my old G5 mac pro

Hi, i am writing today to see if i can save my early 2008 model G5. It has been making some really straining noises recently.
I have 2- 500gb hard drives and would like to clear one of them off completely. I want to save these files on my 3TB seagate external hard drive (which i currently have set up as a back up through time machine)
Essentially my question is; Do i have to reformat my external HD to not be a back up for my computer? or is there a way to wipe my internal drive and keep the files already on my external?

Also, not being extremely computer savvy, any tips to keep my ol' g5 running would be appreciated.

Thanks!

movie guy said:

Hi, i am writing today to see if i can save my early 2008 model G5.

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Firstly…if this is a 2008 model…it just a Mac Pro…not a Mac Pro G5 or a "G5".

movie guy said:

It has been making some really straining noises recently.

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Can you be more specific? You mentioned a lot of info about hard drives… but a connection between the "straining noises" and the hard drive info really hasn't been established or connected with the info given.

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

Firstly…if this is a 2008 model…it just a Mac Pro…not a Mac Pro G5 or a "G5".

my apologies. Like i said, I'm not extremely computer savvy... it is a Apple Mac Pro "Quad Core" 2.8

Can you be more specific? You mentioned a lot of info about hard drives… but a connection between the "straining noises" and the hard drive info really hasn't been established or connected with the info given.

- Nick

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Well, i don't know if the straining noises have anything to do with my overfilled hard drive. but I'm sure it can't be helping the situation. I have also been looking into getting more memory as i only have 2 gigs and i have 6 available slots. but have never taken a computer apart and am hesitant to do so.
As for the noises its like a loud hum. It gets louder if i stream movies. Perhaps its just fans?? i don't know?

-bryant

Does it have one optical drive door or two? One door means a G5 which finoshed in 2005 and two doors is a Mac Pro. How long since you opened her up and gave a good cleanout? Dust builds up over the years and can make fans struggle. On my Mac Pro used the blower end of a vacuum cleaner with a rubber sticky beak to prevent shorting anything out. Pay attnetion to the front inlet fan in front of the CPUs.

Whatever it is 2GB sure throttles it. Personally would not run a Mac Pro with less than 8GB of memory. What operating system?

movie guy said:

Well, i don't know if the straining noises have anything to do with my overfilled hard drive. but I'm sure it can't be helping the situation. I have also been looking into getting more memory as i only have 2 gigs and i have 6 available slots. but have never taken a computer apart and am hesitant to do so.
As for the noises its like a loud hum. It gets louder if i stream movies. Perhaps its just fans?? i don't know?

-bryant

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My main point is…it seems like two issues were mentioned. Straining noises & hard drive questions. The hard drive questions can be addressed. As far as the straining noises…hard to say what this is. A loud hum during streaming could be an old power supply struggling, or maybe something to do with the video card. Usually fan noises (or fan rpm's) are pretty familiar sounds to users. If this straining noise is new and different…maybe it's location can be better isolated/identified. Then components in that area can be investigated.

- Nick

harryb2448 said:

Does it have one optical drive door or two? One door means a G5 which finoshed in 2005 and two doors is a Mac Pro. How long since you opened her up and gave a good cleanout? Dust builds up over the years and can make fans struggle. On my Mac Pro used the blower end of a vacuum cleaner with a rubber sticky beak to prevent shorting anything out. Pay attnetion to the front inlet fan in front of the CPUs.

Whatever it is 2GB sure throttles it. Personally would not run a Mac Pro with less than 8GB of memory. What operating system?

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It has 2 drives.
Im sure this is terrible, but it has been a long time (meaning never) since I've cleaned it out. What do i need to open to do so? what do i need to be concerned with shorting out or harming?

Ive just upgraded to yosemite from snow leopard. I knew i was lacking in memory.. is this what i want? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VSBTTH0/?tag=macforums0e4-20

movie guy said:

Ive just upgraded to yosemite from snow leopard. I knew i was lacking in memory.. is this what i want? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VSBTTH0/?tag=macforums0e4-20

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Are you sure this is the 2008 model? AFAIK that model will of Mac Pro cannot be upgraded to Yosemite without a hack.

