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Rebuild of iMac G5
- Thread starter S.B.G
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Cool thanks! I was unsure about whether or not adding a chip would make it work or not. Sometimes companies put spots for things other models have, but don't allow them to work.
I read the description on one of them and it says it works on all iMac G5's.
I had a 1.6GHz iMac and it was decent, 2GB of ram and a 160GB HDD. The only thing that bothered me about it was the CPU fan at the bottom. Loud as I'll get out. Had it stayed quiet I may have kept it!
Great to see some love for the iMac G5s around here! I have one on my desk that I absolutely love! Mine is a 20" 1.8GHz Rev.A machine with 2GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD, and it zips along as well as one can expect from a computer from 2004 
I actually received it for free from my fiancé's aunt; I mentioned my interest in Macs to her at dinner once, and she mentioned that she had "an old Mac G-something" that she was tired of moving from house to house, and offered it to me for free if I wanted it. I accepted, and lo and behold, she gave me an absolutely pristine iMac G5, complete with its original box and all of its accessories! This machine is beautiful; not a nick, scratch, or blemish on it, completely free of dust, and looking like it was just taken home from the store. It makes a beautiful, useful addition to my desk
I actually received it for free from my fiancé's aunt; I mentioned my interest in Macs to her at dinner once, and she mentioned that she had "an old Mac G-something" that she was tired of moving from house to house, and offered it to me for free if I wanted it. I accepted, and lo and behold, she gave me an absolutely pristine iMac G5, complete with its original box and all of its accessories! This machine is beautiful; not a nick, scratch, or blemish on it, completely free of dust, and looking like it was just taken home from the store. It makes a beautiful, useful addition to my desk
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Great to see some love for the iMac G5s around here! I have one on my desk that I absolutely love! Mine is a 20" 1.8GHz Rev.A machine with 2GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD, and it zips along as well as one can expect from a computer from 2004
I actually received it for free from my fiancé's aunt; I mentioned my interest in Macs to her at dinner once, and she mentioned that she had "an old Mac G-something" that she was tired of moving from house to house, and offered it to me for free if I wanted it. I accepted, and lo and behold, she gave me an absolutely pristine iMac G5, complete with its original box and all of its accessories! This machine is beautiful; not a nick, scratch, or blemish on it, completely free of dust, and looking like it was just taken home from the store. It makes a beautiful, useful addition to my desk
Can I have your desk
Actually what I really like is how you have the screens lined up at the bottom.
Can I have your desk
Actually what I really like is how you have the screens lined up at the bottom.
Haha, thanks! Luckily for me, all of the displays are nearly identical in physical height and resolution, all being 27cm tall with the 20" displays on the sides being 1050px high and the 21.5" display in the middle being 1080px high. I just made little tables of various heights for the various iMacs and displays to sit on to line them up
I've actually changed one small thing that made a huge improvement - I got one of the wired keyboards without the numeric pad, which I never use on the G5 anyway, and it has made space much more manageable on the desk.
Also of interest, the little square thing under the Cinema Display is an old Apple TV running Leopard and set up as a server. Not a PowerPC Mac, but my G5 beats the pants off its Celeron
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Great to see some love for the iMac G5s.[..]Mine is a 20" 1.8GHz Rev.A machine with 2GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD, and it zips along as well as one can expect from a computer from 2004
May I ask what kind of SSD you've installed? SATA-II/III?
I've tried to install a Kingston SATA-III SSD but the imac G5 just don't see it. Google says that the imac g5 don't like SATA-III.
May I ask what kind of SSD you've installed? SATA-II/III?
I've tried to install a Kingston SATA-III SSD but the imac G5 just don't see it. Google says that the imac g5 don't like SATA-III.
