R
ronlp
Guest
Hey guys,
For starters, I have a 1.8 single G5 (1G ram, 2 HDs, blah, blah) that I bought locally used about 6 months ago from a guy who had upgraded to a dual 2g. I then bought a 23" display and an Airport extreme setup to use with it. The computer was/is in excellent condition in the original box with all the original packaging, etc and seemed to work fine and I had no reason to believe there was anything wrong with it.
I did what I thought was alot of research before buying it and I thought I'd made an informed choice, considering I had no real prior Mac experience. Now, I'm starting to doubt my decision, but I'm not sure where the fault lies; me, this computer, or the OS in general?
Now, I'm sure part of it could be me. In some ways, I guess I haven't given the system a chance. Using this OS to efficiently accomplish things I do in xp wasn't as easy to pick up on as I thought (based on the advertised "ease of switching"), and I find alot of stuff kind of 'quirky' compared to xp. I'll admit, I don't have a whole lot of free time, so sitting around trying to figure out how to perform some simple task isn't always an option, therefore it is often all too easy to just use one of the three PCs I have in the house instead. This is part of the reason that this computer hasn't done much but sit unused for the majority of the time I've owned it and I know those are my issues and don't blame the system. But there is more....
I'll start with the little annoyances: First, I knew software would be a hassle with this machine and accepted that, since I still do have several PCs, but contrary to Apple's ad hype about such good hardware compatibility, I haven't gotten so lucky. My 2 y/o Canon camera doesn't seem to work with iphoto. When I try to upload pics, they display all blurry and distorted. I spent a lot more money than I had to for the AE (over a generic wireless) because of the hyped 'shared network printing' feature only to find out it isn't compatible with my 1 y/o Canon printer. And while my PCs share the wireless signal for my cable modem, they don't seem to be able to wirelessly share files with the Mac. So much for the "windows compatibility" they brag about in their ads. Then, I replaced the crappy mouse and keyboard it came with with a wireless Logitech pair (which is supposedly OSX compatible), but only half the functions work and only in some apps.
But by far, my biggest source of frustration and the sole reason why I typically choose to not use it is the horrible web performance compared to my PCs. I have a cable connection with a really high throughput (usually above 1000) and when I open a web page on my PCs (2 P4s and an old AMDK6, the whole page displays instantly regardless of content (using IE).
The mac, however usually seems like it's on a dial-up. Occasionally a page loads quickly but more often than not, they either hang for a while and then load fully or partially load, then hang while the rest slowly loads. And backing up or refreshing a simple forum page takes even longer. I have both IE and Safari installed on it. IE typically is faster, but crashes frequently or this thing happens where the colored spinning wheel appears while it's hanging...then all the fans start running at high speed until you quit IE. Safari seems to be pretty stable, but loads pages agonizingly slow. Now I don't know if there is something wrong with the computer or if the browsers available for OSX just suck, but it's pretty sad when the ancient 350mhz Compaq in my garage running XPpro can load a web page 3x faster than this pricey computer using the same wireless signal from the AE. Most of the time I spend using a computer involves the internet, and though I know this system is serious overkill for most of what I do, it doesn't make any sense to keep it if it can't quickly and efficiently open a simple text based web page. And while looking around for help, I noticed an aweful lot of suggestions involving various maintainance for these computers. I kinda don't get that since I thought the whole advantage of owning a Mac was that they "just work"? I assure you I am NOT at all pro-windows, but I can say that I use my xp machines heavily and while they may have their 'issues', I don't have to do any kind of maintainance on them for web use, unless you count an ad blocking program and virus protection, both of which quietly run in the backround.
So I guess I'm at a crossroads with this thing. Do I dump it at a loss before it gets too old and loses more value? Do I keep it and continue to not use it and just consider it some sort of expensive 'desk art'? Is there anything I can do to make it work at least as good as my oldest PC? Any suggestions are certainly appreciated and I'm sorry for the long rant; I just hope you can appreciate my frustration after spending all this money for something that has yet to 'just work'.
