As a recent convert, I acquired my first Mac last year (early 2008 MBP 15"), after seeing the light while using a Mac Book from my Mother's school, and would not go back.
Imagine my surprise when a friend asked me if I would like a free Power Mac G5, someone he knew was letting it go and didn't want the hassle of selling as he couldn't remember the specs and had removed the hard drive for security reasons.
So I said YES, even before I knew what I would do with it.
After some surfing, I started to dream about the monster that would turn up (2.7 water cooled) and what options were available at reasonable prices secondhand on Ebay.
Well last Sunday it turns up, a 2004 1.8 GHz with 3Gb Ram and an airport card (model ID PowerMac7,2 Processor PowerPC 970 (2.2) ), was I disappointed, well no, its a monster of a machine an (another Apple) iconic design and mine
After fitting a new hard drive and using those disks we all keep safe a borrowed PC keyboard / and mouse (Mac one is on order) here I am typing this while its running Carbon Copy Cloner and itunes etc.
We do have a boot problem, its better than it was, it can take 4 or 5 attempts, first attempt after a restart the chimes are cut short, but on the third say you get full chimes and the hard drive sprigs to life but the monitor does not find a signal, then Mac logo and were up and running. Once up its impeccable and has been since I got it.
May be the problem is that everything plugged into the box is third part. So far i've replaced the internal battery, tried the 2 sets of 2 dims in all combinations (on their own etc) refitted the graphics card, cleaned some of the dust out but i've seen a lot worse, research continues.
I have to say for almost the base spec 2004 machine with Leopard on it's surprisingly agile and normal surfing is only just slower than my MBP.
So what will I use my G5 for, it will take the place of a NAS device i was looking to buy for storing my ever increasing number of pictures and hopefully a print server for the Canon i9950, but more and more its just a great desktop to be on.
Finally I would like to thank all those peoples posts i've been learning over for the past weeks.
Imagine my surprise when a friend asked me if I would like a free Power Mac G5, someone he knew was letting it go and didn't want the hassle of selling as he couldn't remember the specs and had removed the hard drive for security reasons.
So I said YES, even before I knew what I would do with it.
After some surfing, I started to dream about the monster that would turn up (2.7 water cooled) and what options were available at reasonable prices secondhand on Ebay.
Well last Sunday it turns up, a 2004 1.8 GHz with 3Gb Ram and an airport card (model ID PowerMac7,2 Processor PowerPC 970 (2.2) ), was I disappointed, well no, its a monster of a machine an (another Apple) iconic design and mine
After fitting a new hard drive and using those disks we all keep safe a borrowed PC keyboard / and mouse (Mac one is on order) here I am typing this while its running Carbon Copy Cloner and itunes etc.
We do have a boot problem, its better than it was, it can take 4 or 5 attempts, first attempt after a restart the chimes are cut short, but on the third say you get full chimes and the hard drive sprigs to life but the monitor does not find a signal, then
Mac logo and were up and running. Once up its impeccable and has been since I got it.May be the problem is that everything plugged into the box is third part. So far i've replaced the internal battery, tried the 2 sets of 2 dims in all combinations (on their own etc) refitted the graphics card, cleaned some of the dust out but i've seen a lot worse, research continues.
I have to say for almost the base spec 2004 machine with Leopard on it's surprisingly agile and normal surfing is only just slower than my MBP.
So what will I use my G5 for, it will take the place of a NAS device i was looking to buy for storing my ever increasing number of pictures and hopefully a print server for the Canon i9950, but more and more its just a great desktop to be on.
Finally I would like to thank all those peoples posts i've been learning over for the past weeks.
