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Marathon G4 PowerRack (G4 Digital Audio)

Arcady

Arcady

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 24, 2002
402
24
Lexington, KY
Hey guys,

I came across an older Mac, which I put together at least 10 years ago, and discovered in the back of my storage unit recently.

It's a rackmounted G4 Mac. The case was made by Marathon, who I believe has gone out of business. I had set it up as a server a long time ago, and once I moved my web server to an online hosting company, I retired the box and forgot about it.

What I want to know is, are these things worth anything used any more? (I'm not trying to sell it here, just asking for advice on if I should junk it or not.)

Here's the specs:
Mac G4 Digital Audio motherboard, power supply, DVD drive
G4 533mhz processor, 1.5GB RAM
It has two 80GB PATA drives and a 750GB SATA drive

Interface cards:
SATA card
Gigabit ethernet card
Firewire/USB combo
USB 2.0 card
Apple Radeon card with ADC and VGA

The thing is REALLY heavy. The case is made out of steel.

Any ideas?

Thanks
 
I saw one of those going on eBay a few days ago. Seller was asking a couple hundred dollars. Considering it's a case to rack mount a G4's guts I think it's worth that price.

I wouldn't junk it. If you want to sell it you could probably make $200 on it I think. Depending on the processor speed.
 
Wow do you have any pictures?

I'd suggest you try to make use of it. Turn it into a server of some sorts, web server or file server or game server. If you can't find any use then sell it.
 
Thanks. I did look on eBay a while ago and didn't see any like this. It looks almost the same as the one in the auction linked above. Mine has a bunch of PCI cards and a removable drive tray, plus front panel firewire and usb where that auction one has a zip drive.

I haven't taken any pictures of it yet. If I do, I'll come back and post them.

Thanks again.
 
I decided to take some pictures. I hope someone finds these interesting:
 

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Actually, the unit is located in Philadelphia.

I went ahead and threw it up on eBay, since I can't think of a use for it.
 
Arcady said:
Actually, the unit is located in Philadelphia.

I went ahead and threw it up on eBay, since I can't think of a use for it.
Click to expand...
You have one person in this thread who'd make an offer on it directly too you (not me).

Bunns if you want it, I'd suggest a quick PM to the OP. :D
 
eyoungren said:
You have one person in this thread who'd make an offer on it directly too you (not me).

Bunns if you want it, I'd suggest a quick PM to the OP. :D
Click to expand...

I did, although it being in Philly and not L-Ville makes things a bit more complicated and decreases my interest somewhat.
 
I'm happy to report that I was able to meet up with Arcady today and make a deal on the computer. It's sitting in my car at the moment while I figure out what to do with it :), but it's an impressive piece of engineering and I want to do something interesting with it.
 
bunnspecial said:
I'm happy to report that I was able to meet up with Arcady today and make a deal on the computer. It's sitting in my car at the moment while I figure out what to do with it :), but it's an impressive piece of engineering and I want to do something interesting with it.
Click to expand...
I will PM you my address!

You're paying shipping right? ;)

Congrats!
 
I still have no idea what I'm going to do with the thing, but I did at least bring it in and set it up :)

It's actually surprisingly quiet-much quieter than any other G4 tower I've used. There's also a filter on the front panel to keep dust in the case down.

I may end up sticking the infamous Gigadesigns Dual 1.8 in this this case, as I feel like the airflow is much better than in a stock G4 case. The only problem is that there's no programmer's button to flash the ROM as needed for that upgrade, so I would have to temporarily rig up a DA or QS front panel.
 

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Arcady said:
The original front panel board is inside there somewhere, if I remember right.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info on that-I'll open it up and see if I can find it. If not, I can come up with one. I've parted out a few Quicksilver cases, and it would just be a matter of hooking up the ribbon cable from the button assembly to the logic board for long enough to flash the ROM.
 
Arcady said:
The original front panel board is inside there somewhere, if I remember right.
Click to expand...

Found the front panel, and fortunately it wasn't even buried that deeply.

If I do decide to do the CPU upgrade, that will make the job much easier.
 

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I'm glad you seem to be enjoying the G4 rack.

I found something to start filling the empty spaces in my rack: :D
 

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