This is the SSD that I have in my iMac. I have also found it impossible to get the iMac to recognize SATA III SSDs, and so I bought this one for it used for $20, and it works marvelously. There isn't a major difference in overall speed, although launching apps and whatnot is a bit snappier, but if you're multitasking and two things hit the disk at once, the difference is night and day. Plus, it's silent and generates less heat than the stock drive. I have it held in with a little double-sided sticky pad
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This is the SSD that I have in my iMac. I have also found it impossible to get the iMac to recognize SATA III SSDs, and so I bought this one for it used for $20, and it works marvelously. There isn't a major difference in overall speed, although launching apps and whatnot is a bit snappier, but if you're multitasking and two things hit the disk at once, the difference is night and day. Plus, it's silent and generates less heat than the stock drive. I have it held in with a little double-sided sticky pad
What are you doing for TRIM on that SSD?
This is the SSD that I have in my iMac. I have also found it impossible to get the iMac to recognize SATA III SSDs, and so I bought this one for it used for $20, and it works marvelously. There isn't a major difference in overall speed, although launching apps and whatnot is a bit snappier, but if you're multitasking and two things hit the disk at once, the difference is night and day. Plus, it's silent and generates less heat than the stock drive. I have it held in with a little double-sided sticky pad
I have had the exact same experience in the past with the iMac G5. I only recognizes SATA II SSD's. I've have a thread about this on this forum somewhere.
Anyways, nice that it is running smooth!
Interesting. And it's running just fine like you said. How long have you had it and how much do you use it?
The SSD has been in there for around three months, and I use the iMac nearly every day. I don't do terribly intensive things on it, but it still gets used a fair bit.
Good deal. I ordered an OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB SATA II 2.5" SSD for mine and I hope I have as good a luck as you're having.
Sweet deal! Don't expect the fastest performance in the world, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how it performs with an SSD
Sweet deal! Don't expect the fastest performance in the world, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how it performs with an SSD
I have a Samsung 830 in a MBP and and the 840 in an Intel iMac so I know what SATA III speeds are like. I'm not expecting the same performance out of this OCZ as those, but I am hopeful for a little bump over the HDD. Plus, I just want to see it work.
I have a Samsung 830 in a MBP and and the 840 in an Intel iMac so I know what SATA III speeds are like. I'm not expecting the same performance out of this OCZ as those, but I am hopeful for a little bump over the HDD. Plus, I just want to see it work.
The overall speed really isn't that impressive, and falls around the same as the old HDD; however, simultaneous disk activities are astoundingly less painful with the SSD. Plus it makes no noise, less heat, and puts a little less strain on an aging power supply; what's not to love? And, like you said, it's just fun to see it working
The overall speed really isn't that impressive, and falls around the same as the old HDD; however, simultaneous disk activities are astoundingly less painful with the SSD. Plus it makes no noise, less heat, and puts a little less strain on an aging power supply; what's not to love? And, like you said, it's just fun to see it working
Thanks for the tips. I put a new PSU in it already so I hope it lasts a good long while too.
My plans for this machine aren't much, as this is more of a fun hobby thing to do.
The original iMac G5s make great PowerPC hobby machines. They're powerful, take up little space, and are astoundingly easy to get into to tinker with. Hopefully your G5 gives you a long, healthy life of service!
Lovely to see that you're investing so much care into this machine - they're truly underrated computers. I hope that with the upgrades you're putting into it, you'll end up with a machine that will serve you for years to come.
Actually, once completed I'll be giving it to some good friends so their children can use it for learning (and getting indoctrinated into the Apple ecosystem
).After that I plan on looking for a PowerMac G5 to tinker with.
Right now the iMac is doing very well. I updated to QuickTime 7.6 for Leopard so that videos can play through iTunes and such. HomeSharing works flawlessly in conjunction with my Mavericks iTunes library on the 2010 Intel iMac I have.
1080p videos will not (obviously) play, but lesser resolution videos do play. I am streaming (over the newly installed WiFi) an episode of Band of Brothers right now that I ripped to iTunes last year. It was a little choppy at first but once it buffered fully, it started playing well. Music also plays over the network easily.
Overall, I am very impressed at some of the stuff it is still able to do. On YouTube there was a message saying that eventually they will not be supporting this older browser (Firefox 3.6.28).
