My 1st Craigslist PPC Deal (was: Todays Craigslist Deal)

[Hack5190]

I've been looking for an upgraded video card and found a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra on Craigslist. The card is a big improvement over the old one (details here).

Included with the video card were 2 G5's that don't boot. One is a 1.8 PCI-X - poor condition, case is damaged. The other a 1.8 DP PCI-X - fair condition, case has scratches and marks. Neither unit has a hard drive and the memory modules are odd - literally (3 in 1 unit and 5 in the other). Both had AirPort Extreme cards, no antennas.

At some point I'll inventory them, clean and test the dual processor unit. Being the same model as the G5 I'm using I will keep it for spare parts.

 

[Hack5190]

Started stripping the single processor system today and found a modem card. But the good news is that I was able to get the dual 1.8 (aka: the parts system) booted

 

[Hack5190]

Cleaned the dual 1.8 today and tested both airport cards - good news is the machine cleaned up nice and both cards work!

The bad news is that the dual 1.8 freezes at random intervals every time - plus it won't boot on occasion . According to the official Apple service manual next is re-seat the CPU's. If that doesn't work I have a spare CPU (from the 1.8 SP that I'm stripping) to swap in. Now the fun part starts....

 

[gavinstubbs09]

You remind me of my old 2.7GHz G5s, always swapping parts until something worked. What a nightmare and I no longer own either of those machines, but my current 2.3 is actually an original 2003 Dual 2GHz with early 2005 2.3 internals (gutted the 2.3 to make my G5 HackMac case). I did retain the smaller G5 processor covers when I swapped in the 2.3 so it looks like an original 2003.

 

[Altemose]

The bad news is that the dual 1.8 freezes at random intervals every time - plus it won't boot on occasion . According to the official Apple service manual next is re-seat the CPU's. If that doesn't work I have a spare CPU (from the 1.8 SP that I'm stripping) to swap in. Now the fun part starts....

Run ASD to determine which CPU is bad before you start ripping everything apart. Remember CPU A is up top with CPU B on the bottom.

 

[Hack5190]

Run ASD to determine which CPU is bad before you start ripping everything apart. Remember CPU A is up top with CPU B on the bottom.

Both CPU's passed ASD and Apples hardware test. Today I was able to associate the lockup's to heavy gpu usage.

 

[Hack5190]

A big thank you to everyone who offered advice. But between video and reliability issues it's time to give up on this unit.

My craigslist find yielded an NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra video card and airport card (both in my 'good' G5). Not to mention a complete dual processor 1.8 parts machine (less one dodgy motherboard). Overall it wasn't a bad purchase

UPDATE: The conclusion to this saga can be found here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/dual-to-single-conversion-saves-g5.1955062/