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G5 quad not ready to give up!

Hrududu

Hrududu

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jul 25, 2008
2,309
662
Central US
My quad G5's PSU met Jesus yesterday :( After a bit of internetting, I put the thing to sleep before leaving the room and as I was walking away, POP! Ohno! Is that magic smoke I smell?? Sure enough, the big bad beast was in a much deeper sleep than I intended. I've already got a new PSU on the way, but it'll be a week without my powerhouse, so the dual 1.25 G4 will be running the desk for a few days. For about 2 seconds I thought about replacing the G5 with a used Mac Pro, but I just couldn't do it. The PSU is pretty cheap in comparison, and I've got enough goodies in the G5 that make it more than enough for my daily needs. Here's to giving our old Mac's another day to fight!
 
Hrududu said:
My quad G5's PSU met Jesus yesterday :( After a bit of internetting, I put the thing to sleep before leaving the room and as I was walking away, POP! Ohno! Is that magic smoke I smell?? Sure enough, the big bad beast was in a much deeper sleep than I intended. I've already got a new PSU on the way, but it'll be a week without my powerhouse, so the dual 1.25 G4 will be running the desk for a few days. For about 2 seconds I thought about replacing the G5 with a used Mac Pro, but I just couldn't do it. The PSU is pretty cheap in comparison, and I've got enough goodies in the G5 that make it more than enough for my daily needs. Here's to giving our old Mac's another day to fight!
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Keep it going! I just replaced the logicboard on my 17" PB a week ago so I'm right with you!
 
Hrududu said:
My quad G5's PSU met Jesus yesterday :( After a bit of internetting, I put the thing to sleep before leaving the room and as I was walking away, POP! Ohno! Is that magic smoke I smell?? Sure enough, the big bad beast was in a much deeper sleep than I intended. I've already got a new PSU on the way, but it'll be a week without my powerhouse, so the dual 1.25 G4 will be running the desk for a few days. For about 2 seconds I thought about replacing the G5 with a used Mac Pro, but I just couldn't do it. The PSU is pretty cheap in comparison, and I've got enough goodies in the G5 that make it more than enough for my daily needs. Here's to giving our old Mac's another day to fight!
Click to expand...

You could probably rebuild the blown PSU and keep it as a backup. I personally have rebuilt them. What I am guessing is that one capacitor started to go and since it was fluctuating, the others popped. When the power load was decreased quickly, the capacitors blew.
 
Ya I think I will look into rebuilding the current PSU, it really can't hurt to try. This machine has is one that I've invested a bit into (RAM, video card, HDD's) and Its really the best Mac I own, so I would like to keep it running for a long while.
 
Hrududu said:
Ya I think I will look into rebuilding the current PSU, it really can't hurt to try. This machine has is one that I've invested a bit into (RAM, video card, HDD's) and Its really the best Mac I own, so I would like to keep it running for a long while.
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Even if you fail, you learned. I know that I can do the PSU rebuilds pretty well, but it does take some time and practice when you first start.
 
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One thing I love about PPCs where I'm at is how incredibly cheap the parts are. A 1.33 GHz PB G4 logic board is $25+free shipping. An iBook G4 logic board is anywhere between $20-$40! Hopefully I can keep my PPCs going for several more years, not that any of them are failing, mind you. :)
 
I'm actually quite pleased with the longevity I've been experiencing with my systems lately (knock on wood). Seems like a few years ago I was cursed with some bad Apple's, but this is actually the first Mac that has had any major failure in years. The last was a problematic Core Duo Mac Mini and that was about 2 years back.
 
Hrududu said:
I'm actually quite pleased with the longevity I've been experiencing with my systems lately (knock on wood). Seems like a few years ago I was cursed with some bad Apple's, but this is actually the first Mac that has had any major failure in years. The last was a problematic Core Duo Mac Mini and that was about 2 years back.
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Difference between Intel and PowerPC I suppose.

Seems (this is just my opinion) the quality took a hit when Apple made the switch.
 
eyoungren said:
Difference between Intel and PowerPC I suppose.

