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Looking for an old PowerMac G5 (before late 2005)

Kizuo

Kizuo

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 6, 2022
2
0
Hey guys, I’m new here. I have recently found an interest in old Macintosh computers and have decided that I want to own a PowerMac G5 as the first Mac of my collection. I am looking for one made before late 2005, because of the power board situation. I am going to collect them just for display purposes and am looking for only the case, with no internals except for the DVD-ROM drive (superdrive?) and that power board in the front. I also wouldn’t mind one that had something still in there, like a HDD or the logic board. But I do need a case that is in like-new condition (on the outside) yet wouldn’t mind some dust or cosmetic damage on the inside. Hopefully I don’t sound too snotty about this whole shebang. Do you have any links to EBay listings or other web resources that offer a case with the criteria listed above? I found one on dvwarehouse but not sure of the reputation there. Do you guys have any ideas about dvwarehouse? Thank you!!!!
 
My old boss bought brand new a 1.8Ghz single processor Late 2004 G5 in February 2005. That's a PowerMac9,1. Lots of people didn't care for that Mac (unreliable I guess) but it worked great for me all the time I worked that job.

Your requirements don't seem to indicate you want it to actually work for you could probably find a few dead ones for cheap off eBay.
 
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The DVWarehouse link says Used Grade C. Meaning it's going to look horrible. Scratched, dinged, dented, &c.

The best option for this is probably to scour the likes of Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace daily. Until you find one you like. As there is a high chance anything on eBay will have the handles damaged during shipping. If they don't have the original box or don't do an exceptional job packing it.
 
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velocityg4 said:
As there is a high chance anything on eBay will have the handles damaged during shipping. If they don't have the original box or don't do an exceptional job packing it.
Click to expand...

This an important warning to bear in mind regarding the G5 and the cMP, for that matter. There's no end of horror stories on here and elsewhere involving machines which were damaged by careless and thoughtless staff in delivery and sorting hubs. Mine escaped this fate because I personally transported them from the place of purchase to my home.
 
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Well, it is a shame that people these days only care about getting paid, not taking care of the actual goods.
 
Kizuo said:
Hey guys, I’m new here. I have recently found an interest in old Macintosh computers and have decided that I want to own a PowerMac G5 as the first Mac of my collection. I am looking for one made before late 2005, because of the power board situation. I am going to collect them just for display purposes and am looking for only the case, with no internals except for the DVD-ROM drive (superdrive?) and that power board in the front. I also wouldn’t mind one that had something still in there, like a HDD or the logic board. But I do need a case that is in like-new condition (on the outside) yet wouldn’t mind some dust or cosmetic damage on the inside. Hopefully I don’t sound too snotty about this whole shebang. Do you have any links to EBay listings or other web resources that offer a case with the criteria listed above? I found one on dvwarehouse but not sure of the reputation there. Do you guys have any ideas about dvwarehouse? Thank you!!!!
Click to expand...

Keep your eyes open for local postings on Craigslist or maybe even Marketplace (guessing on the latter since I’ve never joined FB) for case-only listings. Locally speaking, I see “case-only” listings on CL and Kijiji come up with relative frequency — namely geared toward folks who either want to drop in an ATX board and run a PC inside a G5/MP case, or to use the case for some kind of furniture mod (including for a coffee table[!!!]).

Generally speaking, the ones I’ve seen like this don’t, from the front or the sides, appear to have the front board missing. As the door(s) on the DVD doors are part of the case and not the drive itself, these also appear to be intact, as well.
 
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Tratkazir_the_1st said:
Kill all such idiots!!!
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I kinda agree - funny thing is - I recently compiled the nvidia kernel modules on this thing (POWER MAC G5 QUAD) - now granted it turns out I don't have the user drivers - they are proprietary but I guess if you really wanted you could run qemu user emulation (don't know how fast it would be) with them (for aarch64 or x86_64) and get a working nividia acceleration of modern gpus.

Now I'll personally be using an HD5450 just because it's the most modern AMD GPU I have but like if you have a more powerful model you should probably give it a shot.

I'm running Gentoo btw.

However like if you just want to run powerful ppc macos games (well I can only come up with one such game - Amnesia The Dark Descent - you could probably try compiling darling and running with that - or this game actually has an opensource version on github as well).


My point is you can have a fairly modern system without trashing the internals.

But to be quite frank - I actually use the g5 lid as a cooler for my laptops/desk for my kb and mouse and it works fine for that purpose as well.
 
B S Magnet said:
folks who either want to drop in an ATX board and run a PC inside a G5/MP case, or to use the case for some kind of furniture mod (including for a coffee table[!!!]).
Click to expand...
As long as that does not involve killing a working G5, I don't see any problem with that ;) After all, this is still better than using the case as a gun target or throwing it off a bridge.
 
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Kizuo said:
Hey guys, I’m new here. I have recently found an interest in old Macintosh computers and have decided that I want to own a PowerMac G5 as the first Mac of my collection. I am looking for one made before late 2005, because of the power board situation. I am going to collect them just for display purposes and am looking for only the case, with no internals except for the DVD-ROM drive (superdrive?) and that power board in the front. I also wouldn’t mind one that had something still in there, like a HDD or the logic board. But I do need a case that is in like-new condition (on the outside) yet wouldn’t mind some dust or cosmetic damage on the inside. Hopefully I don’t sound too snotty about this whole shebang. Do you have any links to EBay listings or other web resources that offer a case with the criteria listed above? I found one on dvwarehouse but not sure of the reputation there. Do you guys have any ideas about dvwarehouse? Thank you!!!!
Click to expand...
I have one thats sitting around gathering Dust,
I had at one point the older one, I can't recall but I know the G5 I'm thinking about has 12GB of ECC ram and runs Leopard well.
 
Kizuo said:
Hey guys, I’m new here. I have recently found an interest in old Macintosh computers and have decided that I want to own a PowerMac G5 as the first Mac of my collection. I am looking for one made before late 2005, because of the power board situation. I am going to collect them just for display purposes and am looking for only the case, with no internals except for the DVD-ROM drive (superdrive?) and that power board in the front. I also wouldn’t mind one that had something still in there, like a HDD or the logic board. But I do need a case that is in like-new condition (on the outside) yet wouldn’t mind some dust or cosmetic damage on the inside. Hopefully I don’t sound too snotty about this whole shebang. Do you have any links to EBay listings or other web resources that offer a case with the criteria listed above? I found one on dvwarehouse but not sure of the reputation there. Do you guys have any ideas about dvwarehouse? Thank you!!!!
Click to expand...
Can you tell me what the Power Board Situation was?

The G5 I have is in Mint condition, with all parts and panels, and boots up after you reset the Logic Board using Apples PowerPC Methods.
 
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