iMac G5 Vertical White Line - How to fix without sending to Apple?

I need a response quickly, that's why I signed up. Not sure if this is the correct place for this thread.

I want to buy my first Mac computer but I don't have a job, so I found a dirt cheap iMac G5. But it has the apparently common white line on the screen. Since I am tech savvy, I think I could fix it, but I've never worked on ANY type of Apple computer before. Don't say it can't be done at home because I know it can. I've restored old computers before.

How can I do this for cheap? I want to know because I do intend on buying it. I can't find anything better. (I found an iMac G3 but when I contacted the seller he told me he had already sold it)

Thanks all for the responses, hopefully you'll be notified of this. Yeah, I guess getting a G5 iMac wouldn't be a great idea. The reason I'm looking into this is because I am looking for an cheap older Mac computer to move my YouTube video production to. I don't mind running older software on it.

I do already have a 5 year old PC running Windows XP (Which is capable of running Windows 7 and having a maximum of 8GB of RAM, right now it has 4GB. I just don't want to upgrade to 64-Bit Windows because of my files which I can't back up to anything, plus I found bad capacitors in it so there wouldn't be much point in upgrading it) and the reason I want to do my YT videos on a Mac is because I like the simplicity of iMovie (I can deal with old versions and a few hardware upgrades) and when I try to render an HD 720p or 1080p video on my main PC it will often crash due to the bad capacitors. Or the fact that I'm running Sony Vegas Pro 10 on it (Which I did pay for, so I will only make movies on that computer when I need it professional). I'm guessing the bad capacitors were due to me overclocking it. I got it's AMD Dual Core from 2.11GHz to 3.3GHz but it was unstable at that speed (But it was wickedly fast) so I have it set at 2.80GHz and it's fine. Plus, that computer has a cheap motherboard.

Plus, I'm cheap. I'd rather not pay more than $100 for my next computer as I am a student and don't have a job yet. So, I guess I won't get a G5 iMac even though I found a few nice ones for cheap because I did just find that they were plagued with logic board failures, graphics card, cable and LCD failures and bad capacitors. I think I will just get a slot-loading iMac G3 and upgrade it to it's top potential.

Thanks for all the responses.



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iSayuSay said:

How much did the seller ask for the iMac? What's your budget limit? I'd go with newer gen unibody iMac, at least the 21.5" one with Core i3 or Core2Duo which 100% work. They could come up cheap between $500 - $700 depends on condition, remaining AppleCare and all that.

It's much better than getting one semi-damaged iMac and risking it all by doing the repair yourself. You could end up with more money than it should.

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Thanks for the response.

If I had a job, I'd get a MacBook Pro or the Unibody iMac. But considering I don't have a job and I'm extremely cheap, I'll just go with something older I can find on Kijiji. Basically I'd pay $50 the most. So I'm willing to go with an older machine.

The seller was asking $50 for it. It was the cheapest iMac G5 I was able to find.

Jessica Lares said:

If you're going to go through the PowerPC route, get a PowerMac G5 versus the iMac G5.

And I'm going to say what I have been saying in the PowerPC forums of late... Don't buy just any old Mac just because you want one. Times have changed, technology has changed, and you won't get the same experience as you would buying a current Intel model that can run Mountain Lion. Those iMac G3s are completely useless now and can barely even run Tiger.

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Thanks for the response.

I might might end up making you laugh here: What's a PowerMac G5?

For me, I'll do anything. I can't afford a new iMac or MacBook, but I'd buy one if I could. Plus I'd consider myself to be on the desperate side, so I'm willing to give it a shot. I could buy a copy of OS X Tiger on eBay and a few upgrades, I'm well aware that I could upgrade the RAM to 1GB on the Slot-loading iMac G3 with a bit of coaxing. Besides, I'm not looking for experience, just functionality, and it doesn't have to be perfect.

But then again, I'm not as experienced in the world of Apple computers as most of you are though I do have some experience in using my friend's new iMac or going to the Market Mall Apple Store in my city.

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G51989 said:

Good idea man. I would honestly say, get a PowerMac G5, or a 300-400 dollar ( if you can get the money ) PC, gently used, for what you need to do.

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Thanks for your response.

I don't know what a PowerMac G5 is. I understand what the G5 is, but since I've used PC's all my life, I'm still not quite sure what a PowerMac is. Isn't it like a Mac Pro but older?

