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Just got my Power Mac G5

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gryffinwings

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 25, 2012
118
0
So I got my first mac computer, paid $130, so far I'm rather pleased with my purchase.

This is what I got:
Dual 2.0 GHz Processors
160GB Hard Drive
2 GB RAM
ATI Graphics (RV360) (Not sure what it is)

Unfortunately I have to deal with OSX 10.3.9 Panther, which there is barely support for, but I have a friend that is going to hook me up with Leopard, so I'll have significantly more compatibility with programs that I want to use like FoxTenFour, Mactube, as well as any torrent programs that I would have liked to use.
 
California

California

macrumors 68040
Aug 21, 2004
3,885
90
Replace that hard drive first thing. It looks like it is the original to the machine. Get at least a 1TB, that will speed things up right off the bat.

Then work on bumping it up to full eight gigs of ram (four matching pairs of 1 gb pc 3200 ram)
 
DrakkenWar

DrakkenWar

macrumors 6502
Nov 7, 2010
272
0
San Antonio,Texas
Welcome!

And agreed! I had a dual 1.8 that came with 10.5. Even with 4 gigs it was a DREAM of a machine.

Welcome to the world of PPC, these beasts can still do pretty much anything you can throw at it. Too be honest I would still be using mine if I had not had the luck of a nice tax return and a student discount to allow me to upgrade to an i5 mini.

However, I think it will be a longtime before I part with my Alum G4/1.5/2/10.5.8 Powerbook.

~Drake
 
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gryffinwings

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 25, 2012
118
0
As far as I'm concerned, this thing is clean, it doesn't produce that much noise except when turning it back on. I can barely hear the hard drive at all, so I'm pretty sure that that is a good thing. I'll eventually upgrade the hard drive to a SSD, but until then, the 160 GB will work fine, I'll see if it is the original or not, I highly doubt it is the original, but who knows.

So far the graphics card is working pretty good too, but only time will tell.
 
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gryffinwings

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 25, 2012
118
0
Well I found out that I have a Seagate 7200.9 160 GB hard drive, so it looks like I'm good to go in that area for now.

Questions:
1. When I try and use google, safari crashes as well as iCab which I'm trying as an alternative. Is this a Java issue or something else?

2. I'm looking to get OSX 10.5.8 installed tonight, but may be tomorrow.

3. Any other suggestions?
 
P

p4madeus

macrumors newbie
Apr 3, 2012
29
0
gryffinwings said:
Well I found out that I have a Seagate 7200.9 160 GB hard drive, so it looks like I'm good to go in that area for now.

Questions:
1. When I try and use google, safari crashes as well as iCab which I'm trying as an alternative. Is this a Java issue or something else?

2. I'm looking to get OSX 10.5.8 installed tonight, but may be tomorrow.

3. Any other suggestions?
Click to expand...

Get it updated to 10.5.8 and make sure Safari is updated to the latest version as well, I've not had any problems with Google on Safari on my PM G5.
 
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gryffinwings

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 25, 2012
118
0
p4madeus said:
Get it updated to 10.5.8 and make sure Safari is updated to the latest version as well, I've not had any problems with Google on Safari on my PM G5.
Click to expand...

That's the plan.

Can you upgrade to OSX 10.5 putting the DMG on a thumb drive and install from that?
 
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davidg4781

macrumors 68030
Oct 28, 2006
2,799
400
Alice, TX
How do you like it? I was looking at purchasing one very similar to that for my mom as an upgrade to her Windows XP PC. And get her into Macs.

Just curious, you didn't happen to buy that in Texas, did you? The guy I emailed about it hasn't replied back and, like I said, it was VERY similar to your specs.
 
California

California

macrumors 68040
Aug 21, 2004
3,885
90
gryffinwings said:
As far as I'm concerned, this thing is clean, it doesn't produce that much noise except when turning it back on. I can barely hear the hard drive at all, so I'm pretty sure that that is a good thing. I'll eventually upgrade the hard drive to a SSD, but until then, the 160 GB will work fine, I'll see if it is the original or not, I highly doubt it is the original, but who knows.

So far the graphics card is working pretty good too, but only time will tell.
Click to expand...

If the hard drive has an Apple icon on it, it's original. I never re use old hard drives when I buy used machines because who knows when the drive will fail. Unless of course, you are doing regular Time Machine backups, which is impossible until you get Leopard.

Take my advice and replace that hard drive as cheaply as you can with a new one.

Or not.
 
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gryffinwings

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 25, 2012
118
0
No apple icon, hard drive is good, no sounds from it. The one I got came from California, runs pretty good, but still working on getting os x 10.5
 
Nameci

Nameci

macrumors 68000
Oct 29, 2010
1,944
12
The Philippines...
Pretty much ok, stable as you know how.

I am mostly traveling the whole 3 weeks of the month and I get pretty excited going back home to be with the PowerMac again.

I like to use it more than my macbook even if the macbook benches higher than the PowerMac. It is my main desktop, my home theater, my stereo, my file server and my work machine. And have not let me down so far. It made money more than the money I have invested on it.
 
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gryffinwings

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 25, 2012
118
0
Well I finally got Leopard installed, I had to sacrifice one of my 1TB drives from my other computer to do it but at least I backed up my files.

Finally have limited YouTube usage on safari, which is great, just need to update and get mactube and tenfourfox.
 
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tayloralmond

macrumors 6502
Mar 26, 2009
446
9
Michigan, USA
gryffinwings said:
Well I finally got Leopard installed, I had to sacrifice one of my 1TB drives from my other computer to do it but at least I backed up my files.

Finally have limited YouTube usage on safari, which is great, just need to update and get mactube and tenfourfox.
Click to expand...

If you want to use YouTube natively, be sure to opt in for the html5 trial on YouTube. This helps out a lot when using Safari because Safari has h.264 compatibility. Don't even bother opting in for the trial with anything that's Mozilla based because TenFourFox only has WebM compatibility and from my experience (although some may disagree) Flash does a better job at keeping a steady frame-rate than WebM when using TenFourFox. While I still use TenFourFox 95% of the time, h.264 is the main reason I still use Safari from time to time.

http://www.youtube.com/html5
 
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gryffinwings

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 25, 2012
118
0
tayloralmond said:
If you want to use YouTube natively, be sure to opt in for the html5 trial on YouTube. This helps out a lot when using Safari because Safari has h.264 compatibility. Don't even bother opting in for the trial with anything that's Mozilla based because TenFourFox only has WebM compatibility and from my experience (although some may disagree) Flash does a better job at keeping a steady frame-rate than WebM when using TenFourFox. While I still use TenFourFox 95% of the time, h.264 is the main reason I still use Safari from time to time.

http://www.youtube.com/html5
Click to expand...

I just got on the trial, but for the time being Mactubes set to quicktime is pretty amazing, it works very well, better than a regular PC to load youtube. Not sure about if I need TenFourFox or what I'd need it for, but I got it anyways.
 
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