Apple's G5 Power Mac. Testing and Fixing.
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- Опубліковано 5 бер 2024
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The Power Mac G5 was a monster of a machine compared to the G4. The Heavy aluminium case was a huge departure from the curvy plastic case it replaced, but it was not a cool as it seems, quite Literally!
When I set out to buy a second machine to complement my first G5, things went sideways quickly. Instead of two machines, I ended up with 7, six of which came from a seller who didn't understand how they worked, and with parts missing. So for Marchintosh this year, I'm grabbing them and testing them all, seeing if we have any truly broken machines, and whats missing. Can I coble together enough parts to get the G5 Army back up and running?
Let's find out.
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You had me at "I may have a problem" lol.
Thats the least of the problems...😅
Me too!!
My better half has now banned me from buying any more G5s. Mac Pros however….i just got my second, muhahahaha
@@techdept You can never have to many G5s!
So I'm not the only ones that name my old machines :0
I usually try to use puns about what they are or names inspired by their repair and refurbishment process, lol
My current project since mid-may has been a Gigabit Ethernet G4 PowerMac with dual 450MHz processors I've been tinkering with to essentially convert it to specs closer to late Quicksilvers or earlier single processor MDDs. I named her "Hela" because damn. It's had so many little things fail and was missing so many parts when I got it, it turned into an absolute money sink, lol
Reminding me why I used dual Xeon workstations with Nvidia Quadro cards for my 3D animation. Now the workstation I had at the time of the G5, the case was not nearly as cool as the G5 Power Mac. I couldn't even use its case when I upgraded later around 2009 because it just had a few tabs that didn't except it's motherboard. The next tower looked even less cool, but was even more utilitarian as having multiple bays for RAID with SATA/SASS HHDs, having just enough space to allow "quiet" fans with the dual Xeon processors, and a bus system that could allow multiple Nvidia cards. From then onto now, it seems Apple just charges way too much of a premium if you're looking for the best workstation performance. However, I have just gotten a M3 Max 16" MacBook Pro. Compared to some of the PC laptops I have used for video compression, I have found it could have a huge advantage in speed when it comes to faster hardware encoding with Dolby Vision. I just recently upgraded to Apple Silicon and it looks like it was a good decision because there is enough software that utilizes it.
always a pleasure to visit your tech department! ^^
Love the naming convention of your G5 Power Mac(s).
Glad you mentioned that it was a bit of a downgrade. I had a dual 2 GHz g5 I bought in 2004, replacing a heavily upgraded PowerMac G4, and while the g5 was faster, wasn’t radically so and hit that awkward phase when 24-bit audio became the ideal recording bit depth and HD video was taking off, and was ill suited for either (not to mention Apple jettisoned PowerPC support in snow leopard) thus making it the most disappointing computer I owned.
Love these, Jess, especially the history bits at the beginning! little glimpses into a world I knew absolutely zero things about, always very fascinating. and I am now thinking of giving my laptop a stripper name...
Awwww, thank you. And yay stripper names.
Ooooh, I see tea shirts with a G5 and a pole!
Nice vid, man
😂
I've got a similar problem. Managed to buy 10 to complement one I had an another that did not work, and now I have 13 cheese grater Macs, and one is a G5 with missing fans. I haven't named them yet though. Some of them probably need a name and a home that shows them some love and attention. All had missing drives and cards that were taken out from a sound studio.
The G5 is just a great looking machine. I’m really looking forward to stripping all of mine back and getting the cleaned out and checked out. I’m concerned about those power supplies and the caps within. :)
It can need the heat transfer re-pasted (clean cpu/gpu dye and heat sink surfaces and apply new heat transfer paste, like arctic silver etc. I use Noctua; but sadly this is needed every 2 years. The original Apple paste was probably better as it last longer. SYmptom for me were picture going black on the display (gpu) or mar not booting all the way (cpu)
Don’t worry, I just bought 7, only 2 are working.
I am trying to see if I could cannibalise the non working 5 and hopefully have at least one more working, so that I can use them during winter.
The case is beautiful, would try to repurpose those that cannot be revived.
Just dismantle a really rusty one due to leaking LCS.
Yup. And if you look at one of them the wrong way, it’ll be 1 working! Still they’re great looking machines. But I’m now banned from buying any more PowerPC based Power Macs.
It's a good arms workout !
