Thread

FREE iMac G5

FREE iMac G5 Hardware 10 posts Apr 2, 2010 — May 20, 2010

#1 Fri, 2 Apr 2010 - 14:19

Yesterday I got a 1.8GHZ imac G5 for free from a friend/person I helped upgrade their Mac. A while back I installed an airport card for them and I noticed that the computer's caps were bursting. About a month later it constantly started to kernel panic. He took it to apple, and got it "fixed" for $700 8-o , but it still constantly kernel panicked. So he brought it back in, and they gave him a 21inch intel iMac for $300 :-O , AND let him keep the G5. It still was kernel panicking, so he gave it to me.

b: Now I have a delema. (this is my post on ppcmla)

A few months ago I got an iMac G5 w/ box and everything for $20 at a yardsale. It had a Dead PSU. I spent a few hours last night and until about 1:00 this afternoon trying to get it to work with a hacked atx. Finally i had sucess!!! it is now working fine w/ a fresh instal of leopard, and i will be updating the software for a little while. i have a feeling that i will see a major diffrence between this 2ghz iMac and my 1.25ghz emac and dual 1.25ghz MDD.

I just have not decided whether I should strip this new imac for parts and use it to fix my other one.

The specs of both:

iMac G5 ALS, 1gb ram, 120gb HDD, combo drive, 2GHZ, bluetooth/airport, hacked atx psu

iMac G5,1.25gb ram, 80gb HDD, super drive, 1.8GHZ, airport

#2 Fri, 2 Apr 2010 - 17:15

Here's the reason for my vote (try to fix the 1.8 ):

iMac / atx / working fine

Re-capping is not for the faint of heart, sure, so it's up to you. But aren't the problem caps on the G5 iMacs a relatively small number of relatively large caps?

I assume the parts you would want out of the dead one are the RAM, Superdrive and power supply? Considering the working one is faster anyway, I can understand you wanting to put your effort into that one. But if you manage to revive the dead'un, then you have a spare in case anything dies on the good one.

#3 Fri, 2 Apr 2010 - 17:40

Here's the reason for my vote (try to fix the 1.8 ) :...Re-capping is not for the faint of heart, sure, so it's up to you. But aren't the problem caps on the G5 iMacs a relatively small number of relatively large caps?

THe 1.8GHZ does not have bad caps (anymore, they were replaced by apple, but yes, they are quite large). The only problem with it is that it was Kernel panicking, which i have not yet been able to make it do. i think that the culprit would more likely be a failing hdd (it is on it's first one) than a logic board issue, b/c the caps look great.

I assume the parts you would want out of the dead one are the RAM, Superdrive and power supply? Considering the working one is faster anyway, I can understand you wanting to put your effort into that one. But if you manage to revive the dead'un, then you have a spare in case anything dies on the good one.

While it does have a superdrive, the drive refuses to read my DVD+R disks, the only DVDs i have (the combo drive reads them fine). I think I will pull the ram, and replace the 2x 512 in the faster imac with 1x 512 and 1x 1gb, and then put 2x 512 in the slower one (I found 2x512 for the imac when I was looking through a bag of ram). THe rest I am not gonna change, although I might replace the harddrive in the 1.8 if i get more kernel panics (right now i'm gonna zero fill it and reinstall leopard)

#4 Fri, 2 Apr 2010 - 18:12

The 1.8GHZ / only problem with it is that it was Kernel panicking, which i have not yet been able to make it do

So, as of right now, you have two perfectly working G5 iMacs?

#5 Fri, 2 Apr 2010 - 18:16

So, as of right now, you have two perfectly working G5 iMacs?

yes, and for a grand total of about $25 :rambo: :rambo: :rambo:

#6 Fri, 2 Apr 2010 - 18:43

Lucky dude. I'd kill for someone to just hand/give me a lowball offer for a G4/G5 iMac that is capable of running Leopard.

#7 Mon, 17 May 2010 - 20:50

I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but the iMac G5 is possibly the worst computer ever produced by apple on many fronts. I'd keep the MDD and sell these. They arent worth the trouble.

//wthww

#8 Mon, 17 May 2010 - 21:54

they're one of my favourite machines. i've got 2 in my house. A 1.8 GHz and a 2 GHz ALS as well. Got one of mine free and only paid $AU230 for the 2GHz. From a design point of view they're a milestone, all that computer on the back of an LCD monitor. Amazing. 6 years later and the iMac is still using the same basic design. Both of mine are incredibly quick, noticeable faster than my G4s (towers and AlBook with a new hard drive) Neither have had power supply issues or issues with the capacitors (neither have been fixed in the past before I acquired them either) Lets remember that while it was a common issue, not EVERY single machine made had the problems. So if you get a working example, you've got a brilliant machine there.

Time for an update Geeko... how are they going anyway?

#9 Tue, 18 May 2010 - 05:01

both work fine, the free one just have a bad HDD, and the other one has an atx psu. i have kept them both the way they were except for the new HDD

#10 Thu, 20 May 2010 - 20:33

Jealousy! I really like the g5 iMacs a lot since they have a very small foot print and are the fastest non pro machines that can run PPC code.