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up vote 6 down vote favorite

We may be relocating to a different area of the world where the power standards and outlets differ considerably from what I've got here in North America.

Is the power supply in my iMac auto-adjusting, universal? Can I just buy a new IEC cable for it to match the local plug standard and run it straight in to the wall? Or do I need a transformer?

Edit: I have an older iMac. 2007. 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo.

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3 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

Building on @penguinrob's answer, the specs for the 2007 iMac can be found on the Apple Support KB:

Electrical and environmental requirements

Meets ENERGY STAR requirements

  • Line voltage: 100-240V
  • AC Frequency: 50Hz to 60Hz, single phase
  • Maximum continuous power: 200W (20-inch models); 280W (24-inch model)
  • Operating temperature: 50° to 95° F (10° to 35° C)
  • Storage temperature: -40° to 185° F (-40° to 85° C)
  • Relative humidity: 5% to 95% noncondensing
  • Maximum altitude: 10,000 feet

It looks like you should be able to get by with the IEC cable/adapter; the transformer can handle 100-240V, so you likely do not need an additional transformer.

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up vote 3 down vote

According to http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html (under Electrical and Operating Requirements), it specifies a line voltage of 100-240V AC, so if the country you're going to provides plugs with output in that voltage range, you should be fine.

According to http://web.archive.org/web/20071025020751/http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html (snapshot of the imac tech specs page from October 2007, the same voltage requirements apply.

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That's for the latest gen iMac -- mines much older. Does it still apply? – Ian C.♦ Mar 27 '12 at 21:34
1  
Awesome. Looks like it'll work. Thanks. Or maybe not....now I can't justify a new one. ;) – Ian C.♦ Mar 27 '12 at 21:39
@IanC. - depends on how much you can sell your old one for. :) – JW8 Mar 27 '12 at 22:51
1  
Yes - all intel iMacs (and most iMacs except some few G5 models sold in the US, Canada and Japan) have auto-switching power supplies. All iSight iMacs too are auto-switching. As long as your mains aren't at 400v or 400 Hz you're good to go. – bmike♦ Mar 27 '12 at 23:27
up vote 0 down vote

It's not what you asked, but (at least some of) the G5 and G4 iMacs do not support different power supply standards.

I know this, because a co-worker tried plugging a 120V one into a 240V UPS, and it almost caught fire.

To make the situation even more amusing/tragilarious, he did this twice. Only one of the computers he blew up was an iMac, though.

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And those vintage power supplies STUNK TO HIGH HEAVEN when they blew in the PPC iMacs. Good thing they were so simple to pop in and out again. (and the system almost always survived the jolt unscathed) – bmike♦ Mar 28 '12 at 3:34
Why the down-vote? – Fake Name Mar 28 '12 at 8:41
I personally +1 it since it's very relevant to the wider question, but a lot more voting and people are here so I can only guess they took your expansion of the literal question as noise rather than related... – bmike♦ Mar 28 '12 at 12:07

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