I miss my old g5 sadly about 5 years ago I had a break in my old property and some horrible tow rags stole my mac Pro g5 and my ps3 my TV my Sony ps vita all my games but the one thing I missed most was my mac Pro g5 I love music and making music I had all my music I made on it I was so unhappy as I never been able to afford to buy another one I so wish I had one now all I own is a tablet and a phone these days love your vlog keep up the good work ❤❤
You can run of them as a server to share netinstall and netboot images so you don't have to go around with discs and usb sticks to install and test out the different versions.
That isn't PCI X 2, that is PCI-X, the two you read was indicating a dual processor system.
PCI-X was an extension to the PCI buss standard commonly used in servers of the day.
It ran at faster speeds and pumped data in with twice as many connections, while being backwards compatible with PCI devices.
The ones in your system could get close to PCI-E speeds, albeit it was a shared bus rather than a point to point bus like the newer PCI-E.
Thanks for that. I find the G5 to somewhat confusing at times. So many variants.
I have a g5 can't wait to see what you do to them
I’m not sure yet, but I have a few ideas.
Love the special effects on the CPU heatsinks at timestamp 15:40 ;-)
Interesting video. I'm wondering if you end up with at least one non functioning or sacrificial machine you may be able to use that lovely case for a stealth build?
I have an idea for one build, but I’m not 100% certain what it’ll be. I do know it’s getting painted!
For the noise, you'd want to check the transparent plastic baffle that seals the cooling chamber. More specifically, take a close look at the tabs at the bottom. The one that's the frontmost should be covered by tape or aluminium foil. This has to do with the machine sensing if the baffle is in place. Most of the G5s I've seen have lost this piece of tape and hence the system cannot detect if the baffle is in place (and so ramping up the fans). I'd also check the RAM, my memory tells me that it should definitely be 400MHz DDR1 RAM, you'll be having issues with any lesser RAM. I'm looking forward into seeing part 2 of this saga.
Had one of these for ages along with a max pro 5.1. Neither have been powered up in years but I remember the G5 had a habit of kernel panic and crashed constantly. The 5.1 no longer boots as the HDD died and as it has a non standard graphics card I can’t get to the boot screen to install another OS.
That sucks. I have a 5.1 and a later 2010 model. The latter needs a GPU before it’ll be back in the land of the living. Tracking down the older cards are a pain!
Good stuff! I'd never heard about that cost-reduced model before.
Oh that was a surprise. Very odd decision from Apple…..no wait…..:)
But you really had me at "a bunch of strippers" lol.
Yeah. It was……unfortunate. But hey if it works, it works. There’s Curly, Larry and Moe somewhere.
I have a problem too lol. I bought a g4 mdd that needs a new power supply and 2 days later I bought a blue g3 that someone mangled the hard drive and for some insane reason cut a molex cable???
Why! Why cut the molex! The G5s may take over, but the 7 G4s and three G3 B&Ws are egging them on!
Nooooo! the right OS for those is 10.4.11 (or 12) Tiger or Suriken !! with classic etc. I savec one from ebay and feed it with ram and ssd from OWC macsales, and it's solid. just avoid the liquid cooled ones and you're safe (almost) I have a long story with those, I first had (new) a DP 2.7 with the right GPU, it leaked after 24/7 use from 2005 to 2016. (stable 97°C no cheating) So I "purchased" 4 of those and made two good. The NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL still rocks.
0:22 I don't see the problem. I have 7 Mac pro (5 of them 2010, 1 2013, 1 2008). I love the Intel mac pro vs apple none upgradable mac now days
Aluminium. Yes. Thank you Jess B.
From other UA-camrs the imac based motherboard G5 is rare.
Cause they had a lot of issue
If the G5 logo's on there twice, it's a DP. Once is dual core or single cpu
The more you know. Seriously Apple, why be so confusing. :)
I love the idea that you name your machines :-)
The other half started that. First based on where they came from , but now anything goes. I just got an Amstrad CPC464 in with a stuck return key, opened case, jammed speaker and the PCB has begun to bend upwards due to the speaker issue. I’ve called that one ‘Lucky’.
The problem with those being shipped is that shipping cost more than the device, and it destroys the feet / handles, all bent :( / ...
Really thought the inside was on fire at 16:37, but its the reflection LOL
It’s a concern with some of them!
those are awesome computers i used a few in a music studio back in the day
Yeah, I know that people really loved these for studio work. I’ve got a great sound card for one of the G4s that I’ll be using for a mini studio set up later in the year.
@@techdept that is awesome I just found your channel and I love what you do with the old computers
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, bruh... every time!
I'm crying here your so funny 🤣🤣🤣
You are waaay too kind Alan, but thanks.
"Promo SM"
I know this is unrelated but give the Quran a read, also that g5 when it was released it was a beast