Don't Buy A Power Mac G5 like I did.
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- čas přidán 22. 08. 2024
- My Patreon Link: / curtisgross
I bought a Power Mac G5, and was defeated. They are not as friendly as the newer macs, and honestly not worth the time to get running unless you have spare parts or a copy of OS 10.4 or 10.5 handy.
So, you seem to know very little about computer maintenance in general and couldn't get a G5 working. So you blame the hardware, rather than his personal lack of knowledge. There's a set of simple, methodical steps to work through on pretty much any computer, including the G5. All the info is out there to get that machine running, or at least to disgnose the problem... but no, tell the world it's too difficult for a mere human, so don't bother. A bad workman blames his tools. You wouldn't have coped diagnosing MS Dos/Windows 3.x era PCs either. Personally, I'd have been too embarrassed to post such a video.
I still use my 1.6 Powermac G5 it's great for what I need it to do.
that sounds painful
@@calistheticsmurdergeese lmaoo
@Just another bod on the internet I use it for iTunes and scanning film, I don't use the internet on it.
I own 2 G5's and love them. I have 1 dual core and 1 quad core both late 2005. These G5's are louder than a house fan when they are cooling. When I bought one of mine, when you turned it on it did not make the apple chime at startup. It turned out that one of the two memory cards was damaged and once I replaced it I never had a problem from it. I mainly use them for storing and backing up family pics. The safari browser still connects to some sites, but I found that tenfourfox works far better. I always loved the style, build quality and craftsmanship of the G5 and the Mac Pro.
AFAIK, the Power Mac G5 was also the very last Apple computer to be built in America. Just though i would through that out there.
@@daomingjin Think mine was built in Ireland. I live in the UK, so not far away.
54 seconds in and you already don't know what you're talking about! There was a dual core CPU for the G5! The top of the line model had two dual core 2.5GHz processors for a total of 4 cores.
Even the G4 powermacs were available with dual cores.
@@MrPaw45 dual processors not core.
@@macnerd93 Of course. Must have been tired when I wrote that.
How arrogant. Sorry everyone can't be 100% on everything. You can just point out the error without being such a jerk to someone you don't even know. Honestly.
People buy these thinking they are much newer and better than they actually are. I’ve also Seen idiots trying to sell them as Mac Pros just because the external case design looks quite similar.
The G5 is extremely good if you want to run pre 2006 software. I actually use my Dual 1.8Ghz Model for editing standard definition footage shot on Mini DV tape via a Canon XL1. I like the convenience of Firewire, multiple hard disks and for standard definition footage it’s absolutely fine, final cut pro 6 is actually quite speedy.
Obviously, doing 4k on my machine is a big no no, but for 4:3 SD footage like what my XL one shot with back in day its more than fine. I Have about 20 years worth of mini dv tapes to go import and edit.
I am a bit of an enthusiast though and have quite lots of vintage macs with various old OS X operating systems and older software titles running. I understand their limitations and what you can and cannot do with these old systems nowadays.
Websites like Macintosh Garden and Macintosh repository are also invaluable, they offer old abandoned and defunct software titles that no one nowadays would buy so you can keep these old systems running.
I actually owned one of these, the 4-core model. If I recall, it had two physical CPUs with two cores each. It was a fantastic machine for the time; very upgradeable and reliable. It was my "daily driver" for over five years until I finally ended up replacing it with one of the Intel Macbooks.
Intel Macs are great but I do miss the old PowerPC models. This one was a bit past the PowerPC heydey though.
Now we have ARM Macs to look forward to... And probably yet another round of buying all our software over again...
Matthew Hill haha - so true! I do think the ARM Mac will be amazing battery life though. I might even post a few data points with speculation.
I'm watching this on my 2005 dual 2.3 G5, It's setup in the basement for digitizing and archiving analog video. 720p CZcams playback is perfectly smooth with leopard webkit.
Jealous. I’ll fix mine eventually.
Curtis Gross I spent a couple days using it for video transfer work, and it chugged along just fine, swapped it back out for my old Mac Pro only because exporting H.264 on PPC is painfully slow, but if I was able to submit prores for work, the G5 would have stayed.
On the old PowerMac G5s you should be able to get the CD drive to eject by holding down the mouse button during the startup sequence.
Robert Holmes thanks Robert! I did get that to work once, I’m thinking this poor Mac is just ... part dead.
