Can I Use iMac As Monitor For Mac Mini ?

macman1585 wrote:

no ,i meant if i can replace my hard disc when/if it fails with the 2011 imac's one.i dont know if its possible to pull it out and place it in mine's hard disc place.

by the way how do we know if a hard disc is failing? which are the most common symptoms? except that gling noise they told me it could be

Better to swap an old and sketchy hard disk with a newer or new SSD.

Extracting components from most of the iMac 21.5” models is a project.

Look up some You Fix It disassembly videos, and decide for yourself what repairs and upgrades you want to try.

If the existing 2011-old HDD is still working, keep backups, I’d run it into to failing, and replace it with an SSD. This if the goal here is to spend no money on the gear, and the backups can be trusted. (Otherwise: data loss ahead.)

Hard disks fail in various ways, ranging from getting slow, to showing SMART errors, to instant failures.

SMART isn’t overly useful for predicting many sorts of failures. It misses a whole lot of impending failures.

Unless you want to develop skills at disassembly and re-configuring and re-purposing, I’d stick to using external storage. Expect to break pieces while learning, too. Even after. Decade-old clips can just disintegrate.

Or source yourself some less-old gear, as that gets you incrementally newer and better gear, as compared with that 2011, for instance.

To determine if the drive is failing download the free version of DriveDX, run it and post the results in you reply.

Also, to make sure the problem isn't due to 3rd party software run Etrecehck and post the report as I mentioned in my previous post.

It would be difficult to get into the 2017 iMac and replace its existing SSD with the old SSD. If it was like my earlier iMac, it had magnets holding the screen on instead of adhesive as the 2017 has, I think you'd be better served by getting a Thunderbolt external SSD, install Ventura on it and migrate your user data via Migration Assistant and your Time Machine backup of the 2017.

macman1585 wrote:

…also i have never run any of these diagnostic programs not even have installed any of them.i wanted to but opinions vary especially about etrecheck. i never had any serious problem to try them.

Etrecheck report avoids playing a game of thousands of questions.

Same for DriveDx.

now about the hub. i am not sure what you mean about a self powered hub.

If it plugs into a power socket, it is a powered hub.

If the hub does not plug into, it is a bus-powered hub.

The former usually has the ability to provide more power to connected devices than the host port can provide.

…it is connected with a usb cable to the imac port and with a power cord to the ups plug .

That would be a powered hub. Three hubs and lots of connected devices can be less than stable.

about the sleep mode.oh man, this is a vary debatable subject on the Internet community.many are for it and many against it. some told me ,do you switch off your phone, then why do that to your pc? and such opinions.that metals are doing a hard job trying to turn on the mac and that causes problems to hardware.some others say that in sleep mode imac uses more power e.t.c.

Do ypu

i dont know which is good for my hardware

The default power-management settings provided by Apple are usually a pretty good choice.

The downside with hard disk configurations is that powering down and powering up wears those, which is where that keep-spinning suggestion usually arises with old hard disks.

Pending the Etrecheck and the DriveDx reports, whether there are hard disks drive issues is unconfirmed.

i dont really know what you mean ''to go blank'' .what is that?

A display can be powered down, or can be left powered up and running some screensaver.

The suggestion was to power down the display, which can be configured in System Settings.

MrHoffman answered your questions as well as I could. Etrecheck is one of the best diagnostic apps available for Macs. Its report is totally anonymous and, as MrHoffman has already mentioned, prevents us from playing the game of 20 Questions. We wouldn't recommend them if they weren't totally safe.

But as they say, you can lead a horse to water but can't make him drink. So the next step is up to you as it's your Mac.

Servant of Cats wrote:

I wonder how that Asus ProArt PA27JCV connects…

Realistically, no. Even if you could, it would require the iMac to be in working condition. It sounds like it's not long for this world...

Just go buy a monitor.