Apple's G5 Power Mac. Testing and Fixing.

Рет қаралды 4,797

4 ай бұрын

This Video is sponsored by PCBWay. Check out the link below for more information.
www.pcbway.com/
The Power Mac G5 was a monster of a machine compared to the G4. The Heavy aluminium case was a huge departure from the curvy plastic case it replaced, but it was not a cool as it seems, quite Literally!
When I set out to buy a second machine to complement my first G5, things went sideways quickly. Instead of two machines, I ended up with 7, six of which came from a seller who didn't understand how they worked, and with parts missing. So for Marchintosh this year, I'm grabbing them and testing them all, seeing if we have any truly broken machines, and whats missing. Can I coble together enough parts to get the G5 Army back up and running?
Let's find out.
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Пікірлер: 59

@rickkarrer8370 4 ай бұрын

You had me at "I may have a problem" lol.

@mattstone8878 4 ай бұрын

Thats the least of the problems...😅

@peteasmr2952 4 ай бұрын

Me too!!

@techdept 4 ай бұрын

My better half has now banned me from buying any more G5s. Mac Pros however….i just got my second, muhahahaha

@nysaea 4 ай бұрын

always a pleasure to visit your tech department! ^^

@Dreams_Of_Lavender Ай бұрын

So I'm not the only ones that name my old machines :0 I usually try to use puns about what they are or names inspired by their repair and refurbishment process, lol My current project since mid-may has been a Gigabit Ethernet G4 PowerMac with dual 450MHz processors I've been tinkering with to essentially convert it to specs closer to late Quicksilvers or earlier single processor MDDs. I named her "Hela" because damn. It's had so many little things fail and was missing so many parts when I got it, it turned into an absolute money sink, lol

@mvrck-pb5pk 3 ай бұрын

Love the naming convention of your G5 Power Mac(s).

@Olinca 4 ай бұрын

Love these, Jess, especially the history bits at the beginning! little glimpses into a world I knew absolutely zero things about, always very fascinating. and I am now thinking of giving my laptop a stripper name...

@techdept 4 ай бұрын

Awwww, thank you. And yay stripper names.

@techdept 4 ай бұрын

Ooooh, I see tea shirts with a G5 and a pole!

@edwardsfamily6184 4 ай бұрын

I miss my old g5 sadly about 5 years ago I had a break in my old property and some horrible tow rags stole my mac Pro g5 and my ps3 my TV my Sony ps vita all my games but the one thing I missed most was my mac Pro g5 I love music and making music I had all my music I made on it I was so unhappy as I never been able to afford to buy another one I so wish I had one now all I own is a tablet and a phone these days love your vlog keep up the good work ❤❤

@BigBadBench 4 ай бұрын

Good stuff! I'd never heard about that cost-reduced model before.

@techdept 4 ай бұрын

Oh that was a surprise. Very odd decision from Apple…..no wait…..:)

@rageers 2 ай бұрын

I've got a similar problem. Managed to buy 10 to complement one I had an another that did not work, and now I have 13 cheese grater Macs, and one is a G5 with missing fans. I haven't named them yet though. Some of them probably need a name and a home that shows them some love and attention. All had missing drives and cards that were taken out from a sound studio.

@techdept 2 ай бұрын

The G5 is just a great looking machine. I’m really looking forward to stripping all of mine back and getting the cleaned out and checked out. I’m concerned about those power supplies and the caps within. :)

@NeilKnows-qv8zz 3 ай бұрын

Love the special effects on the CPU heatsinks at timestamp 15:40 ;-)

@AlexandreLollini Ай бұрын

It's a good arms workout !

@NeilKnows-qv8zz 3 ай бұрын

I love the idea that you name your machines :-)

@techdept 3 ай бұрын

The other half started that. First based on where they came from , but now anything goes. I just got an Amstrad CPC464 in with a stuck return key, opened case, jammed speaker and the PCB has begun to bend upwards due to the speaker issue. I’ve called that one ‘Lucky’.

@alancurtis1388 4 ай бұрын

I have a g5 can't wait to see what you do to them

@techdept 4 ай бұрын

I’m not sure yet, but I have a few ideas.

@NdxtremePro 3 ай бұрын

You can run of them as a server to share netinstall and netboot images so you don't have to go around with discs and usb sticks to install and test out the different versions.

@vulcanitu2578 3 ай бұрын

Nice vid, man

@i-am-cylon-man Ай бұрын

😂

@AlexandreLollini Ай бұрын

It can need the heat transfer re-pasted (clean cpu/gpu dye and heat sink surfaces and apply new heat transfer paste, like arctic silver etc. I use Noctua; but sadly this is needed every 2 years. The original Apple paste was probably better as it last longer. SYmptom for me were picture going black on the display (gpu) or mar not booting all the way (cpu)

@dmug 28 күн бұрын

Glad you mentioned that it was a bit of a downgrade. I had a dual 2 GHz g5 I bought in 2004, replacing a heavily upgraded PowerMac G4, and while the g5 was faster, wasn’t radically so and hit that awkward phase when 24-bit audio became the ideal recording bit depth and HD video was taking off, and was ill suited for either (not to mention Apple jettisoned PowerPC support in snow leopard) thus making it the most disappointing computer I owned.

