Hello forum, stupid question here: What does the backlight inverter board (v267-601hf) on an iMac actually do? Reason for...

Here's an Amazon Fire TV Set-Top-Box from 2014 that won't show signs of life when plugged in and I would like to know if...

Older question, but since I have come across the same laptop recently I can say one or two things for troubleshooting: Where you installed the OS from onto the drive doesn't matter, as long as it's another genuine Mac (i. e. no OCLP) and as long it's an OS version it supports. Check everymac dot com or the app Mactracker. Here it's everything between 10.9 (Mavericks) and 11 (Big Sur). I booted such a MacBook off of USB and an SSD with High Sierra (installed from a non Retina model) since no storage was present in the used machine. As for Macs getting stuck at a certain percentage during booting, I have noticed two possible failures on a 2010 MacBook Pro: A) The SATA cable between the hard drive/ SSD and the computer was broken. This resulted in very slow boot ups that mostly it didn't finish at all. The SATA connection on the 2012 Retina model is different than on older ones. So you cannot just change a cable to resolve this, it's likely a tiny component like a resistor, capacitor or MOSFET or so. And...

I've been using Crucial MX drives when I need speed and reliability and have never had a problem so far. Some drives have been running for ten years now. Samsung SD cards however fail on me all the time in my mobile devices. Wouldn't recommend. (Sure, it's a different product but you should think that they can do both.)

I think I might have found the answer after googling "v-sync" and what it does. A screen does work without it, but depending on the program sometimes images get "torn up" or so. It helps fixing something with frame rates. That would also explain why the Notification Center on the above installation opens in the middle of the screen and then hogs to the left side rather than opening on the right side under its menu. (I thought that was a settings problem.) Ok then, without that little cable no full experience of that machine. (Correct me if I am missing something here.)

This is also not entirely correct and thus might be misleading: I have the 27" iMac 10,1 from late 2009, i. e. the Intel Core 2 Duo version and it DID have a "pinned" thermal sensor for Apple's proprietary HDD. This MIGHT be different on the Core i5 and Core i7 models from the same year (I believe they're called iMac 11,1), but I don't know. There are some other noticeable differences between these two lines _from the same year_, which is very confusing, unfortunately. E. g. the i5 and i7 models can handle 32 GB of RAM, the Core 2 Duo only 16. Anyway: As per a tip from a private website from someone who modded his iMac with a pinned thermal sensor, I shorted the cable from that HDD and left it pinned to the motherboard. I stuck a bent metal (duh!) paper clip into the two pin-outs that would normally go into the HDD. Apparently that tricks the iMac into not ramping up the fans to full speed. And that works. BUT -- and it would be great if s.o. could confirm this -- I have not heard the fans go beyond the...

Update: The fans DO still work after the SSD upgrade.

I finally tried smcFanControl (see github) and could manually ramp them up to full speed.

So, all good. The iMac just didn't get hot enough for the fans to speed up by themselves.

Since this trick for the HDD temp sensor is not mentioned explicitly here: Short the two pins of the HDD temp sensor (e. g. with a cut and bent piece from a metal paper clip), wrap it in tape to not short anything else, tape it to the SSD and you're good.

No software needed to keep the fans quiet.

I did this swap (SSD for an HDD) on a 27" iMac from 2009 (Core 2 Duo version) and can confirm that you can skip the following steps to remove more cables from the back of the display and the interior -- unless you need to clean the inside from dust etc.

I kept the display open at about 45° with a wooden folding rule, took out the HDD and the bracket, drilled two new holes in the bracket to attach the SSD to, put them back in and shorted the temperature sensor from the Apple HDD.

Fans didn't go wild after boot up. In fact, I haven't been able to hear them at all. With the press of the power button I can hear them ramp up a little and falling back to around 1.000 rpm (according to the fanny widget) immediately.

I really tried to cook the iMac by running some Cinebench, Heaven and what not, also the old "yes > /dev/null &" terminal command (all at the same time!), but I never got it to above 50° Celsius and never heard any of the three fans ramp up.

I hope this is normal.

Don't bother trying to find a replacement PSU from Microsoft or even an off-brand PSU.

Instead, connect the XBox One cable to a PC PSU and you're good to go and will never have a failing PSU again.

How that is done exactly, you can find detailed instructions on the internet, but it's pretty straight forward, since the cable colours are the same. On the PSU you need to bridge the green to a black cable at this lengthy connector to have the 12 volts right away when you plug it into the wall socket. (This is the power-on button on your PC.)

Since the PSU has its own main switch, I don't need stand-by power. Just remember to turn the PSU off after shutting down the XBox because the console will still get 12 volts all the time. (That possibly consumes energy unnecessarily.)

If the always running fan of the PC PSU bothers you, buy a better PSU by well-known brands that are quiet and you won't hear it anymore. AND they're still less expensive than MS's PSU's.

You will destroy the cable if you just pull it.

Instead, push it out with tweezers or toothpicks or so.

I've had the same experience with my replacement battery for the MBP 2010 13" as Matthew Freedman had with the one for the 15" model: Other than the original battery, the ifixit replacement wouldn't fall into place easily, I had to squeeze it in slightly. Also I had to drill open the left screw hole slightly, because it wouldn't align for about half a millimetre. (Just as Matthew's battery, but on the opposite side.)

"Not a good start!", I thought, because -- to quote a famous British automotive TV host -- "How hard can it be?" to get the outer dimensions of a battery correct?!

And lo and behold, after three months and 34 load cycles the battery is dead. And I mean completely dead. I've never seen that in a battery, but it's _completely_ flat. When I pull out the power cable, the laptop is off immediately. It won't go into hibernate or so, it's off.

So: How hard can it be to build reliable replacement batteries?!

Now let's see how the complaint process goes, either for a new battery or a complete refund.