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Too many G4 Macs, which one to sell?

Zotaccian

Zotaccian

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 25, 2012
645
7
So, I have interesting "problem". I have following PowerPC Macs:

Mac Mini G4 1.25GHz (I Googled that this could be OC'd to 1.5GHz in most cases)
1GB
80GB
Radeon 9200
Combo drive (I have two spare Superdrives so I could upgrade)
No Airport (My PM G4 has Airport card which I could swap in)

PowerBook G4 1.67GHz
1GB
80GB
Radeon 9700
SuperDrive
Airport + Bluetooth

PowerMac G4 Dual 1.42GHz
2GB
120GB
Radeon 9000 PRO (soon hopefully to be upgraded to Radeon 9800SE)
SuperDrive
Airport
USB 2.0 card (4 ports)

Thing is that none of these machines are important as I have faster PC's which I use if I'm doing something actually useful/meaningful such as audio recording. I think atleast one of these Macs will have to go but I can't decide which one it would be as they all have some good and bad points. Mac Mini is the slowest and least upgradeable, it requires display like PM does. PM is fastest (except GPU) and easiest to upgrade but also noisiest and draws more power than those two, takes more space than those two also. PowerBook loses to PM in CPU power but Radeon 9700 I believe is slightly faster because SE is a crippled model of Radeon 9800, I can upgrade PB's ram to 2GB easily, it also obviously has nice display as well.

Leopard would be the operating system in all of them. Which one would you sell? :)
I think the Power Mac would be the hardest one to try to sell as Mini ja PB will very likely to gain more attention, PM being heavy and noisy machine.
 
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G

gaboshenia

macrumors member
Dec 23, 2007
50
0
Bucharest, Romania
i would sell the mini. It's a chic machine, and it would certainly attract some attention on ebay, being pretty modern looking and a pretty good workhorse once upgraded (ram, hdd). I would obviously keep the pb. It's a awesome machine, screen is the best quality, and it does a pretty decent job with most of one's home use choirs (web, photo editing, music, movies, etc)...
the powermac is, vintage by all means...it would be difficult to sell at a price that would compensate for the empty space it leaves. In stead you could use it as a download server, or for...i don't kno...stuff... anyway it's a lot better than the mini.
 
I

ihuman:D

macrumors 6502a
Jul 11, 2012
925
1
Ireland
If you were going to give one of them away to me for free I'd say the Powerbook :D ! But I'd have to say to get rid of the mini too.
 
Zotaccian

Zotaccian

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 25, 2012
645
7
Yeah, Mini was my initial candidate also.

Both the Mini and PB have one positive thing over the Dual G4, the processor in them is newer generation which generates less heat and consumes less power also, PM even has two of these older CPU's. It is also true that even this dual G4 machine feels slow from time to time, Mini would be slow but atleast quiet while being so :)

These are old machines but I'm not quite ready to donate them yet :)
 
N

Nova77

Guest
May 12, 2011
337
1
The mini!
The dual G4 is by far the best machine, and the powerbook is still a good laptop.
By the way, if you find yourself comparing the mini to the dual G4, there's got to be a problem with your G4 MDD. This thing runs (is supposed to) circles around the first gen intel mac minis and your talking about the 1.25 ghz G4 one...
Try cleaning it and reapply thermal paste to the dual CPUs. If you have never done that, the old thermal paste is obviously out of service after all these years (lasts 5 years, 2003 model...).
Then install CHUD tools 3.5.2 on your MDD and turn on nap mode. Just do it!! This will take 5 mins and cool down your MDD hell of a lot.
Your computer will probably run better after doing so.

...and do a clean OS 10.5 install...
 
throAU

throAU

macrumors G3
Feb 13, 2012
8,817
6,985
Perth, Western Australia
I'd sell all of them, but if you want to keep one, i'd keep the machine with the largest maximum memory capacity.


edit:
I'll go against the grain here, and against myself somewhat too with this "devils advocate" comment:

If you just want a PPC machine to sit in the corner for you to occasionally play with simply because it is PPC - the mini will take up the least space, use minimal power, etc. sure it has no display, but screen sharing presumably still works, and ssh still works...

who cares that it can't be upgraded much if at all? none of the machines can really be upgraded to anywhere near current specs and can't run new software anyway, so it kinda becomes less relevant.
 
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Starfighter

Starfighter

macrumors 6502a
Jun 17, 2011
679
36
Sweden
That's my thought also, the Mac Mini would be the easiest to keep laying around without compromizing space.

I understand that the computers are of no importance when it comes to performance since you, the OP, already have stronger computers. Keep the one that makes you happy to look at, I'd say. Or do you want to maximize profit from potential sales?
 
skateny

skateny

macrumors 6502
Jul 19, 2012
448
0
New York, NY
This seems to be an issue around sentiment rather than performance.

All things being equal (they never are), and if I had all three (I don't), I'd start by keeping the one I'd miss most, then work my way down to which one I'd miss least.

I'll bet your heart has already made the choice for you.
 
Zotaccian

Zotaccian

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 25, 2012
645
7
@Nova77

I just did clean install of OS X 10.5 couple hours ago so it is not an OS problem. The machine does not act weird, it does not shut down and fans do not run full all the time, I can hear that since occasionally after some use there is (atleast) one fan which increases its rpm for a brief moment. The machine is still usable, it is not that slow, but atleast with TenFourFox there is sometimes lag when I try to switch from a tab to another, occasionally there is also text lag. I currently have 5 tabs open and YouView playing some music video in the background.
 
