Hi all,
I had collected old Mac hardware for some years, but life and work took out that hobby for some time. Back then, I documented my small collection here: http://jvgavila.com/mac.htm
But, some weeks ago, I found an ad of a Power Mac G5 which was described as faulty, for a reasonable 40 EUR, so I bought it. And, boy, I was hooked again
!!!
I should say that I work all day fixing electronics (mostly radio amateur equipment, but also test equipment and other electronics), so I enjoy buying faulty things and getting them back to work.
To make the long story shorter, after some days I found a Mac Pro 3.1 (early 2008), with 8 GB, 750 GB HD and ATI Radeon 2600 XT grahics card. It was also faulty, and I grabbed it for 200 EUR. Unfortunately, it has an obscure fault, as it keeps stopping working at any moment, and then fans go high speed. I have read quite a lot of threads of that problem and, once I was able to replace power supply, graphics card, RAM and hard disk (read later), I concluded that the fault is on the logic board. I located one on eBay UK and it is on its way to Spain
But, meanwhile, I found another faulty Mac Pro 3.1, exactly the same model (except for graphics card, which was a NVIDIA 8800GT). Seller told me that it had been discarded at an official Apple Technical Service, as needing a new logic board. But it was cheap (50 EUR, less hard disk and RAM), and finally I got it, with 14 GB RAM, for 100 EUR.
I used it to replace the power supply and graphics card on my other unit, to find those were not the problem. But the surprise came when I, just for fun, tried to power up this one. As I had been swapping things, now I had the second Mac Pro with the graphics card and power supply of the first one. And it booted up and worked fine for some hours!. So, why someone had discarded it?. I found the reason: the NVIDIA graphics card on the second unit was faulty . But all the rest worked !!!
So, all in all, I have a full working unit and a second one in need of a logic board (on its way) and a graphics card (already located)
I have been working with the unit and find it fast enough. My main computer now is a 2012' i7-2600K with 8 GB and running Windows 10 (sorry). I run on both computers Geekbench 3 (32 bits, as it was the free version) and the results are very close. Not bad for a 2008 machine, I would say.
Currently I have OS X Mavericks on the Mac Pro. I wonder if there is any real benefit in upgrading it, as I don't have any other Apple device right now and I have read some negative comments in other threads.
Well, sorry for the long rant but I wanted to share my adventure with you. I hope someone arrives to this point
Regards,
Jose
I had collected old Mac hardware for some years, but life and work took out that hobby for some time. Back then, I documented my small collection here: http://jvgavila.com/mac.htm
But, some weeks ago, I found an ad of a Power Mac G5 which was described as faulty, for a reasonable 40 EUR, so I bought it. And, boy, I was hooked again
!!!I should say that I work all day fixing electronics (mostly radio amateur equipment, but also test equipment and other electronics), so I enjoy buying faulty things and getting them back to work.
To make the long story shorter, after some days I found a Mac Pro 3.1 (early 2008), with 8 GB, 750 GB HD and ATI Radeon 2600 XT grahics card. It was also faulty, and I grabbed it for 200 EUR. Unfortunately, it has an obscure fault, as it keeps stopping working at any moment, and then fans go high speed. I have read quite a lot of threads of that problem and, once I was able to replace power supply, graphics card, RAM and hard disk (read later), I concluded that the fault is on the logic board. I located one on eBay UK and it is on its way to Spain
But, meanwhile, I found another faulty Mac Pro 3.1, exactly the same model (except for graphics card, which was a NVIDIA 8800GT). Seller told me that it had been discarded at an official Apple Technical Service, as needing a new logic board. But it was cheap (50 EUR, less hard disk and RAM), and finally I got it, with 14 GB RAM, for 100 EUR.
I used it to replace the power supply and graphics card on my other unit, to find those were not the problem. But the surprise came when I, just for fun, tried to power up this one. As I had been swapping things, now I had the second Mac Pro with the graphics card and power supply of the first one. And it booted up and worked fine for some hours!. So, why someone had discarded it?. I found the reason: the NVIDIA graphics card on the second unit was faulty
. But all the rest worked !!!So, all in all, I have a full working unit and a second one in need of a logic board (on its way) and a graphics card (already located)
I have been working with the unit and find it fast enough. My main computer now is a 2012' i7-2600K with 8 GB and running Windows 10 (sorry). I run on both computers Geekbench 3 (32 bits, as it was the free version) and the results are very close. Not bad for a 2008 machine, I would say.
Currently I have OS X Mavericks on the Mac Pro. I wonder if there is any real benefit in upgrading it, as I don't have any other Apple device right now and I have read some negative comments in other threads.
Well, sorry for the long rant but I wanted to share my adventure with you. I hope someone arrives to this point
Regards,
Jose
