Everyone with a G5 iMac: How's yours holding up?

[juro]

Got the Rev 2 G5 (ALS) and I have to say, it's still holding up pretty well for me. Still on Tiger, though. Not sure if the jump to Leopard will be worth it yet.

How are your G5s after all these years?

[redAPPLE]

G5 iMac works fine. i could even run fcp on it... but no rendering for me tho. :)

[AlexisV]

Jump to Leoprad! Once you've used it for a few weeks you won't be able to imagine going back.

[amiga]

My iMac G5 iSight needed some work with in its first year but since then its been solid (Fingers crossed). I had a tough time with a Power Mac G5 though... :(

[Mydel]

On my G5 2.1Ghz super drive died few weeks ago. Need to order new one. But beside of that everything runs perfectly. Pity that opening G5 with isight is such a pain though...

[cmcbridejr]

My iMac G5 is doing well. No problems since 2005.

I feel married to it because of all the proprietary software that will not work with Intel/Leopard (FCP, CS2, Ableton 5, etc - all student editions).

Though my girlfriend's MacBook is certainly more "advanced" technology, the G5 still accomplishes what I want.

However, I have been lusting for a new computer that runs Leopard, Vista, and Ubuntu all in one.

[mcavjame]

Just sold mine a week and a half ago and it was in pretty good shape. It ran much better after a clean install of leopard. The buyer was wowed by the 20" screen. I guess they were used to their 15" PC style monitor.

[210]

I bought mine as soon as it was made available to buy in the UK. Something went wrong with it after 9 months but as it was still in warranty I got it fixed for free. Since then, I have had no problems with it. Installed 1GB of RAM and Leopard and it's stunning. Only problem I have is I would love to have iSight. Unless something happens to it, I won't get a new iMac until OS 10.6 as I have a feeling the G5 might struggle with it.

[rdowns]

My Rev. A is still going strong. Recently replaced the power supply but have had no other problems. I'll probably replace it by the end of the year. Time to go Intel.

[eji]

My Rev.B, purchased in mid-2005, started going haywire about two months ago. SuperDrive errors, then VRAM errors, then fan/SMU errors. AppleCare ultimately swapped it with the base model from the new Al iMacs.

I recently blogged (http://diderotsdiary.blogspot.com/2008/03/its-been-few-weeks-since-my-last-post.html) about the very positive AppleCare experience.

[mkrishnan]

The SATA controller blew up on mine (also an ALS / Rev. B 17") last year. Otherwise, it's been fine. I think speedwise, it's starting to show its age. I'm not in a huge hurry to upgrade, although I'd probably have been more inclined to do so if the SATA issue hadn't happened (as it is, it'll probably be hard to re-sell an iMac that needs its drive to be in an external enclosure...).

These days, I generally surf and play on my Eee, but my iMac maintains my 2 gigs of e-mail, my iPhoto and iTunes libraries, manages all my iPods and iPhone, etc. So it still receives regular use.

[zea mays]

Mine died last month. :( It was a Rev A 20" G5. It had had the logic board (bad capacitors), hard drive and power supply all replaced under warranty. I also had two wireless mice replaced as well. It died a spectacular death when the logic board went bad again. Not exactly sure what went wrong as it was ~$800.00 to replace the board and we opted to get a new intel iMac. I'm sad though. I loved that computer and would have happily kept using it. I was able to sell it for parts, though.

[iSightG5]

Bought my 20" iSight just over two years ago as my first apple and its been great! My super drive just became finicky as far as what brand dvd-r it will burn but just bought an enclosure and burner for $50 and everything is going well again. Also upgraded to Leopard a couple months back and only have issues with known Leopard problems so I can't complain about my G5!

[BlizzardBomb]

Rev. B user here and my iMac G5 hasn't missed a beat. And as it isn't an iSight model, I recently opened it up to get rid of some dust after there's been a little redecoration going on in the room. Still running Tiger and I don't really plan to upgrade to Leopard on this iMac. The feature I'd probably find most useful is Spaces and I've already got Desktop Manager for that.

This will probably be my main computer until 2009, when I plan to get an MBP. And this iMac will soldier on as my parent's main machine.

I recently blogged about the very positive AppleCare experience.

Great read, thanks for that.

[mkrishnan]

And this iMac will soldier on as my parent's main machine.

I might do that... they have some pretty scary ancient computers over there. But then dealing with getting them up to speed on OS X, coming from a "I have 65 icons on my desktop and a hundred little things that pop up from the tray" Windows mentality isn't a pleasant thought....

[Zortrium]

The HD in my Rev. B just developed click-o-death syndrome and failed three days ago, but I haven't had any problems apart from that, so I guess that's not too bad for 2.5 years.

