Purchasing Advice

[bobbytomorow]

I have come across a local guy who is willing to sell me his G4 imac for $120. He was having hardware issues and just had a mac shop install a new power supply, that ended up not solving his issues and he wants to sell it rather than put more money into it.

I am a pc guy, but I've always loved the ilamp design so I wouldn't mind buying it from him if I knew I could fix it myself on the cheap. I build pc's so I like to think I'm pretty savvy electronically but pc's are easy and a lot cheaper to build and repair than mac (so I hear).

Anyway, these are his symptoms,

Here's the lowdown. First it wouldn't startup, turned out the power supply was shot. Replaced internal power supply and it started up but the monitor was a sort of a plaid design, but works fine from external monitor for about five to ten minutes then shuts itself down??

Sounds to me like a gpu heat issue but having very little experience with mac hardware I can't be certain. I'm thinking I could open it up and possible replace the stock fan\fans, maybe do some modding with some heatsinks and use some good thermal compound like AS5.


All in all it could be a fun project IF ITS CHEAP Anybody have any experience with similar symptoms and have any advice?


Here are the specs just in case:

800MHz
512mb RAM
60gb HDD
Super Drive
apple keyboard and mouse

Thanks for your time

 

[l33r0y]

Avoid. Not worth the hassle IMO.

 

[acearchie]

Expensive!

The parts are either expensive or inaccessible! I have a similar spec machine sitting right infront of me and from simply looking at its difficult to access.

I recently tried something similar with an iBook G4 and found from practice and otehr peoples advice that Macs are notoriously difficult to access! (logic board etc...) possible except the Mac Pro and Powermac G5!

Sorry to let you down as it may sound like a fun project but in my opinion it will bring you more worries that fun!

After I had kitted out my iBook the hard drive decided to fail so $120 I have decided to give up! Ha

Thats all I know really!

Hope this helps!

 

[bobbytomorow]

Thanks for the input people. I guess I'll pass this it up then.

Again, thanks

 

[bobbytomorow]

lol i know this is going to sound redundant but he went down to $100 even I mean What would you do?

 

[CRAZYBUBBA]

lol i know this is going to sound redundant but he went down to $100 even I mean What would you do?

The general consenus is this: The computer won't be worth the $$ that you put into it.

HOWEVER, if you are buying this as a nice piece fo nostalgia/side project I'd say go for it, but be congnisant of the costs.

Ps: this thread belongs in the 'buyings tips' forum.