The Reliability of PPC Macs...

[ifrit05]

Are astonishing.

My XFX ATI Radeon HD 6770 in my HP desktop just crapped out on me, the ball baring just went. I've only had this GPU for about 2 1/2 years.

On the other hand, all my PPC Macs mostly still work with the stock components and the ATI Radeon 9800XT that was originally in my G5 still works great.

Just goes to show how much effort Apple puts into their product's.

 

[eyoungren]

Are astonishing.

My XFX ATI Radeon HD 6770 in my HP desktop just crapped out on me, the ball baring just went. I've only had this GPU for about 2 1/2 years.

On the other hand, all my PPC Macs mostly still work with the stock components and the ATI Radeon 9800XT that was originally in my G5 still works great.

Just goes to show how much effort Apple puts into their product's.

Yep…Apple quality built in!

 

[yly3]

Well typing this from my mint condition late 2005 PowerBook G4 says a thing or two. Sure, it's running on a 7200rpm 250gb hard drive and the battery is new.

I have had a few share of iBooks, PowerBook and 2007 MacBook Pros all the way to the 2012 Retina.
Both owned and a few from very close friends.

What I can say from my experience is that Apple used to make more reliable laptops. Not that they are dreadful now but maybe it's a sum of different factors.
Back then, iPods and Macs were their revenue, now it's iPads and iPhone.
Back then, their laptops didn't have i7 quad-cores. So much more power to handle in a case.

That being said, I also think their OS was significally better, at least certainly more stable. Ever since Lion, Apple dropped the ball in my book.
Consider me a 10.5/10.6 purist or whatever but running my powerbook on leopard feels a much more pleasent experience and intimate comparing to nowadays computing habits. For basic type of usage of course.

 

[abbotkinneydude]

Unlimited Lives

I have to say that most of the PPC towers have been extremely well thought out by Apple (I no longer use my beige G3 and my Blue & White G3 but those were terrific machines). I still have to get a Quad G5 but the two MMDs I have here (dual 1.25 & dual 1.42) have become my main work stations (outside of the film scoring which is handled by my Penryn black book until the nMP is delivered). MDD wise, I hacked ATX power supplies, maxed out the ram, added a SATA Sonnet PCI card in each, upgraded the sound to M-Audio 2496 & 192 (complete with Monster Cables out), replaced the Radeons 9000 by the 9600, etc. But the real breakthrough came when I swapped the thermal sink of the dual 1.25 (the dual 1.42 always had the "best configuration" copper heat sink but the dual 1.25 only had the thin aluminium heat sink). Combined with a more recent thermal paste (MX-4) and a new Scythe 120MM fan, I really diminished the noise coming out of it and made it run a lot cooler which made crashes / kernel panics almost a non issue (no longer a wind tunnel for sure). My next purchase is a couple of SDD drives to act as boot drives. Only complaint about the MDD (which doesn't seem to be easily fixable): the built-in USB / Firewire ports are poor and die very quickly so you have to use PCI cards for those functions.

 

[heartsglory]

I have a Powermac G5 DC 2.3 with 6GB Ram at home. It was my main machine for designing and developing websites for clients. I say WAS because I bought a Macbook Mid 2009 hoping to get into iOS development. However, once I upgraded to Mavericks, my Macbook became at times SLOWER than my Powermac.

You all at least won't think I'm crazy when I say this: I am about to REVERT to my Powermac G5 as my main machine and just keep the Macbook as a portable.

 

[NOTNlCE]

I have had two G5s crap out on me, both in the Power Supply. However, I have a 2001 Dual 500 G4 running as I am typing this. Crazy, right?

 

[eyoungren]

I have had two G5s crap out on me, both in the Power Supply. However, I have a 2001 Dual 500 G4 running as I am typing this. Crazy, right?

I'm an anomaly. Boss bought a PowerMac G5 1.8Ghz (single processor) in Feb. 2005. That Mac was on and running 24/7, 365 days a year (including weekends/holidays when no one was here) and was under heavy load every time it was used, but lasted until March 2013. Replaced the logicboard and it's going strong again. What's funny is that the "new" logicboard is older than the original!

I'm told that a lot of G5s of this model were crap. That's why I say I'm an anomaly.

 

[NOTNlCE]

I'm an anomaly. Boss bought a PowerMac G5 1.8Ghz (single processor) in Feb. 2005. That Mac was on and running 24/7, 365 days a year (including weekends/holidays when no one was here) and was under heavy load every time it was used, but lasted until March 2013. Replaced the logicboard and it's going strong again. What's funny is that the "new" logicboard is older than the original!

I'm told that a lot of G5s of this model were crap. That's why I say I'm an anomaly.

Personally, I think the engineering was a bit rushed. I've witnessed a G5 catch fire while mixing a music track, but they really are great machines if they last. Actually fairly jealous that yours still functions. A customer of mine is bringing me his Quad that won't start up, I suspect the PSU once again. Hope it's something easy though, it's a shame to have to strip out another G5.

 

[NewbieCanada]

I've witnessed a G5 catch fire while mixing a music track

Perhaps it was a judgment on the track.

 

[NOTNlCE]

Perhaps it was a judgment on the track.