For starters, I have a 1.8 single G5 (1G ram, 2 HDs, blah, blah) that I bought locally used about 6 months ago from a guy who had upgraded to a dual 2g. I then bought a 23" display and an Airport extreme setup to use with it. The computer was/is in excellent condition in the original box with all the original packaging, etc and seemed to work fine and I had no reason to believe there was anything wrong with it.
I did what I thought was alot of research before buying it and I thought I'd made an informed choice, considering I had no real prior Mac experience. Now, I'm starting to doubt my decision, but I'm not sure where the fault lies; me, this computer, or the OS in general?
Now, I'm sure part of it could be me. In some ways, I guess I haven't given the system a chance. Using this OS to efficiently accomplish things I do in xp wasn't as easy to pick up on as I thought (based on the advertised "ease of switching"), and I find alot of stuff kind of 'quirky' compared to xp. I'll admit, I don't have a whole lot of free time, so sitting around trying to figure out how to perform some simple task isn't always an option, therefore it is often all too easy to just use one of the three PCs I have in the house instead. This is part of the reason that this computer hasn't done much but sit unused for the majority of the time I've owned it and I know those are my issues and don't blame the system. But there is more....
I'll start with the little annoyances: First, I knew software would be a hassle with this machine and accepted that, since I still do have several PCs, but contrary to Apple's ad hype about such good hardware compatibility, I haven't gotten so lucky. My 2 y/o Canon camera doesn't seem to work with iphoto. When I try to upload pics, they display all blurry and distorted. I spent a lot more money than I had to for the AE (over a generic wireless) because of the hyped 'shared network printing' feature only to find out it isn't compatible with my 1 y/o Canon printer. And while my PCs share the wireless signal for my cable modem, they don't seem to be able to wirelessly share files with the Mac. So much for the "windows compatibility" they brag about in their ads. Then, I replaced the crappy mouse and keyboard it came with with a wireless Logitech pair (which is supposedly OSX compatible), but only half the functions work and only in some apps.
But by far, my biggest source of frustration and the sole reason why I typically choose to not use it is the horrible web performance compared to my PCs. I have a cable connection with a really high throughput (usually above 1000) and when I open a web page on my PCs (2 P4s and an old AMDK6, the whole page displays instantly regardless of content (using IE).
The mac, however usually seems like it's on a dial-up. Occasionally a page loads quickly but more often than not, they either hang for a while and then load fully or partially load, then hang while the rest slowly loads. And backing up or refreshing a simple forum page takes even longer. I have both IE and Safari installed on it. IE typically is faster, but crashes frequently or this thing happens where the colored spinning wheel appears while it's hanging...then all the fans start running at high speed until you quit IE. Safari seems to be pretty stable, but loads pages agonizingly slow. Now I don't know if there is something wrong with the computer or if the browsers available for OSX just suck, but it's pretty sad when the ancient 350mhz Compaq in my garage running XPpro can load a web page 3x faster than this pricey computer using the same wireless signal from the AE. Most of the time I spend using a computer involves the internet, and though I know this system is serious overkill for most of what I do, it doesn't make any sense to keep it if it can't quickly and efficiently open a simple text based web page. And while looking around for help, I noticed an aweful lot of suggestions involving various maintainance for these computers. I kinda don't get that since I thought the whole advantage of owning a Mac was that they "just work"? I assure you I am NOT at all pro-windows, but I can say that I use my xp machines heavily and while they may have their 'issues', I don't have to do any kind of maintainance on them for web use, unless you count an ad blocking program and virus protection, both of which quietly run in the backround.
So I guess I'm at a crossroads with this thing. Do I dump it at a loss before it gets too old and loses more value? Do I keep it and continue to not use it and just consider it some sort of expensive 'desk art'? Is there anything I can do to make it work at least as good as my oldest PC? Any suggestions are certainly appreciated and I'm sorry for the long rant; I just hope you can appreciate my frustration after spending all this money for something that has yet to 'just work'.