also be carfull of the two spring that come out.

Your almost done. Screw everything back in and wire everything up. Use the extra space by the second HDD for wires and the inverter.

 I then added electrical tape to keep all the wires from touching the Logic board.

As a final touch i took the white disk and put it on the top to fill in the hole. 

Aren't we missing something??

Ah, you mean the overclocking. Well the site I obtained the information fom used a different model than mine and I decided not to take the risk. I might one day overclock it but not today.

The finished product

In conclusion

This mod turned out very well even with the problems. It took me about three weeks of planning and 3-4 days of work. I highly recommend you take 5 days or more to do this. It now sits comfortably in my computer room as a file server for backups and music. I would also like to give thanks to my dad and all the people who helped me out in the fourms. I also want to give a big shout out to all the Mods and Admins who helped me get this guide up..

	11-06-2008 18:12
	can u recycle the monitor after it's been removed? Guest

scott

	10-03-2008 12:03
	That lokes really cool. I may do that myself, although I may also opt for something a little less ambitious.     I found your post here because I'd like to remove my iMac's broken monitor so I can place the CPU on a bookshelf and use it as a server.    In your estimation, would the level of difficulty be decreased (and if so, how much) if I only disconnected the monitor, not doing any of the other mods you've described here? Guest

Elijah M

	14-08-2007 17:34
	sweet blue nirvana That's a wicked mod. Good job! Registered

ctan

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