@@messing-with-computers you can replace the drive with any PC dvd drive, that's what I did and it works like a charm
Mine sticks all the time, but manually sliding down the aluminium drive cover, and then lightly pulling the drive tray, while pressing the eject key....useually works after a little jiggling.
Long fingernails help grip the tray.
Picked up about 5 of these a while back locally for $20. I think about 2 or 3 from that lot are still working (I have a bunch lol). But then again, I do have a ton of old parts so these machines are really fun to work on (personally). My best G5 is a Dual 2Ghz, 4GB RAM, 1.5TB HDD, Geforce 6800 U 256MB. These machines are definitely showing their age, but you can certainly still use them for internet based tasks (even youtube on high end G4s and G5s). Although performance is actually decent, its much easier and usually even cheaper to pick up an early intel machine for those light tasks. Even with that said, there is still a certain feeling I get from using a PPC Mac vs. an Intel machine. I think these machines are awesome for how unique the architecture is compared to modern machines. It's almost satisfying seeing such an old computer up and running actually decent on the web, not many Windows desktops from 2003 could do the same. Truly an amazing feat in computing history (1st 64 bit!)
GameCubeNintendo - I think that was the kicker for me. Not having any prior experience, as well as zero spare parts make for a very difficult debugging. I do have a g3 iBook that is still kicking!
@@messing-with-computers if you're still interested in getting this machine up and running, I can provide a detailed explanation on how to restore a disk image to the G5 via Target Disk Mode from another mac such as that G3 iBook (it has to be a Mac with FireWire). You will also need a Firewire cable to do this though. Or, (in a completely separate method), you can remove the G5's HDD and use an USB to SATA adapter to mount the drive on a newer Mac and restore the disk. This would probably be preferred if you have a newer Mac on hand as getting a large disk image to the iBook G3 could be an episode in itself lol (I eventually just set up an AFP share on my FreeNAS because I was so fed up with slow transfer speeds on USB drives).
Edit: I just noticed you have some videos of a 2007 iMac on your channel, which is perfect for both methods as it has FireWire and USB 2.0! (and is Intel-based). I'd recommend doing the procedure under OS X 10.9 or under since I'm not 100% sure if you can format HDDs for PPC in the newest macOS. Mac OS X snow leopard, leopard, tiger, and Lion are ideal and the easiest to find floating around online. The internet archive has many (legal) images since the OSes are so old.
GameCubeNintendo - No need to create a guide, I may actually try and buy a FireWire cable. I have done the process before I just don’t have that equipment and thought it was going to be easier to reinstall the OS without another machine.
nice g5 setup man, have you ever tried putting in an SSD on those classic macs? i got an imac g5 2ghz with 2gb ram that i'm thinking about upgrading with an SSD.
@@Lockkj - I have. Only issue on these suckers is getting the disk recognized. So.. I failed and went back to my favorite mac pro, the 4,1 series.
Curtis, I know this is an ancient video, but I figured out the problem.
Initializing a disk on an intel machine sets the partition scheme as GUID - which is correct for intel. However it is NOT correct for power pc computers. They need an Apple Partition Map. It’s a choice you have to set in the erase settings on modern macs, and in the partition settings in el capitan and before. Hope this helps a future viewer.
the 1.8s are slow but once you get the 2.3s and up they are good . also the ddr2 based machines are fun because with linux you can install faster gpus that are not supported at al in mac os
usually limited to the hd 6xxx cards and fermi geforce cards
In your video, you only mentioned using an SSD at the very end, That was your problem. These 2003 G5's have SATA I. SATA III SSD's will not work. You would need a SATA II SSD. OWC does supply those, although they are pricey. I have this machine running very well, with a one TB SSD as the boot drive. I do want to correct one misstatement from the beginning of the video. The later, most powerful G5's were not water cooled, they were liquid cooled. The coolers were, in effect, radiators, filled with radiator coolant. When they leaked, they would leak into the power supply, which is in the bottom of the case. The only ones which seemed not to have the leakage problem were the quad core G5's.
Good points - I do realize that the sata disk may not have worked - thing is, I couldn't even get to the software install process point where I could have even seen if it was showing up or not! I actually have older IDE drives, laptop drives, etc - as backup. I never even got that far in to the install process :)
I am holding on to the old beast.. might try coming back at it when I come up with a good strategy. I have a working firewire g4 laptop that I might use a firewire cable to clone the disk.
Had one of these back in 08 it was an amazing machine for the time but sold that off for a laptop. Recently got a couple of them in package tech hauls.. have 10.4 in my archives. But did not even want to play with them and flipped them both for $60 usd. I know there are quite a few enthusiasts who would love to grab them in good to great condition.
