Advice pls... Broken Mac; fix or replace?

Discussion in 'Buying Tips and Advice' started by Captain Pyro, Sep 1, 2011.

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  1. Captain Pyro, Sep 1, 2011

    Captain Pyro macrumors member

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    Aug 6, 2008
    Location:
    The Sunny NE of England
    #1
    Hi!

    My poor dual 2.5 G5 went 'pop' last night as the PSU gave up.

    I've done a bit of reading round on this already, and know I could get a replacement (pre-owned) psu for around £90 or so. I haven't investigated yet if a repair might be possible on the existing unit (I know how to solder and how a PSU works).

    I don't really feel the need for 10.6 or 10.7 or more recent software; CS3 and 10.5 does everything I need. However, I have a bunch of PC parts that I picked up with a view to Hackintoshing a while ago and never got anywhere with. Parts are all fine for Hackintosh use, but currently running W7. I ended up doing a job in Lightroom with it last week cos the G5 was bigger than I wanted to carry round the country (work had to be on site) and I was gobsmacked at how much quicker the 2.8GHz C2D with 4GB ram and W7 munched through 1500 NEF files applying adjustments, spotting and rendering down to high res JPGs than my G5 would have been.

    My question is, therefore, should I even spend any money on fixing the G5 or just put the cash toward an intel iMac? I'd much rather have a MacPro for the options of being in a proper box, but they're a lot more money than I want to spend...

    I'm of the opinion that while a hackintosh might be a cool toy, it's not something you would want as a stable work box, or am i being prejudiced here?

    If I ditch the G5 that only leaves me my trusty MDD if the hack went wrong, and while I love it, it's a bit slow (and loud!!!) these days...
     
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  2. Hellhammer, Sep 1, 2011

    Hellhammer Moderator

    Hellhammer

    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Dec 10, 2008
    Location:
    Finland
    #2
    Fix the PSU and sell the G5. It should still fetch some cash, which can then be used for the new Mac.
     
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  3. Captain Pyro, Sep 1, 2011

    Captain Pyro thread starter macrumors member

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    Aug 6, 2008
    Location:
    The Sunny NE of England
    #3
    Fair comment. AFAIK it's all still working in there, and even parts'd out G5 PM's look like they can raise some proper cash on Fleabay.

    I'm thinking that if I do sell it sooner would be better than later.

    I love my G5 dearly, but I wish I hadn't noticed how much slower it was than a mildly out of date PC...
     
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  4. Mhaddy, Sep 13, 2011

    Mhaddy macrumors 6502

    Mhaddy

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    Location:
    Canada
    #4
    Related question -- just how stable are Hackintosh netbooks/laptops? I'm looking to put one together for my non-techy savvy girlfriend for use with the basics: word processing, excel, powerpoint, web, email, music, etc. Is this a wise option, or should I spare myself the trouble?
     
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  5. Darth.Titan, Sep 13, 2011

    Darth.Titan macrumors 68030

    Darth.Titan

    Joined:
    Oct 31, 2007
    Location:
    Austin, TX
    #5
    If she's not tech-savvy, don't give her any kind of Hackintosh.

    Just my opinion of course.
     
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  6. bigeasy_uk, Sep 18, 2011

    bigeasy_uk macrumors 6502

    Joined:
    Sep 8, 2005
    Location:
    Leamington Spa, England
    #6
    Some are easy, some are a pain in the behind! If you've buying one specifically it's fairly straight forward, just look on hackintosh forums such as insanelymac and read through the guides and see which ones just work straight off the bat.

    I recently did one for my sister, she wanted a mac laptop but couldn't afford one so she asked if I could turn her existing one into a mac (hp 6220 i think).
    I got it all working after some trial and error with various kexts (mac drivers) but the wifi card just wasn't compatible so I ordered a dw1395 which I know works as a standard airport card.
    I installed it into her machine and it wouldn't switch on saying the card was not compatible with the machine. Basically Hp had put a 'whitelist' in the bios that only allowed HP cards so they could ramp up the price of replacements, so I had to download the latest bios and modify it with a hex editor and replace their identifying hex string with the one from the dw1395 and load it onto the machine.
    It worked luckily but if you are planning on doing one make sure you do your research so you don't have to jump through hoops like I had to.
     
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