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How Many Trouble Free Years with PowerMac / MacPro?

M

mchalebk

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 4, 2008
819
0
After responding to the thread on AppleCare, it occurred to me that maybe the topic needs to be approached from a different viewpoint. Instead of asking if it's worth it to buy AppleCare, I thought I'd ask how many years you got out of your PowerMac or MacPro before you had any problems that a warranty would cover.

For instance, I've got a Quicksilver PowerMac that I bought in August of 2001. It was completely trouble free for five years, at which time my hard drives started acting up. Since it was five years after purchase, any amount of money spent on an extended warranty would have been wasted. Furthermore, I was able to replace the hard drives on my own for about $180 (and got bigger drives to boot!) and didn't lose any data.

What's your story?
 
Had the same Quicksilver PowerMac, which I sold at the end of 2006 when I got my MacBook Pro. All was peachy with it, no problems except a bad Airport card (which was discontinued). Sold it on eBay, and I have no doubts that it still runs.
 
I haven't any problems with any of my Macs.

Performa 575 - I used for 3 years and my parents used for another 3 with no problems.

PowerMac 6500 - Used for 3 years with no problems, stored it for 2 or 3 years and gave it to a friend and as far as I know it is still running.

PowerMac G4 (Nov. 2000) - Lasted me until my MacPro arrived last month, haven't figured out what I am going to do with it yet.
 
I had my Powermac G4 for 6 years and never had any problems. It was a perfect machine.
 
I've had a Powermac G4 733 D/A since new. I have had to replace 2 original hard drives, the original Superdrive; and of course the backup battery. So, mine has certainly not been trouble free, but all repairs were cheap and easy to do for me. These failures of the moving parts are eventually to be expected. What I wouldn't expect would be a logic board failure.
 
My G4 gigabit (7 years ?), Mac G3 AIO (6 years), Cube (perhaps 7 years), Mac 7200, Quadra 950, Mac SE have had no problems, not even a hard drive, and are still working just fine. I've had drive failures in all 4 of my laptops over the years, one repaired under warrantee. I've had two laptop CPU failures at 3 and 5 years. I and a motherboard problem (video) on a lampshade iMac at 14 months that was repaired during the applecare warrantee but then recurred at 4 years which was after applecare expired.
 
My mac pro 2.8 has already been returned for video issues, but that was covered under the 14 days that you can ask for a refund, so it wasn't a problem.

Otherwise, my comps have been as follows:

Powerbook G4 (last revision): absolutely no problems, it has been working solidly for 3 years now, despite having some big accidents, and still continues to amaze me (love that machine:))

macbook revision B: another great little computer that has survived numerous nocks etc, but has had its own issues (it's case is beginning to crack a little now)!

mbp revision B: in general a great machine, although i have had the superdrive replaced under applecare, which would have set me back aroun £250. with this in mind, and the fact that i paid £58 for applecare under the HE scheme, I have already saved £190, and still have 2 years of warrenty left!
 
I realize there are not that many responses yet, but this is what I expected. There just seem to be so many people who think that just because you spend $3000 on a computer means you need to spend more for the extended warranty. I can see where it might make sense on a laptop, especially if you move it around a lot, but I just can't see it being worth it for a MacPro.
 
My G4/400, purchased in 2000 still works and I'm still using it. A bit slow but reliable. Very reliable.
 
Here are all the Macs that I have gotten since I switched to Apple in 2004.

Power My G4 Cube (Fall 2004/ 4 years running):cool:- My first Macintosh ever and probably my favorite Mac to this day! At the time I was sick of Windows and Linux just wasn't appealing. This computer was giving to me as gift from my family and it was bought on eBay for 150 bucks. I switched to the Mac OS X and I never looked back:eek:!!! I still have that computer today, its running 10.5.2 with the original 450Mhz CPU, 512mb ram, and I upgraded the 10gb hard drive to a Seagate Barracuda 120gb hard drive. Currently that is my music server. I have left this computer running since 10.4 came out so just over 4 months, it never breaks! I did add a fan in the bottom which drastically cooled the entire unit down!

iBook G3 500Mhz (Spring 2005/ 3 years running) - I bought this off of eBay shortly after getting my Power Mac G4 cube. This computer was so I could got to class and take notes. Had a 40gb hard drive and I installed 512mb ram. Battery worked pretty well, but I love this laptop. Ended up selling to my Dad, told him if he ever gets another laptop I want that one back. I miss that iBook.

iBook G4 1.25Ghz (Fall 2005/ 1 year till sold) - I got this after I sold my Dad my G3 iBook. I used this laptop for over a year, and I still regret selling that computer, really wished I kept it, it worked like a dream and the only problem I had was the hard drive failed when a class mate accidentally knocked it off the my desk onto the floor. Upgraded that computer to 1gb of ram, and that computer FLEW.

