Keep 2008 iMac or trade in?

Hello iMac Peeps,
My three year old iMac is in the hospital to (hopefully) fix a problem I started having two or three months ago. The screen has gone gray a few times, black a few times, and last week it turned into blue stripes :~/ It starts right back up and when I verify the disk and run the hardware test (as suggested here), there are no problems. Fortunately I have one week left on my Apple Care, so I decided to take it in.
I'm glad I kept my iMac Sunflower~~I'm sentimentally attached to it :~) I'm working on it right now. The poor little dear is so   s I o w   :~/ And I'm going through severe Photoshop withdrawal!!!
But I digress. The decision I need to make is whether to keep it or trade it in for the brand new iMac or last year's. This of course assumes that it is fixed and how much the store where I bought it will give me in trade. I'm using Photoshop a lot now and just bought Lightroom, so bigger and faster would be great, but money IS an issue. I do this for fun right now :~)
I know it's my decision, but if anyone has any opinion on the three options, I'd really appreciate it :~)
Thanks,
Elaine

Don't know if either of you will see this, but here's what happened.
It turns out that my iMac had a bad video card, so they replaced it.
I decided not to buy a new or newer iMac at this time, as I really can't afford it. The nice young man who helped me said he has one from the same year and runs high end video apps, so he recommended that I hang onto it. That's why I like shopping local and independent!
Not to mention that when I ran back home to get the memory that I had purchased there a couple of months ago and hadn't installed yet, another employee installed that for me and DIDN'T CHARGE ME! How cool is that???!!!
Anyway, thanks again for your input and I do think that I made the right decision :~)
Elaine

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    I have Garageband version 4.1.2 (248.7) [...] If I upgrade my operating system to the next level (10.6?) will my GB version still work?
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    Nancyfromeasttexas wrote:
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    Nancyfromeasttexas wrote:
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    iMac (20-inch, Early 2008)
    OS X Yosemite (Version 10.10)
    Processor: 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
    RAM: 4 GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (just updated)
    Hard disk space: 332.3 GB free of 639.28 GB (plus a new 1 TB external drive that is in the process of being filled)
    Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB
    Apparently my computer can only run bootcamp 4 and not bootcamp 5. Therefore, windows 8 is not supported for it can only be installed with bootcamp 5.
    Sources: 1.Boot Camp 4, OS X Lion and Mountain Lion: Frequently asked questions - Apple Support
                   2. Boot Camp: System requirements for Microsoft Windows operating systems - Apple Support
    However, I've read articles about people possibly getting past these limitations, but they don't exactly follow my issue and may be outdate. Such as, http://www.videograndpa.com/?p=2628. I've seen posts from people in the forms saying that they are running windows 8 on their early 2008 mac, but they are from over a year ago. I've also read that apple may have had support for these operating systems, but dropped them, but the links to this information were broken. Best Buy has agreed to let me return Windows 8.1, but only for store credit. That is not fair if it turns out that I can not install it operating system when I was told I could by their employee.
         So, in conclusion, I'm wondering if anyone knows if I can install Windows 8.1 on my iMac from early 2008 with Yosemite and if they could walk me through it or link me somewhere that can. Thank you for your time.
    William

    Don't use a virtual machine, it's kinda cpu intensive. You CAN install windows 8.1 on your 2008 iMac. I know this because just a couple weeks ago I installed an official windows 8.1 disk on my 2009 iMac. You do NOT need to use bootcamp for it although you WILL need the boot camp drivers. Just put the drivers onto a thumb drive. You will need to install them manually, it's really easy though, so don't get discouraged. The only thing you need bootcamp for is to download the drivers onto the thumb drive. You can also download drivers for bootcamp version 5 from the apple website.
    Here is how you do it: Go to disk utility inside applications folder and then utilities folder. Add a second partition to your mac and format it as FAT32.
    Put the windows disk in your computer and reboot your computer. Hold down the OPTION key and then choose the "windows" disk then hit enter. Follow the instructions.
    In the beginning there will be a screen asking you to select which partition you want to install windows on, highlight it, and then click on "format" because it is then going to reformat the partition as NTFS. It only takes a second. Just follow the installation instructions, it's pretty straight forward from there. And just to forewarn you, apple doesn't care to update the drivers for SOUND, people with iMac's running windows don't have sound so you will need a third party sound card adapter with a headphone and microphone jack and use either headphones or an external speaker. I got a cheap one from ebay for just a few bucks. I use the "Syba" brand and it works, it even plays that pretty windows startup sound. All sounds work, even youtube.
    Thank me later! By the way, I think you will find that windows 8.1 runs way faster and smoother than mavericks or yosemite. The mac os's have gotten pretty buggy and bloated over the years and so I think we are making a switch to windows at the right time. Everyone is saying how much better microsoft has gotten and I can tell. I have everything pretty much set up how I like it in my windows 8.1 partition and it's pretty fast. Also, it is WORTH IT to pay for the MacDrive software. Just google it. It will enable you to view and change any apple formatted disk/drive, including your mac osx partition on your internal hard drive. This is important for me because all of my music is on my mac partition in itunes and I need it to add music to my iPod classic 160gb but with macdrive I can listen to the music in vlc player or windows media player. I don't think I will install itunes on windows because everyone says the windows version is buggy.

  • I have a 2008 iMac 21.5" 10.6.8 Snow Leopard with 4.1.3 VMWare and windows 7.Mountain Lion initially refused to down load as I had back up on the HD. this was removed and installation was accepted but froze in the initial stages with 33 mins to go.

    I have a 2008 iMac 21.5" using 10.6.8 Snow Leopard with VM Ware 4.1.3 supporting Windows 7. Initially ML OSX refused to install due to Back up on HD which I removed to trash.It then proceeded but froze up in the initial stages with 33 mins remaining. I was lucky enough to quit and restart using 10.6.8. With all the problems on this chat line, it appears it may be best to leave Mountain Lion well alone, and cut losses rather than tempt fate.Has anybody anything positive to say or help with?

    Welcome to Apple Communities
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    2. Open Finder, go to your user's folder > Library > Caches and delete everything
    3. Verify disk
    4. See if your apps are compatible with OS X 10.8 > http://www.roaringapps.com
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