Yeah, they are fun - but not practical.
@@messing-with-computers depends on what you need to do. If you're a software dev they're perfectly fine to use. If you need to have 100+ tabs open on 5 different social media sites....while you're doing a zoom call - probably not the best machine for you.
I use Morphos on these. It's a PPC implementation of the Amiga 3.X operating system. It features a modern styled browser that can actually run youtube videos. It also has the ability to run classic Amiga 68K software as well as PPC software. There is a healthy amount of PPC based classic console emulators, demo scene programs and a range of utilities. A fun way to play with these old macs. The Morph OS installation lives alongside the leopard install and you can boot using the Mac early startup boot control.
Be careful my friend, you are stepping on dangerous territory saying it’s not worth it to use. I made this one video saying you can’t use PowerPC Macs anymore and got flamed. There is a huge community getting offended and defending this architecture; insisting on saying they are still useful. I just don’t get it. Yes, they are cool, but outdated.
MacintoshMen haha! Yeah, Thing is - I am a big fan of the powerpc as well, but it’s time has come to be put down. When a raspberry pi can beat it in daily tasks...
Hey this is the powerpc police! Stand down! I repeat stand down!!! :p
Yes yes they are slow but fun! I use mine to run ableton live 7 and protools 8 hd. It can also run logic 9 and renoise. These mac can still get some work done.
@@r1oot Yeah I totally agree, why bother with a gigantic power guzzling Quad G5 when a Core 2 Duo Mac Mini is faster and supports all the software?
@@MacintoshMen For the same reason people buy and use classic Macs, CBM 64, ZX Spectrum etc. Why not?
@@messing-with-computers
Netburst has entered the chat.
If you haven't tried, maybe give on of the Amiga OS variants that run on Power PC a shot. Morph OS lists the Power Mac G5 as a supported machine.
And Morph OS supports the iBook/PowerBook G4 too and the iMac G4 and im not sure about the iMac G3 or the PowerBook G3 or Power MAC G3
The 1.8GHz G5 is a good machine to put newer parts. As for OS installs, I usually use a Firewire HDD to install Leopard and Tiger. Quicker than a DVD and more reliable to boot from than USB.
Alexander Siracusa Good tip. I am still holding onto the machine in case I get motivated to try and fix it again
The ssd was the issue. Spinning disk and an original install cd, it will work fine. Museum uses only or don't waste your time.
Both of mine work fine - a dual cpu 2ghz and a dual core 2ghz. They take plain Jane sata vd/dvd burners - an easy fix. I recommend running 10.5.4 installer and updating to 10.5.8. You’re right the cdrom could be flaky but the fix is easy. You said you have an ibook. You could connect the pmg5 to your ibookg4 via target disk mode & a firewire400 cable and inspect the hard drive for errors as well as install OS X to the pmg5 via the ibookg4 superdrive. Someone else recommended a firewire hdd/enclosure and using that to boot from which is another good option. Another option would be to clone your ibook hard drive (assuming OS X tiger or leopard is on there)to a Sata drive via a usb external enclosure using carbon copy cloner and then stick the cloned drive into the pmg5 and try to boot it. These machines can certainly be temperamental but they are old cranky elderly computers so is par for the course. Best of luck to you.
I love my G5, but yes its a rough machine, if your goal was OS9 I would say get an OS9 specific machine, a G4 mac is usually better for this then the G5s. G5s actually need there own Tiger install I believe I cant remember for sure as I mainly run Leopard/Linux on mine and have PowerMacG4 for the rest.
I love watching videos about the old PowerPCs, but forgive me, I wonder why you have to make a video about something you don't know. It is obvious that you are not prepared on the subject and above all you don't know them. Your Mac does not perform the classic sound on the start then has something wrong; Nothing bad after 15 years, don't you think? Maybe he was to stop for still a long time, maybe you were naive when you bought it.
Then their CPU is not adequate to today's period, but only because that hardware does not manage certain functions. In any case, with Leopard it is able to show you videos you tube with Ten Five Tube very smoothly at 720p. The installations can be found free of charge in specialized sites like Mac Garden, where you find thousands of software suitable for that machine.
Noisy? Warm up? Do you use a lot of energy? But a working and perfect G5 is as silent as and more than a Mac Pro and often even less energy and warm voracious. They are just popular sayings.
Fit better please and then come back with a working G5 and the software of the period of him, then we'll talk about it!
