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The Big Sad: your dead Macs ☠️

Nermal said:
I remember seeing claims 10+ years ago that the Mac Plus had the longest "life" of any Mac. A couple of searches tell me that it was released in January 1986 and officially supported up to Mac OS 7.5.5, released September 1996.

I wonder whether any other Mac has beat that record.
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The 2010 MacPro5,1 appears to exceed that: released July 2010 with 10.6.4, it was supported by Apple to run up to Mojave, whose last update was 21 July 2021 and whose support was ended a few months later in October.

Unofficially, we are aware how several models go even longer.
 
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B S Magnet said:
Unofficially, we are aware how several models go even longer.
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-47319-000-3x2-Apple-History-Mac-launch-l.jpeg
 
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Nermal said:
I remember seeing claims 10+ years ago that the Mac Plus had the longest "life" of any Mac. A couple of searches tell me that it was released in January 1986 and officially supported up to Mac OS 7.5.5, released September 1996.

I wonder whether any other Mac has beat that record.
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There is a vintage Mac subreddit I'm on (some users here are also there as well) that would suggest the answer to your question is 'no'.

Lots of experience over there in recapping logicboards and rewhitening cases. Several Macs of that same era have been restored back to life due to the help in that subreddit.

Finally, due to machinations some of the users in that subreddit have actually been able to get these old Macs online. So they are still around and still being used.
 
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Nermal said:
I remember seeing claims 10+ years ago that the Mac Plus had the longest "life" of any Mac. A couple of searches tell me that it was released in January 1986 and officially supported up to Mac OS 7.5.5, released September 1996.

I wonder whether any other Mac has beat that record.
Click to expand...
I think the only other one that can come close other than the 2007 aluminum iMac is the B&W Power Mac G3, which came with Mac OS 8.5 and officially supported Tiger as well (think about that on a 300 MHz model 😂). That would be about 10 years of OS support since IIRC the last security updates for Tiger were in 2009, and theoretically one could have continued using it beyond then.
 
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QuickSilverLining said:
I think the only other one that can come close other than the 2007 aluminum iMac is the B&W Power Mac G3, which came with Mac OS 8.5 and officially supported Tiger as well (think about that on a 300 MHz model 😂). That would be about 10 years of OS support since IIRC the last security updates for Tiger were in 2009, and theoretically one could have continued using it beyond then.
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Someone could have been using the B&W supported in 2009 @ 300MHz when there’s a 27” 2.8GHz i7 iMac which was also supported…. 2009 must’ve been a weird year for some…o_O
 
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Then you have the open source community on a whole other level. The original Acorn Archimedes is still supported by Risc OS Open (the inheritor of the OS), more than 35 years later. With the proviso, of course, that you've maxed out the RAM and have a hard drive, network, or other form of storage larger than an 800k floppy :)
 
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christiann said:
Someone could have been using the B&W supported in 2009 @ 300MHz when there’s a 27” 2.8GHz i7 iMac which was also supported…. 2009 must’ve been a weird year for some…o_O
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Not really!

I was using my 2000 iBook G3/466 for taking seminar lecture notes in September 2009 — much as I had with my 2000 iBook G3/366 in 2005–06 (before I wore it out) — and connecting to university wifi without any trouble.

It wasn’t a permanent arrangement: it was a fill-in after my Santa Rosa MBP was stolen and before I bought a unibody MBP to replace it. But if need be, I could have stuck to it for browsing, YT (in the Flash era, at 240p), and working on other tasks in class, as needed (I had — and still have — Adobe CS2 and QuarkXPress 6.5.2 running on it).

EDIT to add: For a time, it was not unusual for software to specify the following: “System Requirements: G3, G4, G5, or Intel processor”
 
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eyoungren said:
There is a vintage Mac subreddit I'm on (some users here are also there as well) that would suggest the answer to your question is 'no'.

Lots of experience over there in recapping logicboards and rewhitening cases. Several Macs of that same era have been restored back to life due to the help in that subreddit.

Finally, due to machinations some of the users in that subreddit have actually been able to get these old Macs online. So they are still around and still being used.
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I think the support reference is to Apple supported, not commnity supported.
 
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I'll throw my hat in the ring, I guess.

First one that is going to be resurrected hopefully today or tomorrow (got the parts, a friend will help solder 'em in, pesky SMD caps!)

- Macintosh LC II (typical, bad caps everywhere)

The semi-working, sort-of dead, Macs:

- 2007 MacBook Pro Santa Rosa, boots and overheats, the battery puffed up and my brother destroyed the keyboard, but it still boots but either gets stuck when loading Windows (oh the horror!), overheats and goes into thermal shutdown or kernel panics on Linux. <--- need to further check what's wrong with it. Could be considered as severly wounded given the shape it's in.