I've got plenty of PC's but I don't use them for anything. Even though I love my PC's and Windows has always worked the best for me, I want to get a cheap Mac, any that I can find. Plus I love iMovie and I have a great disdain for Windows Movie Maker. Plus I don't need all the features Sony Vegas Pro 10 has most of the time, although I do use them for special occasions. iMovie would suit me fine for my regular YouTube videos. As long as it does Widescreen videos (HD isn't a problem) I'll be fine.

Wardenski said:

Why anyone would buy a powerpc Mac over a cheap modern Windows box is beyond me unless they are collecting.

Powermac G5s are the precursors to the Mac Pros but they are louder, inefficient and unreliable.

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Thanks for the reply.

I kinda figured they were like 'Mac Pros before the Mac Pro was' but I wasn't quite sure.

I'd buy one. I like them, I'm cheap and I can make good use of them. I've always thought that an old computer, be it Mac or PC is never completely useless. Not even if it's in several pieces (Unless they're all broken).

Stan Mikulenka said:

Hi guys,
I think he is talking about this iMac:

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That's exactly the one I was talking about haha

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iSayuSay said:

Well I thought you were gonna replace the LCD too right? So I think it would be more than $50 because you'll also need to get LCD replacement part. Getting another used LCD is a bad idea since it would be damaged much easier and expect shorter life.

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Yeah, I kind of decided against it, now that I think about it. I found some replacements on eBay, but they are all $50+ and have outrageous shipping costs.

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92WardSenatorFE said:

I would second what everyone else has said. iMac G5's have a lot of problems, and I've seen them first hand. Whether it be issues with the screen, leaking capacitors on the logic board, or bad PSU's, they are really too much trouble to be worth anything.

I see that you are video editing, and with that in mind, I would steer clear of anything with a G3 processor. I have done a lot of video editing work, and even G4's were starting to slow down a few years back when I still used them. I could not even imagine video editing any modern footage on a G3 Mac.

With a sub-$100 budget like you mentioned, I would look for a high end G4 or a low end PowerMac G5 tower. Though I would highly recommend saving just a little more money and buying a used Intel Mac for better compatibility and performance (or a dual processor G5). Depending on what kind of camera you use, a PowerPC Mac could do what you need it to do, but you will have to give it time to render.

iMovie is a great little program, but I would also say that you won't have all the special effects that Sony Vegas (or any other professional grade software) would have. If you do get a Mac, I would definitely look at obtaining a used version of Final Cut Express, it would be well worth it. (Note that FCE will require a high end G4 or G5 to work, it will be slow as molasses on anything slower than 1-1.25GHz.) Also note that iMovie 6 is probably the best version of iMovie, iMovie '08 and higher has a lot of different features and removes the time line, making it really hard to edit video footage for people who are familiar with editing that way.

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Thanks for the reply, I'll take into consideration your suggestions.

I use my iPod Touch to record my videos. To be completely honest, I don't have anything better. When I make my videos for YouTube (If it's just a general video about something, not a full-effects movie) I just put them together and render them. As long as the video is in 16:9 aspect ratio, I'm fine. HD is not a problem. I could deal with running iMovie '05 on an iMac G3, I doubt '06 would run on it.

Jessica Lares said:

Indeed the PowerMac G5 is like the Mac Pro with PowerPC innards. They are the best pre-intel machines you can buy, and I personally have one of the originals in that line. Anyone else will tell you that one of the later models, particularly the 2005 ones are the best for your buck at this point. Max out the RAM, put in some new hard drives (SSDs at that, or just the HDDs work fine too, I have a 300GB RAID in mine), and it will be great.

Safari was only recently discontinued for Leopard (starting at 5.1), but version 5.0 runs perfectly fine. YouTube works great, and Flash is stable. Leopard software is pretty much universal binary (PPC/Intel hybrid code that was recently deprecated), so there is not really any issues with software to be honest. It was when the really good apps started to take off on OS X.

And iLife works pretty nice, probably the best processor to run it on.

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I like your idea, but I also would like an all-in-one machine. When I get a job, my next all-in-one machine will very well be an HP Touchsmart PC. I want to also make use of the Touchscreen capabilities of Windows Vista or 7 or 8 (Preferably 7). I'd also be likely to buy myself a Mac Laptop, be it Air or Pro.