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GermanyChris

GermanyChris

macrumors 601
Jul 3, 2011
4,185
5
Here
Nova77 said:
The mini!
The dual G4 is by far the best machine, and the powerbook is still a good laptop.
By the way, if you find yourself comparing the mini to the dual G4, there's got to be a problem with your G4 MDD. This thing runs (is supposed to) circles around the first gen intel mac minis and your talking about the 1.25 ghz G4 one...
Try cleaning it and reapply thermal paste to the dual CPUs. If you have never done that, the old thermal paste is obviously out of service after all these years (lasts 5 years, 2003 model...).
Then install CHUD tools 3.5.2 on your MDD and turn on nap mode. Just do it!! This will take 5 mins and cool down your MDD hell of a lot.
Your computer will probably run better after doing so.

...and do a clean OS 10.5 install...
Click to expand...

Speaking of doing that I was replacing the HD on MBP and decided I'd change the thermal paste on it..If the PM has the thermal paste applied like my MBP did that alone will make it cooler and quieter.

There were CHUNKS of thermal paste *shakes head*
 
Ariii

Ariii

macrumors 6502a
Jan 26, 2012
681
9
Chicago
Selll the Mini. You've stated that you already have access to a much faster PC, and the PBG4/MDDs are pretty unique. Plus, the PowerBook is portable.
 
Hrududu

Hrududu

macrumors 68020
Jul 25, 2008
2,299
627
Central US
Lose the Mini. I haven't sold many of my Macs, but I had no problems letting my 1.25 G4 Mini go. Never once regretted it either. That thing was a slow little turd.
 
N

Nova77

Guest
May 12, 2011
337
1
Zotaccian said:
@Nova77

I just did clean install of OS X 10.5 couple hours ago so it is not an OS problem. The machine does not act weird, it does not shut down and fans do not run full all the time, I can hear that since occasionally after some use there is (atleast) one fan which increases its rpm for a brief moment. The machine is still usable, it is not that slow, but atleast with TenFourFox there is sometimes lag when I try to switch from a tab to another, occasionally there is also text lag. I currently have 5 tabs open and YouView playing some music video in the background.
Click to expand...

Text lag, text glitches, and the lack of speed in recent versions is the reason why I stopped using TFF and switched to Leopard Webkit. Thats a newer Safari for PPC. Much more compatible than Tenfourfox.

Good to hear its not an OS problem, but I still keep my other recommendations.
 
Zotaccian

Zotaccian

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 25, 2012
645
7
....and the Mini is sold, got 130$ for it which I think it's pretty good price. At one point I was thinking of keeping it but after I found out that I would need separate board which the Airport card itself installs I was sure that the Mini needs to go.

I was also considering about selling the PowerMac G4 since I remembered the thing called Hackintosh. I currently have a PC (which is not in use at the moment) with a motherboard which should be pretty compatible. If I could build fully working installation with OS X 10.6.8 it would already be better for both the performance (has Core 2 Duo which could easily be overclocked for even more performance) and software compatibility, it is also much more quiet. Since Leopard is no longer updated it would not bother me even if my Hackintosh would not be updated, updates are the primary reason why hackintosh installations break... of course, the case of the PC is nothing compared to the elegance of the Power Mac.
 
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O

orestes1984

macrumors 65816
Jun 10, 2005
1,000
4
Australia
If you want a PPC machine, keep the fastest one and sell the rest. I keep a G5 Xserve for a PPC machine. Its good at holding all my data is robust and can still be used as a useful home server.

Its hard for me to justify a machine I don't have a use for, so if any I'd sell the Mac Mini and the PowerBook, and stuff as many drives as I could fit into the G4 tower, run up a Time Capsule/File/iTunes server with a screen sharing front end and you will have no need for a monitor.

Surely you need to backup all of your recordings somewhere.
 
Zotaccian

Zotaccian

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 25, 2012
645
7
Sold my dual g4, got very decent price because the buyer absolutely needed a mac with tiger as fast as possible. It goes for server and classic use, the buyer has a company which does graphic design and apparently he still uses some old apps because they work and get the job done.

I personally wouldn't put this old machine to server use because of its age, especially when its failure could affect my work, but it is his choice, I told him how old this machine is. Works fine now, but how long?
 
cocacolakid

cocacolakid

macrumors 65816
Dec 18, 2010
1,108
20
Chicago
My Dual 1.42 MDD was used as a server from the time it was new until a couple of years ago. I bought it from a small private school and it still works great.
 
C

Cox Orange

macrumors 68000
Jan 1, 2010
1,814
241
InuNacho said:
Longer than the Twinkies being hoarded up.
Click to expand...

Sorry for off topic, but are twinkies (the pastry thing) known for lasting very long (maybe conserving it due to suggar, though that would apply to most american backery stuff ;) or what did you mean? (I bet you were not speaking of female genitals, or is "twinkie" used for another thing than this pastry and female genitals in US-slang? Maybe for Cookies hoarded up in the caches? :D )
 
cocacolakid

cocacolakid

macrumors 65816
Dec 18, 2010
1,108
20
Chicago
Cox Orange said:
Sorry for off topic, but are twinkies (the pastry thing) known for lasting very long (maybe conserving it due to suggar, though that would apply to most american backery stuff ;) or what did you mean? (I bet you were not speaking of female genitals, or is "twinkie" used for another thing than this pastry and female genitals in US-slang? Maybe for Cookies hoarded up in the caches? :D )
Click to expand...

Twinkies, the American "desert cake", is what they meant. Twinkies are in the news here in the U.S. right now as their manufacturer is going out of business. But there has also been a long running joke that Twinkies never go bad, although they technically have a short shelf life.
 
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