- iMac G3/400, hard drive is on its last legs, but it wants to try and boot. I'm hesitant to put it on the list here. Sometimes the raster geometry on the screen is messed up (and the tube has a small ding near the top... Ugh...)

And two I'm not even sure if they work:

- 2006 Mac Mini Core Solo, no PSU, has signs of having been tampered with, it's been on the back burner since... Ever I got it, it's next in line after the LC II. It's as if the previous owners tried to pry the hard drive apart but stopped mid-way... And left it loose in the case like that... Odd.

- 2008 iMac A1225 24in, got it from a relative, the deal is, if I can get it working and pull all of its files off the HDD, I get to keep the machine. The PSU kicked the bucket, I get no power on its output, no LEDs on the logic board... I'm hoping the new PSU I ordered will show up tomorrow so I can get to see if this thing even works. I have good hopes that it'll just fire up as if nothing happened. Has a lot of "battle scars" such as scuffs, stains dirt and grime, but that's to be expected for a 15 years old machine.

Edit: The A1225 lives! I put in a SSD with a install of Lubuntu 20.04, and it fired right up! One off my list of dead macs!
 
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Here's the list of dead Macs that I have :-(
PowerMac G4 Gigabit Ethernet, which has a blown cap near the AGP port
iBook G3 Snow (The fastest one, 900Mhz.), the backlight somehow doesn't work.
PowerBook G3 Pismo 400 Mhz, it can't detect any HDD after I shorted the IDE cable. (Good thing that SATA was invented)
Yup, that's all. I'm looking forward to acquiring a motherboard for these machines, but I just don't have the money to afford them, and there's really no one selling them in here.
 
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MacProFCP said:
I rarely have machines that are so old.

I maintain a stable of machines for various work use and often give the oldest away to replace with a newer model well before it is dead.

I think many people replace machines before they are truly “dead” and it’s a great thing to donate the old machines to help the less fortunate.
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That's what I do, barring my 2011 15" MBP as they are known to be problematic (dGPU). I just kept it in the family and now its back with me. 100% stock, never been clean installed since the factory. Ironically seen off many a newer Mac. Close to 11.3 years young :).

I always wanted to restore my pre unibody 15" 2008 MBP, however it was just to much cost for too little utilisation; needed a 3rd set of fans, upper & lower case needed replacing, battery literally burst apart (not good), Logic Board was OK, but ran hotter than Hades. It was just done...

The 2011 15" remains to be useful its used 24/7 as media server. It's still capable of going online as the need requires. It's only ever shutdown if we move house, it just runs & runs and seems impervious to abuse. It hits the power cap well before TDP, likely its a binned down CPU. As for the dGPU it remains active, I do SW limit its usage which makes sense given the history. That said this 2011 15" MBP always ran secondary displays and was hammered when I used it professionally. Luck of the silicon draw...

1673816340813.png

Need to update the screen cap, as its now closing on 11.3 years old and remains rock solid at 100% utilisation. Talk about value for money 👍👍

Q-6
 
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nxstudiomc said:
Here's the list of dead Macs that I have :-(
PowerMac G4 Gigabit Ethernet, which has a blown cap near the AGP port
iBook G3 Snow (The fastest one, 900Mhz.), the backlight somehow doesn't work.
PowerBook G3 Pismo 400 Mhz, it can't detect any HDD after I shorted the IDE cable. (Good thing that SATA was invented)
Yup, that's all. I'm looking forward to acquiring a motherboard for these machines, but I just don't have the money to afford them, and there's really no one selling them in here.
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For the PowerMac G4 Gigabit, is it just the cap that's bad? If so do you have the skills / tools to replace just it?
 
m1maverick said:
For the PowerMac G4 Gigabit, is it just the cap that's bad? If so do you have the skills / tools to replace just it?
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I think it's just the cap that's faulty. Sadly the equipment that I have on my hand right now is not capable of fixing this machine:(
 
christiann said:
My Graphite iMac G3 DV SE just died yesterday. I’m so sad because it was a great computer. Now it won’t boot off any disk. It has the fly back transformer issue too because it makes the crackling sound during boot and sometimes it doesn’t even boot up. R.I.P
iMac 2000-2022. You served me (and the previous owners) well🤣
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can you tell me more about that fly back transformer issue? ive never heard of it but i think my g3 might also have it.
 
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