Macbook CD 2.0Ghz (Fall 2006/ 2 years running) - Still have this laptop, I have dropped this computer more than I can remember or count and yet it has never had a problem. I have scratched the screen pretty bad and cracked alot of the plastic (due to travels alot for my job). I bought this Senior year of college and I still have this computer, going on 2 years and it still works great. Don't really know what to with this machine, thinking about just fixing it up because its a really great laptop. I love this laptop, only second to my G4 iBook. Not sure which I like more . . .

2x iMac G3 333Mhz (Spring 2007/ 1 year till given away) - Got these two iMacs (Blue) from a friend, used them for a while, didn't really need them, upgrade the hard drives to 40gbs(had them laying around) ended up giving them away, just because I did not have room for them, they worked great, only had a little screen burn image.

Power Mac G4 733Mhz Digital Audio (Spring 2007/ 1 year running) - Picked this one up from eBay this summer for 50 bucks. It had a bad hard drive, so I replaced the hard drive, installed OS X 10.4 and later 10.5.2, it was my DVR for EyeTV unit until 3 weeks ago. Don't know what to this computer, it was a tank, never once gave me a problem, great computer.

Power Mac Dual G5 1.8Ghz (Spring 2008/ 3 weeks running) - Got this 3 weeks ago this in now my main DVR unit for EyeTV. Got it so I could decrease editing time for editing tv shows and then last week I found a program that can automatically edit commercials :mad: . . . however it is nice to be able to recording a tv show, automatically editing the commercials, encoding other shows already edited and watch a recording in iTunes at the same time without skipping a beat. This Power Mac Dual G5 is a Tank. OH also is the 8 dimm ram slot model, not the 4!!! So far only had one problem with the computer turning into a freaking 747, however I changed some power settings and it seems to have solved that issue perfectly!

Considering I started using Macs in 2004, I have owned a ton of them, I have never once thought about going back to Windows. I use Windows at work and I am so happy when I come home to use my Macs, they just work . . . period, yeah you might have to tweak a setting here or there but they work great. Overall in reliability I think I have just been insanely lucky, especially with some of the nightmare issues I heard about the MacBook.

Thanks
iGrant
 
I have PC's running for over 7 years without ANY problems, so I'm hoping my Mac will do the same. My old machines often got a new job as a server, part of a rendering farm, etc...

--Erwin
 
I had a Power Mac G5 which I bought second hand, and it ran trouble free for over two years. I sold it a year ago to a friend and it's still trouble free.

I have my Mac Pro one year now and I'm glad to say it has also been trouble free .. :)
 
Erwin-Br said:
I have PC's running for over 7 years without ANY problems, so I'm hoping my Mac will do the same. My old machines often got a new job as a server, part of a rendering farm, etc...

--Erwin
Click to expand...

I often find that machines built pre 2003 seem to last longer . . . alot longer. Doesn't matter if its a PC or a Mac, it just does not seem like the parts are as reliable as they use to be. Heck I hooked up my friends on Apple Macintosh LC they had from way back in the day, thing hadn't been turned on for years. I opened it up, cleaned all the dust bunnies out of it, and then hooked it up and the computer fired right up with absolutely no problems. So who knows.

-iGrant
 
If you buy an ACD with the MacPro the extended covers both. That made it worth it I feel
Click to expand...
But it's only worth it if something goes wrong after the factory warranty expires and before the extended warranty expires. The odds are you're throwing your money away no matter how many things it covers. But it is your money...
 
My longest running machine is a 13 year old PowerMac 7500, no issues at all (apart from the ones I created)

The drive in my 2001 Quicksilver went 18 months ago, but I don't count that against Apple as they didn't make the HD.
 
bartelby said:
My longest running machine is a 13 year old PowerMac 7500, no issues at all (apart from the ones I created)

The drive in my 2001 Quicksilver went 18 months ago, but I don't count that against Apple as they didn't make the HD.
Click to expand...

I don't think Apple makes any of the hardware they use.
 
It boils down to this:

Desktop- Don't waste your money on an extended warranty. They generally sit in one place their entire life, idle/work in one place and the only moving parts are the hard drive(s), disc drive(s) and fans.

Laptop- Definitely get it. They are always moving, changing angles, shuffled, opened, closed, dropped, spilled on and have hinges, keyboard, trackpad, hard drive, fan(s), and a thin case.

The only desktops I can think of that were worth it are the PowerMac G5 dual 2.7, dual 2.5 and quad 2.5. They had a special liquid cooling system that will eventually fail from age. When it does, good buy CPUs, logic board and power supply.
 
I bought Applecare for my iMac just because I wouldn't be confident enough to go poking around in there if it died. I managed to pick it up from an american ebay seller for £65 so it seemed silly not to.

Apple uses a lot of non standard parts and if something fails, it can be expensive and difficult to find a replacement.
 
My 2-year old iMac Core Duo has been shutting down randomly recently and I have also have to contend with daily kernel panics.

Repair shops tell me the logic board is probably to blame.

I wish I had bought the extended warranty.
 
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