But for the time being, I'll need to utilize an older Mac. I may very well consider the PowerMac G5, but then again, I'd definately prefer an iMac.

Jessica Lares said:

Go for a iMac G5 then. We're not stopping you, we're just telling you what we know about these machines and their repairability/reliability.

I suggest you buy one in good working condition though, like everyone's saying, because when you calculate all the upgrades and repairs, it's the same cost or even less. Replacing parts in Macs is not like doing the same to a PC as they're custom tailored to that model and you're mostly looking for stuff pulled out of working machines anyway. We're talking $20-50 per part here too.

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Thanks for the response.

I may get an iMac G5 but it'll have to be the iSight model, I hear those have less problems than the other ones.

I found a few PowerMac G4's for a price I'd be willing to pay, so I'd rather go for that.

92WardSenatorFE said:

If you are buying a PowerMac G4, you might want to make sure that you get one that your iPod Touch can sync with. If it shoots video, I believe it's going to require a version of iTunes that only OS 10.5 can run. PowerMac G4's also do not have USB 2.0 ports, so its going to sync extremely slow with your iPod (if at all). If you do end up buying one, you will need to make sure that you have another way to get the footage from your iPod to your Mac.



Trust me, you will find yourself very disappointed if you bought an iMac G3 for video editing. It would become highly unstable and would take hours to process any footage. On top of that, your iPod Touch would be completely incompatible with system, G3's cannot run any version of iTunes newer than 8.2.1.

Another wall you will run into is with YouTube. You mentioned that you would be doing the editing for your YouTube account. Many PowerPC Macs struggle with YouTube, much less Intel ones. After re-reading your replies, I probably would not buy anything short of a G5 Mac. You might be able to get a G4 to work, but I believe you would be disappointed because the performance/ compatibility you need won't be there. If you do end up buying an iMac G5, I would recommend trying it out in person before buying it.

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Thanks for your response, I'll consider your suggestions. Sorry for the long reply.

I don't have the money for a G5 iMac. If I did, I'd get that. So I'll settle for a G4, I found a few for cheap locally. If performance is sub-standard, I will hopefully find a way around it. After looking at a few PowerMac G4's on the Internet and starting to really like them, I think I will go for one. It is my understanding that most models have Dual-CPU capabilities.

I wouldn't mind paying a bit to upgrade the RAM to full capacity and upgrade to the most powerful possible G4 CPU's possible (And at the same time having two) and if I find that I do not like the graphics adapter in it, I'll replace it with a better one. But I'd be working errands very hard for those upgrades though, I already am for the PowerMac that I want.

I never believed my iPod Touch (8GB 4th Gen) would work out of the box. It's formatted for Windows, somehow it only works on Windows XP, not on my mother's Windows Vista laptop or when my Netbook is running it's copy of Windows 7. It however also works when my Netbook runs the Beta versions of Windows 8, which is weird. I'd have to restore my iPod to make it work on a Mac. It just doesn't sync, but it's my main computer that runs Windows XP, that and my Dell Laptop which I use frequently. But don't worry, I've got a few workarounds planned. I could install a USB 2.0 card in it. Since I'll have it sitting on a desk, it shouldn't be a problem for me. I'm not worried about speed, just wanting to get simple video editing done. I don't usually watch videos when I'm done making them, even when I upload to YouTube.

I did find that the PowerMac G4 will run Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard with Leopard assist. If performance is unbearably slow, then I can downgrade to 10.4 Tiger. I don't have a problem with that. As long as I can get basic video editing done, I'm fine. It's hard for me to do that on my main computer due to it crashing when I try to render a video in any of my 3 movie makers (Windows Movie Maker, Camtasia Studio, Sony Vegas Pro 10), most likely due to bad capacitors or low system resources. Yes, it has bad capacitors, and the computer is from 2007 or 2008.

And, I always try out my machines before buying them, usually because the seller asks. I collect a few older computers (My collection including an incredibly rare Compaq Presario 2200 SFF computer from 1997 and a 1997 IBM Aptiva) and surprisingly all work well. If my main computer did die right now, my next runner-up replacement would be my HP Compaq D530 CMT and sadly it doesn't accept my DDR2 PC-6400 RAM or my ATI Radeon graphics card. So I'd definitely love to get any Mac - as long as it functions the way I'd like it to. Blazing speed isn't a priority for me.

Sorry for the long reply.