Seems (this is just my opinion) the quality took a hit when Apple made the switch.
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One of the main reasons I'm sticking with PPC for the next few years. They just don't die! The G3 from 2001 I've been working on has no flaws under the hood. The GPU is in perfect condition, and the highest temp from it has been around 115F, after several hours of use. It could be that it just was hardly used in it's day, but it's still ticking away fine!
 
jrsx said:
One thing I love about PPCs where I'm at is how incredibly cheap the parts are. A 1.33 GHz PB G4 logic board is $25+free shipping. An iBook G4 logic board is anywhere between $20-$40! Hopefully I can keep my PPCs going for several more years, not that any of them are failing, mind you. :)
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There is always going to be some one with a PowerPC you can buy for the next 10-15 years at least.

eyoungren said:
Difference between Intel and PowerPC I suppose.

Seems (this is just my opinion) the quality took a hit when Apple made the switch.
Click to expand...

Depends on the model really. Some designs put more strain on components which decreased reliability (heat, ventilation, board strain, etc.). Some Intels easily cream some PowerPC models on paper in terms of reliability, but we also don't have the same Intel failure rates 10-20 years into the game yet...

jrsx said:
One of the main reasons I'm sticking with PPC for the next few years. They just don't die! The G3 from 2001 I've been working on has no flaws under the hood. The GPU is in perfect condition, and the highest temp from it has been around 115F, after several hours of use. It could be that it just was hardly used in it's day, but it's still ticking away fine!
Click to expand...

I love G3s. I have never had a G3 fail...except for an iMac that someone stored in a wet basement. I got it running but the caps were blown so it had shutdown issues. $15.00 in parts and it was running like it came out of the box. G4s are another story, and well G5s :rolleyes:
 
Altemose said:
I love G3s. I have never had a G3 fail...except for an iMac that someone stored in a wet basement. I got it running but the caps were blown so it had shutdown issues. $15.00 in parts and it was running like it came out of the box. G4s are another story, and well G5s :rolleyes:
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It's not clear if you're referring to desktops or laptops but the laptops had high failure rates:

http://www.macintouch.com/reliability/laptops.html

"The white 12" iBook G3 series became much less reliable through its first five revisions, reaching a 73% failure percentage! The last revision dropped to a 49% failure percentage — much improved over the previous model, but still unconscionably high. The problems appear to have been solved, for the most part, in the newer iBook G4 series."
 
reco2011 said:
It's not clear if you're referring to desktops or laptops but the laptops had high failure rates:

http://www.macintouch.com/reliability/laptops.html

"The white 12" iBook G3 series became much less reliable through its first five revisions, reaching a 73% failure percentage! The last revision dropped to a 49% failure percentage — much improved over the previous model, but still unconscionably high. The problems appear to have been solved, for the most part, in the newer iBook G4 series."
Click to expand...

My personal experience is no G3 failures aside from an iMac that someone kept in their moist moldy basement. They were throwing it out and gave it to my school who told me to look at it. I cleaned the board and put fresh caps on the PAV board and it was like new. That is pretty good.

I have had an iBook G4 fail under my supervision, and also a PowerMac G4. The iBook's logic board is shot but I haven't figured out if its fixable yet. The PowerMac has an issue in the PSU where it will run with the door open and not with it closed. I believe there is a section of wire where the insulation is cracked and when it touches metal the machine dies. It also had a poor thermal paste job that I fixed and a bad RAM slot along with a busted video card. Everything is fixed but the PSU.

The worst G5 failure I ever had to fix was a major LCS leak onto the PSU.
 
reco2011 said:
It's not clear if you're referring to desktops or laptops but the laptops had high failure rates:

http://www.macintouch.com/reliability/laptops.html

"The white 12" iBook G3 series became much less reliable through its first five revisions, reaching a 73% failure percentage! The last revision dropped to a 49% failure percentage — much improved over the previous model, but still unconscionably high. The problems appear to have been solved, for the most part, in the newer iBook G4 series."
Click to expand...

This iBook is one of the earliest models and it has no issues. Even the mic is still working, which is an issue on some other iBook models! I think if something hasn't failed yet, it's not likely to suffer all the popular failures that other comps suffer.
 
jrsx said:
This iBook is one of the earliest models and it has no issues. Even the mic is still working, which is an issue on some other iBook models! I think if something hasn't failed yet, it's not likely to suffer all the popular failures that other comps suffer.
Click to expand...

Everything fails. It is just that your machine survived the wrath of shoddy failures in mass quantities.

If you don't get the flu in a very bad flu season, you surpassed the others, but eventually you will get the flu. Same principal applies.
 
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