I think the issue might be when you boot a Linux CD, instead of just telling the system boot live, you need to tell it boot live powerpc64
i still have my old PowerBook 15inch g4 1.5ghz aluminum i still use it at times
This thing is awsome I still have mine and it works like a charm I can play halo, skyrim, call of duty and a whole bunch of other games I love these things. So stop hating on them they are the best
I’m on day 3 of trying to get my g5 1.8 dual processor to run. However, I just got the original restore disks from the previous owner! I will hopefully getting panther to run, and then go to tiger.
burn the Sorbet Leopard iso on a dvd and boot it, its the most easiest way to have osx, or look for 'action retro' videos for linux and bsd but booting from usb via OF is very problematic sometimes.
Not gonna lie. After getting 2 of these for free. I don't think I'd ever spend money on a Mac.
You need an adapter for the SSD. They are all sata 3 now and this only works with sata 1 so an old sata 2 SSD will work or they have adapters that have a jumper to convert it for older computers. As far as USB. Evan though the USB is allegedly backwards compatible. This mac will read next to none currently on the market. So you need an old USB 2 flash drive. As much as I love this computer. It is not worth the effort. The only places that have the converter cable in stock are charging an arm and a leg for them. Then you have to get an external CD drive and burn 10.5.8 onto a CD-R (preferable sony or the insignia ones Best But use to sell) or you can use USB2 flash drive. Your internal CD drive has a power issue that is becoming common with this old machines. There are 2 batteries on the MoBo. The one you pulled and a second coin style battery under the CPU fans on the bottom.
i just found one next to the dumpster at my office building😂
Changes a gpu in a iMac.
~burning a DVD is too much of a stretch~
There are two issues with the powerPCs
One, it brute forces what hdd to see based on the sata port it is plugged into
Two, it brute forces what monitor outlet to see, and hangs if you use the wrong port
The hdd error is easy to workout, but it took me ages to realise it mattered which dvi Port you plug a monitor into based on the error
Fair play though, probably the right call that it isn't worth the effort.
Just discovered your channel and I'm loving it, keep up with the good work!
Thanks! Now to plan my next weird computer build... I found an old mac mini that might work.
I bought a Mac Pro G5 it’s in wonderful condition but what can I do to get GarageBand onto it?, people tell me just throw it in the garbage
PowerMacs dont have a Bios. They use OpenFirmware as the Connection between hardware and software.
I love when he says 'the battery'
Imagine this thing had a battery for carrying it with you XD
as if it's not heavy enough ...
Edit: Ah I see maybe he means the button cell battery lol
Can I have it if you don't want it?
You need to connect to it in target mode with another PowerPC and just clone another working PowerPC on it.
To 0:40 - RUBBISH !!! The Last version of PM G5 was a Dual Dualcore Power PC with 2,7 GHz each plus Watercooling…
I have a same issue with same this mac, it say too low thing, I think may be ram is to low, or HDD drive not compatible, and i want original mac os boot CD install OS,
From what I knew was tiger was always weird when burn on a DVD, 10.5 iso Image then petition to say a 2nd drive to add on an G5 it’ll boot as a DVD. I have two G5’s gutted one for my Gaming PC and kept my 2Ghz G5 alone. I found so many cool things to add to make Leopard run better even adding some stuff from 10.6 CZcams run well for me even,
SSD is a must on them and never buy that over priced OWC I had cheap ones abs even brand name ones in there cheaper then the OWC.
but let’s be real, it shouldn’t be used heavy. Use for old games maybe but not an main Computer to use.
They are fun projects for sure, but I recommend they stay in the 'fun project' zone and def not a primary!
Agree tech has come along way since even the 2005 G5’s that it’s more of a will it run or can I run it this slow, anything even stronger at that time would be hard to use. Even the intel Mac mini ‘06 -‘07 cpu swap with a c2d is gonna be limit due to OS X and even if you windows 10 on it the gpu. I always wanted to grab the PPC Mac Mini but it’s not worth it when you really look at it I barely boot my G5.
@@JoeyAnswer Long time back I had a PPC Mac Mini, fun for a 'kick the tires' but dreadfully slow.
So true! I had a iBook G4 and I put an SSD in it that was the only thing that made it close to a G5 haha man good old times.
What did you do with this machine. I am disabled & would love to tinker on it.
I can if I wanted too
Dude i have one of these.. I made the mistake of buying it off of ebay, Love the case, but when attempting to boot, you get no BONG sound, and the power button flashes. I should also mention it never actually boots.
