buying spares or repair machines

Hi Everyone,

first post on here, hope you can help.

I'm used to building and repairing pc's, in fact pretty good at it, but haven't got a lot of experience with mac's

I've been considering buying a spares or repairs G5 from ebay and fixing it up, seems like a relatively inexpensive way for someone with a good grasp of computer hardware/software to build a new machine.

anyway, would like to know if there's anything obvious to avoid? what are the most expensive/difficult parts to replace? any tips?

any help appreciated, got my eye on a couple of machines already... one is apparently is reporting an eeprom error on one of the processors...

any help appreciated

cheers


Ben

Many Macintosh parts really aren't readily available & inexpensive like they are for Windows machines. So you really have to have a pretty good inventory of busted Macintosh machines to get parts from.

I don't think that it's very economical to purchase Mac Parts to fix older Mac computers...because after you pay for the replacement part...that might be 50% of the value of the broken computer.

It's sort of like comparing a Ford pickup truck to Ferrari. You can go to almost any junk yard & find good inexpensive parts for a Ford pickup truck...but how many junk yards can you go to and find parts for a Ferrari! Probably next to none!

I'm not saying Windows machines are like Ford Pickup trunks in terms of quality, and Mac's are like Ferrari's...just that the parts for Mac's are harder to find...and if you do find them, they are expensive relatively speaking.

Hope this makes sense,

- Nick

I tend to agree with pigoo3 but you may want to checkout iFixit. If there is a part for a Mac out there, they probably have it. This will give you a good idea of the price points you will be looking at in your repairs.

When I cruze the thrift stores for mac and pc parts. If they have a mac that works and they know how to crank it up,they think its Gold. Its that mac name.
As they have no idea how old it is they stick the price to it. The same with PC towers. It could be an old 486,if its clean and sexy,32 bucks. I know where some slot load Imacs are and they are $65.00. I prefer when they do not work,$12.00 same with PCs $6-12. I did get a nice quicksilver off ebay for $26 plus shipping.

Mac SK said:

When I cruze the thrift stores for mac and pc parts. If they have a mac that works and they know how to crank it up,they think its Gold. Its that mac name.

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Just curious...how many Mac's would you say you've purchased from the Thrift stores...and what models do you usually find?

I'm thinking about hitting the thrift stores more often...and see what I turn up.

Thanks,

- Nick

I live in a large metro area that may make a difference in what you find. I also have several machead buddies looking aswell. A buddy of mine found 2 g4s in the last year. Right when g4s came out the market was full of beige g3s and older macs. I guess Im up to 9 or more macs from thrifts stores not including parts ones. Im trying to clean out some. Some are classic and maybe collectable like my Powercenter Pro 210 tower clone. Have lots of PCs many from dumpsters with 2.8 g chips. Just needed to be fix and have Linux put on them. All my printers are from thrifts stores only bought one from a real store, the Brother 210. I have 3 color laser printers that all work. The most expensive one was $12.00. Forgot to tell you about the Sun server blade with 3 hds in it. It was $4.00

Mac SK said:

I live in a large metro area that may make a difference in what you find. I also have several machead buddies looking aswell. A buddy of mine found 2 g4s in the last year. Right when g4s came out the market was full of beige g3s and older macs. I guess Im up to 9 or more macs from thrifts stores not including parts ones. Im trying to clean out some. Some are classic and maybe collectable like my Powercenter Pro 210 tower clone. Have lots of PCs many from dumpsters with 2.8 g chips. Just needed to be fix and have Linux put on them. All my printers are from thrifts stores only bought one from a real store, the Brother 210. I have 3 color laser printers that all work. The most expensive one was $12.00.

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Thanks a lot for the info. I know every time I stop in the thrift store they always have a couple crappy no-name Windows desktops...but no Macs. I guess you just get lucky sometimes if they do have a Mac.

Maybe I will stop by a thrift store today...maybe I'll get lucky!

- Nick

Im going to 2 thrift stores today...happy hunting.

Hey Pigoo3...I found a RCA DVR for $3.03 got for the hard drive,its 40Gig might be usefull for something. The slot load Imac is still there. Poor thing is been on for a week with a file open on the desktop. Its got a nice white mac pro keyboard with it.. $65 to high . Saw a PC tower with a 200gig HD and 512 stick of memory..$30. Might be worth it for the HD. Saw lots of printers nice Hp all in ones maybe 2 years old. Blue with the scanner on top. Thats what I saw Today.

Mac SK said:

Hey Pigoo3...I found a RCA DVR for $3.03 got for the hard drive,its 40Gig might be usefull for something. The slot load Imac is still there. Poor thing is been on for a week with a file open on the desktop. Its got a nice white mac pro keyboard with it.. $65 to high . Saw a PC tower with a 200gig HD and 512 stick of memory..$30. Might be worth it for the HD. Saw lots of printers nice Hp all in ones maybe 2 years old. Blue with the scanner on top. Thats what I saw Today.

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Too bad about that iMac....$65 is too much, plus that file open on the desktop is going to cause burn-in on the screen!

I stopped by one of my thrift stores yesterday (Sept. 4th)...not only did they not have any Mac's...they didn't even have any crappy no-name Windows computers. I was sort of surprised no windows machines.

$3.03 for a 40 gig HD is a decent deal...so at least you didn't head home empty handed!

- Nick

The Imac was gone today someone got it. Good luck to them.

Mac SK said:

The Imac was gone today someone got it. Good luck to them.

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Hopefully it went to a good home!;D

- Nick