Haha! If that's the case, it exploded because it couldn't handle how great it was. It really was terrifying though, my friend was mashing buttons like crazy, and all of the sudden, smoke and flames out of the G5. RIP.

 

[MultiFinder17]

I have a first-generation 1.8GHz 20" iMac G5, statistically one of the least reliable computers Apple has ever put out, and it is running without a single fault nearly ten years after it was made. I take the back off every 2-3 months to blow out dust and check the capacitors, and none of them are leaking or even bulging in the slightest. It just goes to show that you can't count out every machine of a model just because some (or most ) of them are bad!

 

[roadbloc]

Are astonishing.

I concur. My iMac G4 still soldiers on and beyond my White Macbook, Macbook Air and Intel iMac which are all in computer heaven/hell for good.

 

[harrymatic]

I'm a bit nervous answering this because last time I mentioned the reliability of my PPC Macs, the screen on my iBook went and died the next day because I jinxed it (it was an easy fix - just had to replace the backlight cable which had severed). Other than that I've had nothing go wrong with either my iBook (which has since been retired) or my Power Mac G4 MDD which I use daily as my main machine. Both of these machines are now over 10 years old...

This is more that can be said for the many PCs I have owned over the years, I don't think I've ever gone more than 6 months without something going wrong.

 

[eyoungren]

Personally, I think the engineering was a bit rushed. I've witnessed a G5 catch fire while mixing a music track, but they really are great machines if they last. Actually fairly jealous that yours still functions. A customer of mine is bringing me his Quad that won't start up, I suspect the PSU once again. Hope it's something easy though, it's a shame to have to strip out another G5.

Yeah, when I got this Mac I just "assumed" it would be like the two G4s we had then. When the years rolled by and it just kept going I wasn't surprised.

So, it was a bit shocking to find out that there were so many problems and that my experience was not the norm.

 

[gavinstubbs09]

All of the PowerPC macs I've owned I've had one that was so bad I just ended up having to part it out. Hated to do it but the iMac G5 wasn't worth fixing. It was a 1.9GHz iSight 17" model that I had bought and it needed a reflow on the GPU so that's what happened and a month later it died. Besides that mac I really haven't had any issues - never had to replace a motherboard in a PPC mac (yet!) so I consider that good luck!

 

[Nameci]

I am posting from my first Powermac G4, a PCI Powermac G4 450MHz. This PM G4 was rescued from a trash bin. Though one of the HDD died recently it is still soldiering on.

 

[deluxeshredder]

There were quite a lot of quality problems with PowerPC Macs, with the (probably) most notable one being the G5 coolant leaks.

 

[WMD]

There were certainly a few bad apples (pun intended) during the PPC era. Most notable were the white iBook G3 logic board/video chipset failures, and the aformentioned G5 coolant leakages. My own PowerBook G4 12" runs mostly fine, except that the fan is worn out and makes all kinds of noise. (Replacing it is a chore and a half, so I never did it.)

 

[rickvanr]

There was quite a lot of quality problems with PowerPC Macs, with the (probably) most notable one being the G5 coolant leaks.

The replacement Mac Pro I received because of the coolant leak in my Dual 2.7 G5 is still a working like a champ. Money well spent (on the G5).

 

[deluxeshredder]

The replacement Mac Pro I received because of the coolant leak in my Dual 2.7 G5 is still a working like a champ. Money well spent (on the G5).

That's Apple's customer service at work.

I recently had to wait 5 (!) months to get my DSLR repaired.

 

[SkyBell]

Personally, I've had... not the best of luck with PPC machines, it seems. My long-passed away white iBook G3 had every problem that model was known for, and then some.

My clamshell iBook G3 has in the past few months developed some sort of video/display issue, with everything appearing very grainy and blotchy on the screen.

I've had two iBook G4's, one of them that I sold a few years back was flawless; but the one I still have, well, same graphics issues that my G3 had. To top it off, the hard drive crashed a few months back, so I'm pretty much calling it dead.

I had a Rev. A iMac G3 that worked well for years, but then suddenly had the power supply (I think) give out one day. My Rev. C however, worked until the day I had to leave both machines behind when I moved.

But, uh, my eMac has been a good soldier.

 

[g4manimac]

I've gotta get me another power PC they have always worked great for me and been extremely reliable plus any problems that arrive I can easily fix.Ive been looking on ebay and have narrowed my search down to either a g4 iBook ,power book g4 or something I have never had and always wanted a power mac g5 but still don't know if I'm ready to get rid of portability.

 

[OneMoreMacUser]

I had a Rev. A iMac G3 that worked well for years, but then suddenly had the power supply (I think) give out one day.

Try replacing the PRAM battery, I thought my power supply on my iMac g3 rev. A had died (and those things are REALLY expensive) and I replaced the PRAM battery and it fired right up!!!

 

[Altemose]

I love PPC Macs. They had their problems, but were generally reliable. It seems as if there are alot more problems now. I am talking about iMac hard drive failures, MacBook bottom cases, faulty Nvidia GPUs, and not to mention brand new MacBook Airs with SSDs that could crash at any second. The two major problems with PPCs were capacitors in iMacs and liquid cooling in PowerMacs.

 

[AdrianK]

Just goes to show how much effort Apple puts into their product's.

Everyone knows that Apple manufactures the best GPU fans