[Saar]

All 5 of our Rev. A's had to have the power supply and various related parts replaced at least once. One went back twice and another went back three times.

Other than that, they're doing ok. Running Leopard.

[buffalo]

I have a Rev. B iMac, 17" 2.0GHz and 512 RAM bought back in August 2005 I guess it's still running well, but I would love to send this across the room to replace my mom's computer and have them buy a new iMac. The iMac sure does lag compared to my MacBook though, in all aspects.

[mschmitt]

My logic board died in November, three days after Apple Care expired. It was an original iMac G5 17".

[cmcbridejr]

My logic board died in November, three days after Apple Care expired. It was an original iMac G5 17".

Ugh! What luck!

Did you even attempt to talk with Apple Care?

[Madmic23]

My Rev B is running great. I upgraded to Leopard when it came out. I did an archive and install. I'm thinking of backing everything up and doing a clean install just to get rid of old crap that I don't use anymore.

I've upgraded the RAM to 1 GB from 512 MB. I might bump up the ram a bit more in the future. Still a solid machine!

[ingenious]

I have a Rev. B 2.0 GHz 20 incher and it's been going nuts.

It will just randomly go on the blink and kernel panic when going to sleep or it won't back up my other external (properly formatted, of course) to my TM drive... all sorts of crazy stuff.

They replaced the RAM about two months ago, and the KPs have slowed, but they're increasing in frequency again. I'm going to have to take it back in.

Ugh...:o

[marcg007]

my mom just before the switch to Intel. I knew the switch was coming but didn't want my mom to be burdened with the potential first Gen issues. Just maxed out the RAM and installed Leopard and it continues to run great as far as I know.

[MacHappytjg]

my brothers 1.83ghz runs faster than my intel core duo macbook and its been running good ever since bought

[mergelayers]

The one we have at my office was purchsed immediately after they came out. At the time of purchase I upgraded to 1gb of ram. It's been running quite nicely all this time. I work for a newspaper and some of our machinery runs solely on classic applications, and occassionally things will malfunction and I have to reinstall classic. And about six months ago, it started shutting itself down multiple times per day. The fans would start raging and the machine would either shut down or go to sleep with no warning. This problem was solved by opening the tower and blowing the dust out of the fans and off of the heatsink. The heatsink was actually so caked in dust you couldn't even see it. Other than those issues, it has been a very reliable machine..being used between 12 and 16 hours per day since we bought it.

[MacHappytjg]

The one we have at my office was purchsed immediately after they came out. At the time of purchase I upgraded to 1gb of ram. It's been running quite nicely all this time. I work for a newspaper and some of our machinery runs solely on classic applications, and occassionally things will malfunction and I have to reinstall classic. And about six months ago, it started shutting itself down multiple times per day. The fans would start raging and the machine would either shut down or go to sleep with no warning. This problem was solved by opening the tower and blowing the dust out of the fans and off of the heatsink. The heatsink was actually so caked in dust you couldn't even see it. Other than those issues, it has been a very reliable machine..being used between 12 and 16 hours per day since we bought it.

yea hopefully u used compressed air
and that will happen with towers

[eXan]

I have a Rev. B iMac, 17" 2.0GHz and 512 RAM bought back in August 2005 I guess it's still running well, but I would love to send this across the room to replace my mom's computer and have them buy a new iMac. The iMac sure does lag compared to my MacBook though, in all aspects.

Haha I have exactly the same computers as you and also Touch 16 GB :D

My rev.B 17" 2 GHz iMac G5 is fine, except for the DVD drive doesnt record certain DVD-Rs correctly. We have upgraded to 1.5 GB RAM from the start (bought it shortly after iSight models were released).

Since I got my MacBook I realized how s l o w my iMac is for CPU-intensive tasks O_O

I plan to upgrade it to new 20" iMac in the end of this year or early 2009.

[mschmitt]

Ugh! What luck!

Did you even attempt to talk with Apple Care?

No, I didn't. I had already purchased an iMac 17" Core Duo, so it wasn't my primary Mac. The Core Duo now has four vertical colored lines on the screen, so I have attached a Samsung 226BW and passed it on to my wife.

My PowerMac G4 MDD is still going strong in my classroom. Yeah, it's a WindTunnel with the "quieter" power supply, but it is a real workhorse.

At home, I'm using a new MacBook Pro, and a 23" ACD arrives tomorrow. Love my Macs, hardware hiccups notwithstanding.

[MacHappytjg]

Haha I have exactly the same computers as you and also Touch 16 GB :D

My rev.B 17" 2 GHz iMac G5 is fine, except for the DVD drive doesnt record certain DVD-Rs correctly. We have upgraded to 1.5 GB RAM from the start (bought it shortly after iSight models were released).

