Uses for an orphaned 2006 2x3Ghz Mac Pro

[CaptHenryMorgan]

The company I freelance for was tossing "old" gear. Beta decks, IO boxes, racks, amps, monitors, etc. I picked the pile the best I could, and in the corner, looking lonely as a lost puppy dog was a pristine Mac Pro.

Me: "What's the story on that"? [pointing to the silver obelisk]

Boss: "Oh, doesn't work, we're tossing it."

Me: "Can I have it?"

Boss: "Sure, I don't care"

So I get this thing home. Boots fine. 8GB FB-DIMMS at least from what I can tell, maybe more. Boots up, just needs an OS and some hard drive brackets.

What can I do with this thing? I've got the latest 27" 3.4Ghz iMac, so I don't need it's speed. I've got a huge SAN, so I don't need it for storage. Do I just get her running and sell it? Or am I missing some purpose for this old girl?

 

[Tesselator]

What can I do with this thing?

Pretty much anything you like. It may need a fast/faster GPU but other than that it's good enough to do whatever you want with it. In total it's about the same speed and power as the 6-core 2.40 MP5,1 (2012) - if such a model were offered. 8GB is a little on the wimpy side too. OS X 7.5 likes 24GB. 32GB right now is about $275 ~ $350 for that machine.

As is it's worth about $500. With the drive sleds restored, a pretty good GPU in, KB and Mouse it's worth about $750. With a very good video card, over 16GB of ram and an SSD you could probably get $1k for it.

 

[TheEasterBunny]

For the right price I would take it off your hands send me a message
As is.

 

[ColdCase]

I use my retired machines as photo displays around the house (displaying slide shows of family photos). That pro may be too large and draw too much power to be ideal for that purpose, however.

You could host a web server on it, maybe an email server... just to tinker. Something to tinker with without risk of screwing up your main computer. If you encode video, you could add it to compressor as a shared resource... may speed up long encodes a bit. Perhaps grab a few security cameras and host the security monitors, video capture, and software there. You can also tinker with controlling your house....

A massive iTunes library could be hosted and shared there.

 

[CaptHenryMorgan]

I use my retired machines as photo displays around the house (displaying slide shows of family photos). That pro may be too large and draw too much power to be ideal for that purpose, however.

You could host a web server on it, maybe an email server... just to tinker. Something to tinker with without risk of screwing up your main computer. If you encode video, you could add it to compressor as a shared resource... may speed up long encodes a bit. Perhaps grab a few security cameras and host the security monitors, video capture, and software there. You can also tinker with controlling your house....

A massive iTunes library could be hosted and shared there.

If it were a Mini, I'd consider all those things. But this draws too much power to be a display or iTunes server, especially since I have a NAS/SAN that has nearly 40TB capacity for those purposes.

Got a bit more info since last night:

-Boots fine to a startup disc
-IDE Optical drives not working, may be a loose connection to power on the logic board
-Initial test suggest SATA ports don't recognize drives. But booting off FW works fine. Not sure if loose connection or not, will research further.
-external optical drives can see boot disc just fine
-Has 7GB, FB-DIMMs
-7300GT GPU
-no airport or bluetooth

EasterBunny, I don't have PM ability yet apparently.

This may just be a very attractive door stop or an actual cheese grater, though the processors, GPU, and some of the logic board work just fine.
-

 

[MyMac1976]

If it were a Mini, I'd consider all those things. But this draws too much power to be a display or iTunes server, especially since I have a NAS/SAN that has nearly 40TB capacity for those purposes.

Got a bit more info since last night:

-Boots fine to a startup disc
-IDE Optical drives not working, may be a loose connection to power on the logic board
-Initial test suggest SATA ports don't recognize drives. But booting off FW works fine. Not sure if loose connection or not, will research further.
-external optical drives can see boot disc just fine
-Has 7GB, FB-DIMMs
-7300GT GPU
-no airport or bluetooth

EasterBunny, I don't have PM ability yet apparently.

This may just be a very attractive door stop or an actual cheese grater, though the processors, GPU, and some of the logic board work just fine.
-

Check to see if the SAS connector behind the front fans is connected

 

[CaptHenryMorgan]

Check to see if the SAS connector behind the front fans is connected

Nice and tight. Not sure what's up. Just gonna post it on CL for parts (CPU, GPU, RAM, case, etc)

 

[666sheep]

Seems that whole SATA harness is shot. It rarily happens, but it does. Test ODD SATA ports to rule out SATA controller.