The Reliability of PPC Macs...

[macnerd93]

the most infamous macs for unreliability have to be...

1. iBook G3 White
2. iMac G5
3. Liquid Cooled G5
4. The early models of eMac

My old iBook G3 died, but I have a later model eMac, working perfect. My August 2004 Dual G5 also works like a charm running and storing all my rowing training videos

 

[KeegM480]

Yep…Apple quality built in!

Apple quality from when apple actually had quality. I haven't had my PowerMac G5 for too long (a bit less than 6 months), but have had significantly less issues with it that with my MacBook Pro. My PowerMac G5 has had 0 issues, I have actually lost count of how many times my MacBook Pro has been at the Genius bar for a hardware issue.

EDIT: Just FYI I am posting this with on my PowerMac G5 with my MacBook Pro sleeping next to me

 

[eyoungren]

Apple quality from when apple actually had quality. I haven't had my PowerMac G5 for too long (a bit less than 6 months), but have had significantly less issues with it that with my MacBook Pro. My PowerMac G5 has had 0 issues, I have actually lost count of how many times my MacBook Pro has been at the Genius bar for a hardware issue.

EDIT: Just FYI I am posting this with on my PowerMac G5 with my MacBook Pro sleeping next to me

LOL.

Yeah. You get what you pay for. Intel/PC parts have always been known as cheap. People are willing to pay for cheap because it gets them somewhere in the short term. But they pay over time because they have to buy more when cheap breaks down.

I remind my boss of this every time he has to call the IT guy for one of our PCs. Over the almost ten years I've been here we've had maybe two incidents with the Macs. But the PCs have problems ALL the time. And my boss pays and pays AND pays. But he's not paying now and hasn't been for those expensive Macs he bought early on. Because they are still working.

Apple switched to Intel and what happened? Cheap parts, cheap Macs. Of course Apple doesn't reduce the price though. And Apple would argue that they are buying premium parts and sure there are some quality PC parts. But on the whole? No.

 

[KeegM480]

LOL.
I remind my boss of this every time he has to call the IT guy for one of our PCs. Over the almost ten years I've been here we've had maybe two incidents with the Macs. But the PCs have problems ALL the time. And my boss pays and pays AND pays. But he's not paying now and hasn't been for those expensive Macs he bought early on. Because they are still working.

Exactly! One of my close friends is a PC guy. He is constantly telling me about how much cheaper his PC is and how much better it is, but the rest of the time he is complaining about all of the flaws. My church uses mostly Mac's. Where we have our main area for running everything through the church, we have a 2012 Mac Pro, 2012 iMac, and a PC. Which one has Blue Screen Of Death all the time and a fan that sounds like its about to explode... (Don't worry I wont mention our iMac sounds like its about to die as well)

But thats the sad thing all of those computers costed more than $1,000 each (PC was around 1k, iMac around 2k, and Mac Pro around 3k) yet my couple hundred dollar PowerMac has no issues

 

[NOTNlCE]

Funny about how I just ripped on the reliability of the G5s a few posts ago, just a few days ago I did some work on a G5 Quad, the most notoriously unreliable, due to the liquid cooling, and it runs incredibly. The machine wouldn't even boot up when I first got ahold of it. The problem turned out to be that there were copious amounts of dust in the machine. Literally caked with dust and dirt. Took an air compressor to that thing, brought it back inside, and plugged it in, chimed on the first try, boots into the Leopard desktop. Crazy stuff Apple did with those thermal sensors.

 

[Sniper257]

I agree on reliability with two big exceptions! The iMac G3 has a CRT with a 10-year lifespan. I've had five die on me in the past three years, it's crazy. Other exception is their notorious magsafe cables. Had one of mine melt on me and two that have frayed beyond being usable. They suck. Other than that though, they're rock solid. Just be prepared to buy replacement magsafe chargers if you invest in a MacBook.

 

[SanJacinto]

For me it is really impressive that you guys are still using hardware from 2005 and earlier.
Unfortunately, I don't use PPC Macs but I am a proud owner of a 2011 MacBook Pro 13. I want to keep this machine for as long as possible.

Do you think the modern Macs (pre-Retina) can have the same great lifespan like the PPC Macs?
Do you have any special habits that keep the hardware from dying?

 

[NOTNlCE]

For me it is really impressive that you guys are still using hardware from 2005 and earlier.
Unfortunately, I don't use PPC Macs but I am a proud owner of a 2011 MacBook Pro 13. I want to keep this machine for as long as possible.

Do you think the modern Macs (pre-Retina) can have the same great lifespan like the PPC Macs?
Do you have any special habits that keep the hardware from dying?

It depends on the Mac honestly. I'm currently typing this on a 2008 Mac Pro, which just turned 6 a few days ago. I've upgraded the heck out of this thing to keep it lasting this long, and I suspect that without a hardware failure, it will last another 6 years. Now, I didn't purchase this new, I got it used from someone who clearly took good care of it, though I have reason to believe it's had the logic board replaced. That being said, anything much older doesn't handle software well. A 2007 MacBook I worked on, even running Snow Leopard, doesn't handle flash super well based solely on the fact that it overheats, even after thermal paste replacement and a full cleaning. In my experience, not taxing machines hugely is the best way of making them last, especially after a few years. My '09 Macbook was my primary machine before this, and by just using that for mobile computing, I imagine it will last another 5+ years. However, I guess my philosophy is to drive machines into the ground before I replace them entirely. Replace parts and upgrade components until you can't anymore.

 

[Namija]

I got 2 ppc 10.4 tiger running on 512mb ram and a 1.8GHz. It is BETTER than my mom's 2gb ram (Windows) 2011 machine. Mac ppc is better than todays computers by far.