@neway518 3 ай бұрын

Don’t worry, I just bought 7, only 2 are working. I am trying to see if I could cannibalise the non working 5 and hopefully have at least one more working, so that I can use them during winter. The case is beautiful, would try to repurpose those that cannot be revived. Just dismantle a really rusty one due to leaking LCS.

@techdept 2 ай бұрын

Yup. And if you look at one of them the wrong way, it’ll be 1 working! Still they’re great looking machines. But I’m now banned from buying any more PowerPC based Power Macs.

@Natures_Intentions 4 ай бұрын

those are awesome computers i used a few in a music studio back in the day

@techdept 4 ай бұрын

Yeah, I know that people really loved these for studio work. I’ve got a great sound card for one of the G4s that I’ll be using for a mini studio set up later in the year.

@Natures_Intentions 4 ай бұрын

@@techdept that is awesome I just found your channel and I love what you do with the old computers

@samupaaso4180 4 ай бұрын

For the noise, you'd want to check the transparent plastic baffle that seals the cooling chamber. More specifically, take a close look at the tabs at the bottom. The one that's the frontmost should be covered by tape or aluminium foil. This has to do with the machine sensing if the baffle is in place. Most of the G5s I've seen have lost this piece of tape and hence the system cannot detect if the baffle is in place (and so ramping up the fans). I'd also check the RAM, my memory tells me that it should definitely be 400MHz DDR1 RAM, you'll be having issues with any lesser RAM. I'm looking forward into seeing part 2 of this saga.

@NdxtremePro 3 ай бұрын

That isn't PCI X 2, that is PCI-X, the two you read was indicating a dual processor system. PCI-X was an extension to the PCI buss standard commonly used in servers of the day. It ran at faster speeds and pumped data in with twice as many connections, while being backwards compatible with PCI devices. The ones in your system could get close to PCI-E speeds, albeit it was a shared bus rather than a point to point bus like the newer PCI-E.

@techdept 3 ай бұрын

Thanks for that. I find the G5 to somewhat confusing at times. So many variants.

@RetroRecollections 4 ай бұрын

Interesting video. I'm wondering if you end up with at least one non functioning or sacrificial machine you may be able to use that lovely case for a stealth build?

@techdept 4 ай бұрын

I have an idea for one build, but I’m not 100% certain what it’ll be. I do know it’s getting painted!

@oguching 3 ай бұрын

Aluminium. Yes. Thank you Jess B.

@MeowingCookie_ 4 ай бұрын

I have a problem too lol. I bought a g4 mdd that needs a new power supply and 2 days later I bought a blue g3 that someone mangled the hard drive and for some insane reason cut a molex cable???

@techdept 4 ай бұрын

Why! Why cut the molex! The G5s may take over, but the 7 G4s and three G3 B&Ws are egging them on!

@danielrhodes7594 4 ай бұрын

From other KZfaqrs the imac based motherboard G5 is rare.

@aaron.sorenson 4 ай бұрын

Cause they had a lot of issue

@AlexandreLollini Ай бұрын

Nooooo! the right OS for those is 10.4.11 (or 12) Tiger or Suriken !! with classic etc. I savec one from ebay and feed it with ram and ssd from OWC macsales, and it's solid. just avoid the liquid cooled ones and you're safe (almost) I have a long story with those, I first had (new) a DP 2.7 with the right GPU, it leaked after 24/7 use from 2005 to 2016. (stable 97°C no cheating) So I "purchased" 4 of those and made two good. The NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL still rocks.

@RetroTechorDie 4 ай бұрын

Really thought the inside was on fire at 16:37, but its the reflection LOL

@techdept 4 ай бұрын

It’s a concern with some of them!

@rickkarrer8370 4 ай бұрын

But you really had me at "a bunch of strippers" lol.

@techdept 4 ай бұрын

Yeah. It was……unfortunate. But hey if it works, it works. There’s Curly, Larry and Moe somewhere.

@alancurtis1388 4 ай бұрын

I'm crying here your so funny 🤣🤣🤣

@techdept 4 ай бұрын

You are waaay too kind Alan, but thanks.

@monde9419 3 ай бұрын

If the G5 logo's on there twice, it's a DP. Once is dual core or single cpu

@techdept 2 ай бұрын

The more you know. Seriously Apple, why be so confusing. :)

@Mind-your-own-beeswax 3 ай бұрын

Had one of these for ages along with a max pro 5.1. Neither have been powered up in years but I remember the G5 had a habit of kernel panic and crashed constantly. The 5.1 no longer boots as the HDD died and as it has a non standard graphics card I can’t get to the boot screen to install another OS.

@techdept 3 ай бұрын

That sucks. I have a 5.1 and a later 2010 model. The latter needs a GPU before it’ll be back in the land of the living. Tracking down the older cards are a pain!