BTW I wouldn't bother adding new memory into the machine until you resolve the other issues.

Slydude said:

Are you sure this is the 2008 model? AFAIK that model will of Mac Pro cannot be upgraded to Yosemite without a hack.

BTW I wouldn't bother adding new memory into the machine until you resolve the other issues.

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Is the exact model of my computer even relevant?
to the best of my knowledge, this is the exact computer i have; http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-quad-core-2.8-2008-specs.html

Why don't bother upping the memory?

If it was really a G5, we'd be advising you to take it to the recycling center.

Assuming for the moment that it is a 2008 Intel-based Mac Pro, and not a much older Power Mac, there's still some things you can do with that machine, but it becomes a question of "is it worth the money?" Being a Mac Pro, you have some good options: it should be able to take lots of RAM, you could replace the hard drives with newer, larger ones (or even SSDs), and you can probably swap out the graphics card. The combination of these things should make the machine perform much more like a new one.

If the machine you are confusedly referring to as a G5 is in fact this machine, it should be able to run the new ones, Yosemite and (soon) El Capitan, and can take up to 64GB of RAM (probably not necessary, but 16GB should do for nearly all uses very nicely).

If that is the case, then it might well be worth the money invested, but I would sell it shortly thereafter to get the maximum return and use that money to get something newer. Even with every improvement I've mentioned, it's still an eight-year-old computer and on some levels there is no getting around that. The good news is that today's iMacs can probably outperform that machine on every level except expandability, and are cheap relative to what you paid for that one. Free screen included!

Sorry, but I'd suggest this is a waste of everyone's time until the actual Mac model is identified.

Maybe the OP could at least provide some of its details from the "About this Mac" window under the apple icon in the menu, top left corner of the screen.

pm-r said:

Sorry, but I'd suggest this is a waste of everyone's time until the actual Mac model is identified.

Maybe the OP could at least provide some of its details from the "About this Mac" window under the apple icon in the menu, top left corner of the screen.

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please, tell me... what more info do you need from the about this mac button at the top left corner of my screen. because aside from screenshotting it for you and giving you my serial number, i don't know what else to do!?

Just to answer at least one question that the OP asked:
"Essentially my question is; Do i have to reformat my external HD to not be a back up for my computer? or is there a way to wipe my internal drive and keep the files already on my external?"

No, you could just add as partition(s) and use it/them, but if they are original drives, I'd sure strongly suggest getting and using a new drive(s).

And, you might want to consider using some cloning/backup software like CCC or SD! as well.

movie guy said:

please, tell me... what more info do you need from the about this mac button at the top left corner of my screen. because aside from screenshotting it for you and giving you my serial number, i don't know what else to do!?

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It's OK now, you did that in your #8 post.

The info and messages were like ships passing in the fog at night.

movie guy said:

Is the exact model of my computer even relevant?
to the best of my knowledge, this is the exact computer i have; http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-quad-core-2.8-2008-specs.html

Why don't bother upping the memory?

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The exact model of the computer is relevant because some of the Mac Pro models cannot run any version of OS X beyond 10.7.5 without a hack. I believe all of these had the model / system identifier of 1.1 when you look at the system profile report in About This Mac.

Perhaps I wasn't clear about the memory. Adding memory helps the performance of those machine. My point is I wouldn't bother upping the memory until any other issues are resolved. I'm not suggesting that there are major problems here but you don't want to sink money into more memory if there are more serious issues.

movie guy go to About this Mac under the Apple icon in the menu bar. Then click on "System Report' and hopefully we will see it is a Mac Pro 3.1. That being the case the memory is correct. Suggest you also check out OWC and Crucial for memory, both Mac specialists who offer lifetime warranty on their memory modules. Mac Pro modules are pretty pricey and Macs are fussy about dearer low density modules. Here is a link to OWC:-


http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory#800-memory