Today I went to a small mom-pop style computer shop. They sell mostly used PC's and random parts.
They had three macbooks, the 1,1 and 2,1 versions. I was interested in selling the three extra G5 towers I fixed up but have no use for. They said they dont do consignments and they had three mac towers in the back room. I asked if they work, the guy said he didnt know they were powermacs and he would probably recycle them. I asked what he meant, he said they would go to a scrap dealer. I said "Dont do that, let me see them, I might buy them." There were customers waiting, so i had to wait until it was clear.
He brought one for me to look at, saying it was a powermac. It was actually a mac pro 1,1 with missing memory boards. It was 2.66ghz, and had two nvidia7300gt's. The first hard disk sled was missing, and there was metal rattling around in it, maybe screws.
I looked at it and told him its incomplete and cant be used, but I'm interested in it for parts. Then I said I want to see the other two towers he has.
They took me back in the 'work' area, we passed by a quicksilver g4, the guy pointed to it and said "you want that? its free". I said sure, then he laughed. The towers were both G5's. One is a 2.5ghz dualie, water cooled with nvidia 6800 ultra video, no hard disks, four ram sticks that were all in the lower slots, and very dusty. The other tower is a G5 Quad, had 6600 video, no ram, no hard disks.
I told them I wanted all three, and would they give me a package deal. Ended up paying 80 dollars. They even found the missing ram boards for the 1,1 mac pro, and four 1gig fbdimms for it. Two of the dimms were good, one had all its clips missing, and the last one had no clips and one side of its heatsink was gone.
I loaded the towers and left, completely forgetting about the quicksilver tower...
So, after getting home, I hooked up the 2.5 dual first, it was dead, chimed but no video, and red lights under the cpu's, sometimes under the top cpu, or the bottom, it seemed random when I reset it. I'm guessing its dead from leaking water cooler, or white rice shorting the top of the cpu's. I took the nvidia 6800 ultra card out and tested it in one of my other G5's, it works fine.
Tested the G5 Quad, it works fine after I put a disk and ram in it. Its a very late version, dated september 2006. I have it here running now to test its cooler, its been idling on the desktop for about an hour, and cpu temps are 46, 47, 41, and 44. Seems ok, and its in better condition than my other G5 Quad.
The mac pro 1,1 shipped with two 7300GT vid cards, and 4gig ram, two of the rams still work, so i was able to clean it up and test it. It also had one of those aftermarket sata adapters to connect to the hidden sata plugs under the fans and run them out the back with a pci header for esata stuff. It cleaned up real nice, and using my boot.efi modded El Capitan disk from my other mac pro 1,1 it booted right up, but without vid acceleration since the nvidia 7300gt isnt supported. It seems to work fine, I just need another decent vid card for it, or load snow leopard/lion on it to make use of both vid cards it has. The metal parts that were rattling in it were the clips from the two bad ram sticks, there were seven of them behind the cpu/ram covers.
Anyway, just wanted to share. LightBulbFun had a good time helping me with advice on stuff as I fiddled with the macs.
They had three macbooks, the 1,1 and 2,1 versions. I was interested in selling the three extra G5 towers I fixed up but have no use for. They said they dont do consignments and they had three mac towers in the back room. I asked if they work, the guy said he didnt know they were powermacs and he would probably recycle them. I asked what he meant, he said they would go to a scrap dealer. I said "Dont do that, let me see them, I might buy them." There were customers waiting, so i had to wait until it was clear.
He brought one for me to look at, saying it was a powermac. It was actually a mac pro 1,1 with missing memory boards. It was 2.66ghz, and had two nvidia7300gt's. The first hard disk sled was missing, and there was metal rattling around in it, maybe screws.
I looked at it and told him its incomplete and cant be used, but I'm interested in it for parts. Then I said I want to see the other two towers he has.
They took me back in the 'work' area, we passed by a quicksilver g4, the guy pointed to it and said "you want that? its free". I said sure, then he laughed. The towers were both G5's. One is a 2.5ghz dualie, water cooled with nvidia 6800 ultra video, no hard disks, four ram sticks that were all in the lower slots, and very dusty. The other tower is a G5 Quad, had 6600 video, no ram, no hard disks.
I told them I wanted all three, and would they give me a package deal. Ended up paying 80 dollars. They even found the missing ram boards for the 1,1 mac pro, and four 1gig fbdimms for it. Two of the dimms were good, one had all its clips missing, and the last one had no clips and one side of its heatsink was gone.
I loaded the towers and left, completely forgetting about the quicksilver tower...
So, after getting home, I hooked up the 2.5 dual first, it was dead, chimed but no video, and red lights under the cpu's, sometimes under the top cpu, or the bottom, it seemed random when I reset it. I'm guessing its dead from leaking water cooler, or white rice shorting the top of the cpu's. I took the nvidia 6800 ultra card out and tested it in one of my other G5's, it works fine.
Tested the G5 Quad, it works fine after I put a disk and ram in it. Its a very late version, dated september 2006. I have it here running now to test its cooler, its been idling on the desktop for about an hour, and cpu temps are 46, 47, 41, and 44. Seems ok, and its in better condition than my other G5 Quad.
The mac pro 1,1 shipped with two 7300GT vid cards, and 4gig ram, two of the rams still work, so i was able to clean it up and test it. It also had one of those aftermarket sata adapters to connect to the hidden sata plugs under the fans and run them out the back with a pci header for esata stuff. It cleaned up real nice, and using my boot.efi modded El Capitan disk from my other mac pro 1,1 it booted right up, but without vid acceleration since the nvidia 7300gt isnt supported. It seems to work fine, I just need another decent vid card for it, or load snow leopard/lion on it to make use of both vid cards it has. The metal parts that were rattling in it were the clips from the two bad ram sticks, there were seven of them behind the cpu/ram covers.
Anyway, just wanted to share. LightBulbFun had a good time helping me with advice on stuff as I fiddled with the macs.
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