Since I got my MacBook I realized how s l o w my iMac is for CPU-intensive tasks O_O

I plan to upgrade it to new 20" iMac in the end of this year or early 2009.

oh my brothers imac goes faster than my macbook sometimes usually depends on wireless or if its wired up if its wired it will lik go way faster than my macbook which is frusterating cause mines a core duo and his is a g5 motorolla

[Clix Pix]

The day after the first iSight iMacs were announced, I went to the local Apple store and bought a 20" Rev B G5 iMac and had the store max out the RAM to 2 GB. Machine has purred along just wonderfully over the past 2.5 years without any hassles. I installed Leopard and it took that without a whimper, continuing to perk right along. In the meantime, over the past couple of years I've added a few more Macs to the family, all intel-based machines. Until very recently I was still using my G5 each night, as it has been living in my bedroom. When I got the MacBook Air and started using that each night instead, I realized it was time to begin easing my G5 iMac into a well-deserved retirement, so it has now been moved into another room instead.

A friend has the same model, which she had bought about a month or so prior to when I got mine, and it recently began showing signs of trouble, so we took it to the Apple store Genius Bar, where it received a new power supply. Working great again now.....

[BlackMax]

My Mom has a G5 17-inch, 1.8 GHz (M9843LL/A) "Rev. B" iMac from 2005 that is still running strong. The power supply had to be replaced about 8 months ago, but other than that everything has been good. :p

[royalnorth]

I have the 1.8 20inch Powermac, the one before the built in iSight. It had the Capacitor problem as many others did: this was sorted under Warranty,and it has run perfectly ever since.
I installed 2GB of memory and just recently I downloaded and installed the hack to give me the extended desktop facility,this works well,and with the addition of a 22inch rotating screen gives Photoshop work or slide shows a whole new level of enjoyment

[wordmunger]

My wife's office computer is a G5 (not sure which rev), and she just recently had the power supply and logic board replaced under a service agreement paid for by her employer. Otherwise it's held up great.

[BoyBach]

I bought my 17-inch G5 iMac with iSight in November 2005 and it's been fine from day one until about three weeks ago when the screen developed a thin blue vertical line running through the centre of the screen.

It's outside of warranty (which is typical!) but thankfully it doesn't impinge on it's use... yet.

[ingenious]

Just got off the phone with AppleCare a few hours ago, and they're sending out a technician sometime next week to replace my logic board. Hopefully that clears up my issues! It's never worked quite right.


(I love AppleCare! :p)

[mad jew]

My 1.8GHz ALS iMac is loving life. I put her on Leopard a few weeks ago and haven't looked back.

[paduck]

The HD in my Rev. B just developed click-o-death syndrome and failed three days ago, but I haven't had any problems apart from that, so I guess that's not too bad for 2.5 years.

I had the same problem in December. Apple shipped me a replacement hard drive under AppleCare and (fortunately) I had a backup, so I am back in business without really missing a beat. I consider myself very fortunate.

I have upgraded the RAM to 1GB and added Leopard. No problems. Computer runs great. I am thinking of replacing it in 2009 after that round of iMac upgrades. The kids are still using my G3 iMac DV, but the monitor on that one is slowly going. They might have to struggle through without a computer for awhile though....

[8thMan]

My Rev. A 1.8 is starting to exhibit weird display anomalies -- colors shifting and going out of registration, kernel panics, freezing, etc. Is this the infamous bad logic board problem? Up til now it has working working like a champ -- really my favorite iMac yet. What will a new logic board cost me?

[mkrishnan]

My Rev. A 1.8 is starting to exhibit weird display anomalies -- colors shifting and going out of registration, kernel panics, freezing, etc. Is this the infamous bad logic board problem? Up til now it has working working like a champ -- really my favorite iMac yet. What will a new logic board cost me?

Could possibly be bad RAM, also, but most likely, yes.... :(

[8thMan]

Could possibly be bad RAM, also, but most likely, yes.... :(

Yeah, I thought it might be RAM, so I replaced it with 2 gigs of Crucial RAM (I had been planning to upgrade anyway) but symptoms persist. I really like this machine -- I think my most economical option might be to just pull the RAM and HDD and install it in a GOOD used G5.

[buffalo]

There are two things that annoy me with the G5 that I failed to mention above. First, my interned connection is really spotty sometimes. During one of these periods I may have to turn Airport on and off multiple times to get it running again. It could be the location, but the MacBook and iPod touch do not have problems in this room. Second, when playing movies the iMac will make noise in the background. This is both DVD and rented movies on iTunes. Other than that, it works as well as it did back in August 2005.