Free PowerMac G4 and G5

My neighbor was just evicted and all of his possessions were on his lawn. When he saw all of his "stuff" on his lawn, he had a heart attack. On his lawn, I noticed a PowerMac G4 and a PowerMac G5. I decided to take these aging computers home to test them. The G4 boots up perfectly (albeit slowly), but the G5 does not boot at all. I saw the man who was evicted after he left the hospital against medical advice. I had a short conversation with him before he left to go back to the hospital, and I offered to give him the computers back. He told me that he would talk to me on Tuesday (tomorrow) and that the G5 needs a new HDD. When I hit the power button on the G5, the power light flashes infinitely and I can hear the failing drive. Nothing appears on the screen. After further investigation, I figured out that it is a dual 2.0GHz G5 model. It appears to have been dropped at one point. One of the handles on the G5 is warped, making it hard to remove/replace the side cover. The side cover is also horribly scratched. If I wanted to keep it, what (other than a HDD) would it need? If I were to sell it, how much do you think I could get for it?

Also, the G4 is a dual (I believe) 400MHz model. The G4 is in great condition, and (as I said before) it boots up perfectly. If I were to sell it, how much do you think I could get for it?

Obviously, I would only keep/sell the machines if the man does not meet me tomorrow or within the month.

PICTURES TO FOLLOW

he had exactly one hour to grab all of his belongings that mattered to him. after this hour, anybody could take whatever they wanted... I am not sure if he will ever show his face around this house again, because of his past. He was an attorney who (after googling him) apparently screwed people over by not telling his clients about hearings, and not representing his clients. Obviously if he does not come back to claim the computers i will never see him again. if he does come back, i will give him his computers back. but if not, i will keep them because i am not putting them out in the rain back on his lawn. also, we were not the only people to take stuff. there was a whole crowd of about 20 people who would not give him back his computers, as none of them seemed to live in our neighborhood. he is lucky that such a nice person obtained them, because if i ever see him again, i will gladly return the computers to him. Obviously, none of you read my full post because i said if i ever see him again, i will return the machines to him. I feel bad for him, and I will gladly give him his rightful belongings.

His house was no longer his property at this point, so anybody could come and take whatever they wanted. Like I said in the first post, I offered to give him the computers back. If he "shows his face," I will talk with him tomorrow and if he cannot take the computers (he is now homeless), I will give him compensation for them. If I keep them, and after compensating him I will either sell one/keep one, sell both, or keep both. This is what the poll was about... Please don't get me wrong, I feel bad for him, but I don't know what to do with these machines, if he doesn't show up tomorrow. Like I said, if he does not show, I cannot return the machines/compensate him for the machines.

dukebound85 said:

Wait, you took these off HIS yard without HIS permission?

Being evicted and having possessions on yards does not make them free

What you did is called stealing

Unfreakingbelievable

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At this point, it was not his yard, so therefore I did not need his permission. Therefore, the aforementioned act would not be classified as stealing. I apologize for any confusion ...

Fiveos22 said:

Yeah, the truth of the matter is that by the time he was evicted in that fashion he should have been well past the point of surprise. Under most eviction laws he would have had more than enough time to remove his possessions from the property. He was probably knowingly defaulting on his payments and living there in breech of whatever contract he had signed.

Legality is not a good measure here.

Morally, you probably shouldn't take his stuff... but that is entirely on your conscience. Congrats on being heads up about the computers, hope you can get those dualies running properly, they would make fantastic personal media servers.

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I only took them because I live behind him, and I figure that I am more honest than most people who were scouring through his stuff.. And although it is not good due to security reasons, we have a gate connecting our backyard to his backyard (well, it's not his anymore, but you know what I mean). It was pretty easy to carry the 25lb+ machines into my house. I told him that I was more than willing to give them back to him, but when I told him that, he was in a hurry to get back to the hospital. Honestly, I don't think he will ever show his face around here ever again. Oh, and btw he was purposely on vacation for at least 6 weeks before his eviction, so obviously he did not care much about his house or his belongings. And I might add that I just spoke with the man who was hired to clean out the house and the lawn. He said that it was a disaster... It was TRASHED...

Pictures of the G4

Attached are the pictures of the PowerMac G4 for your viewing pleasure... The last picture is a picture of the G4 situated near the G5.

Edit: Sorry I guess a couple of them didn't get rotated.

G5 Pictures

Attached are the pictures of the damage on the G5...I assume that it has been dropped... Please correct me if I am wrong...

G5 Pictures Continued

Attached are more pictures of the G5...

kbfr08 said:

What's the S/N on the G5?

I wouldn't even bother selling the G4. If you can get the G5 working, and don't mind parting it out I'd be willing to buy the speaker/fan + cpus + mobo + RAM - when I am able to access the marketplace.

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it only has two 256mb ram sticks... if the man who was evicted never shows up, i will consider parting it out... also, does it use SATA or IDE drives?

Hrududu said:

Based on the heatsink covers, Its an original June 2003 G5.

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i don't feel comfortable disclosing the serial numbers. here are screenshots of the info from http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com . I photoshopped the serial numbers out of them, as I do not feel comfortable disclosing this information.

OrangeSVTguy said:

Disconnect the hard drive and try and reseat the graphics card. Reseat the memory too. Try and see if it will boot up and display a folder with a "?" in it. If it doesn't work then you may have bigger problems, ie CPUs, logic board or maybe the PSU.

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I did all of these steps... Nothing on the screen, just the sound of the fans whirring up at the initial press of the button and then the power button light flashes infinitely... Not even a sound on the speakers.... I also noticed that a DIMM was placed in backwards, and the pins weren't attached to the RAM slots on the mobo. It was just loosely placed in. I put it in correctly in the end.

OrangeSVTguy said:

If the front light blinks in a series of 3 flashes then that indeed means that the memory is at fault. I had a G5 that had the same problem, firmly pressing on the dimm socket allowed it to boot again. But it soon failed again.

Did the rightful owner come back and claim his property yet?

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from what i heard, he is still in the hospital. I will hold on to his stuff for him until/if he can claim it. If he doesn't claim his stuff in about a month, I will just start using the G4 and (most likely) sell the G5 for parts.... I did not count the flashes, but I will try this... Should I also switch the DIMMs to different slots?

also... i reseated the ram and i got 3 flashes and then 5 seconds later, another 3 flashes and so on... then i switched the ram to different slots and i got one flash and then 5 seconds later, another flash and so on... my friend's dad builds pc's and im sure he has some spare ddr 400mhz pc-3200 ram... ill talk to him tomorrow ^_^

mabaker said:

Wow at this thread.

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Huh? If you would cite what you are making your judgement on, I could assess your judgement....