Thread

is this a good deal?

68kMLA Hardware 14 posts Oct 12, 2009 to Oct 13, 2009

#1 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 - 16:16 68kMLA

some one on my local craigslist is selling 2 powermac g5s 2.0 ghz dual processor that "One powers on but has no boot, Other one powers on but randomly turns off." for $100. is this worth that amount of money, or are theses the computers w/ the leaky liquid cooling?

#2 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 - 16:38 68kMLA

I think any G5, working or not, $100 is a great deal! :O

#3 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 - 16:42 68kMLA

You should make an estimation as to how easy and/or cheap it will be for you to fix the machines. Then you can decide if it's a good deal or not.

Just having broken machines isn't a good deal, IMO, unless you get them for free.

#4 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 - 18:01 68kMLA

I'm sure the parts are worth more than $100 easy. There is a small market just for the G5 tower case for Mods and those can fetch about $100 each. Then there is the possibility of a fully working unit by moving the PSU from the turn on/off unit to the dead unit or switching RAM or maybe it needs a new PRAM battery? Lots of possibilities and of course if that does not work, there is the RAM, HD, CPU, optical drive, and other bits that you can sell off.

I'd say go for it.

#5 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 - 19:31 68kMLA

I agree, go for it. It's tough to imagine any scenario in which you couldn't get more than $100 parting them out if they turned out to be unfixable. And as others have said, if one of them can be saved, you can sell the other's case for about $100 alone.

#6 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 - 20:24 68kMLA

Any problems they have won't be linked to leaking cooling devices. All 2.0GHz models are strictly air cooled. For $100 it sounds like a winner. If they showed up here, I'd go for it without hesitation.

#7 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 - 21:07 68kMLA

This sounds like a better deal.

#8 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 - 21:14 68kMLA

Only better because of the awesome write up.

#9 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 - 22:09 68kMLA

They probably need the motherboards recapped and that costs $100+ to send out and have it done (each plus shipping). Anybody who buys broken equipment that cannot troubleshoot or fix it themselves is just wasting money.

#10 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 - 00:49 68kMLA

these are powermacs, not imacs, i didn't think they get bad caps

#11 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 - 01:02 68kMLA

these are powermacs, not imacs, i didn't think they get bad caps

They also get logic board issues, some are bad capacitors. I also seen some stock video cards in G5 towers that have capacitors bulge. The G5 imacs tend to be worse because of bad cooling in that small case.

#12 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 - 07:04 68kMLA

They probably need the motherboards recapped and that costs $100+ to send out and have it done (each plus shipping). Anybody who buys broken equipment that cannot troubleshoot or fix it themselves is just wasting money.

This is true, and the G5 is probably one of the riskiest systems to try and buy for repair reasons. So many things screw them up, and parts are extremely expensive. However, for $100 its worth looking into I think. If nothing else, a couple good hard drives, optical drives and RAM will get the money back. At the same time, a few flaky RAM sticks might be all that needs replaced to make a good system.

#13 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 - 23:06 68kMLA

i waited way too long, and they were already sold... whoever got them got a steal... $50 apiece....

#14 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 - 23:43 68kMLA

i waited way too long, and they were already sold... whoever got them got a steal... $50 apiece....

Yeah, that's happened to me too. For better or worse, one really needs to decide almost instantly in these situations. Think about it for more than an hour or two, and often the opportunity's gone.

But other opportunities will come along!