David's new Power Mac G5 thread!

[davidg4781]

Right, so I've been wanting a Power Mac G4 for a while (just because) and saw this on Craigslist while searching. The deal was too good to pass up so I jumped on it.

It's a Late 2005 2.3 GHz DC with 4.5 GB RAM and 2 X 40 GB HDDs. GPU is a GeForce 6600.

It came with a NewerTech WIFI dongle, a yellowed Apple Pro Keyboard and Pro Mouse. I already have a keyboard and mouse from my iMac G4 and it's right next to the router so I won't need any of those.

I have it hooked up to a 20" Cinema Display I picked up a few years back. Right now, I'm not sure if I have any major plans for it. I've thought of having a media server but I'm not sure if I want to keep this running all the time. Also, the only media I have really is music and I can either listen to that from Apple TV or my MBP. I do plan on converting some VHS tapes to DVD so this might work well with that.

I do need to clean out the inside. I glanced inside when I purchased it to make sure it wasn't empty and it was a little dusty, but nothing major or neglected. I'll also reapply the thermal paste when I do this. Larger HDDs are probably coming soon along with a new GPU. I've never dealt with 2 HDDs so I'm not sure if I keep one for media or what.

Either way, I'll try to keep everything related to this in this thread. Any advice or suggestions are highly recommended.

 

[gavinstubbs09]

I like my DC2.0 they are reliable machines and haven't had any issues with mine. In the past I've owned several early 05 models and 50% of them had issues.

A better graphics card is my first suggestion. Mine has a 6600 and I actually prefer to use my Early 05 2.3 with a 256MB Radeon 9650. For the hard drive situation, if you want pure speed get an SSD or two hard drives and RAID0 them together, makes for a quite speedy system!

 

[davidg4781]

I like my DC2.0 they are reliable machines and haven't had any issues with mine. In the past I've owned several early 05 models and 50% of them had issues.

A better graphics card is my first suggestion. Mine has a 6600 and I actually prefer to use my Early 05 2.3 with a 256MB Radeon 9650. For the hard drive situation, if you want pure speed get an SSD or two hard drives and RAID0 them together, makes for a quite speedy system!

Is it too late to RAID0 the ones I have? I'm currently installing Leopard, or at least it should be finished right now.

 

[gavinstubbs09]

Is it too late to RAID0 the ones I have? I'm currently installing Leopard, or at least it should be finished right now.

You'd have to reinstall Leopard over again but I would recommend it. Just store important stuff on a secondary external hard drive or something if you run the raid in the case of one drive dying.