I would try taking all of the ram out except one stick (and rotate through the ram to see if one works). As well as unplug and push the reset button inside and do the same when it is plugged in. Maybe you can get to at least booting.
@@messing-with-computers Thanks sir, I think i will. Also i think a new battery would help too.
@@ltlk937 Potentially! That is about as far as I got haha. The Intel based macs are just so much easier to work on.
@@messing-with-computers agreed!!
I had this issue with one I got for free. Take all the memory out. You sahould have two sets of matched memory, so you wnat it to go in this order: set 1, set 2, set 2, set 1.
I've got a G4 that is running 10.4, on an 1 TB sata drive connected through a IDEto Sata converter. I tried ssd as well, but there is no speed difference between ssd and hd. Also has a pci card with sata ports on it, but they seem to be much slower than through the IDE/ATA66 port with converter. It will run just fine. I can put three big sata harddrives in there, just to use as a backup server. It has Gigabit ethernet. Just don't use USB, because it's v1.1 - 12 Mbit. The fastest port is firewire400, so booting off external drives IS supported.
The dual G5 1.8 is the first G5 that came out. I had one of those, and they eventually had the same problem - the motherboard went en said 'no more, thank you' and it never booted again.
My guess is, if the G4 can handle large drives and sata ssd like I set it up, the G5 can as well.
Yeah, I never really got far enough to actually select the ssd for install. My guess is that it would work, but the machine just didn’t want to get me far enough into the Mac OS or Linux install process. Best I got was a hang during xbunutu initialization install.
@@messing-with-computers The beauty of the thing is, you can create the installer boot-drive on another machine, and then plunk that drive onto a firewire encosure, and uncle bob is happy.
Walter B. Interesting. I have an old iBook that can run 10.4. Might try using it to create the bootable install...
yeah, but for 50 dollars i can have a working one with mosue, monitor and keyboard
True - can also just pick up an older iMac that will have better performance and software support. I might still try to bring back my g5 later, but oh man.. I burnt a lot of time already ;)
I have the water cooled 4 CPU system witha quadro 4500. Got it for 20 bucks on craigslist and the quadro was 27 bucks on ebay.
I bought a lot of mac pro 2009 and 2008 machines and one G5. I am already regretting buying the G5 just from the video. But boy do the 2008 mac pro machines work well and the 2009. I got them for $50 each and maybe wasted my money on the G5.
You need osx leopard
I still have 1 somewhere eating dust..
thinking about turning it into a personal cloud system :D
U thought about just buying a hdd on eBay with the os already on it because it will work with the hdd with the right os I still use my G5 in modern day with 10.5.8 with tenfourfox runs everything I need cant stand Windows 10 it's a cancer to PCs
I might give that a try, but it seems like a weird workaround for this old beast.
@@messing-with-computers that's what I thought when I first tryed it I had same problem wouldn't see hdd and not load anything but I put my hdd from my other g5 in it and worked perfectly it saw the gpu and cpu and ram kinda shocked me lol I get they are old mac now and many people not give them the time of day guess iv been lucky with mine lol
10 4 Fox is the shit, I use that on my PowerBook G4 running so X Tiger.......got my classic Mac still competing in 2020
Can someone link these harddrives with os on them??
@@Resume08 i have power g5 , but i cant reset the password .. command + r is not working , 😞😞😞
Heh heh, great machines in their day, but massive power hogs (they didn't call them the 'PowerMac' for nuthin'!). If you have a nice case, it's better to gut them and replace the components with a Hackintosh setup, or maybe the guts from a 2012 Mac Pro from a beat up case.🙂
Bro how did you learn repairing imacs and Mac books plz tell even I want to learn I am literally dead because I am not able to learn them plz plz 🙏🙏🙏🙏 reply
Sai! I learned quite a bit by purchasing broken Macbooks and inexpensive iMacs that had broken screens and repairing them. I really enjoy taking things apart and trying to fix them, use them for a few months and then sell them / restart the process. My best suggestion would be to purchase a 2012 13'' Macbook pro and tear that thing apart! They are easy to fix, inexpensive, powerful and can run catalina ;)
@@messing-with-computers thank u sir can u be my mentor plz I am from India.
Can I get your any social media name to ask doubts personally
WHAT
Please do not use (old) computers. Buy a modern console that doesn't hopelessly overwhelm you. This will also save you further embarrassment like this video. At least that's what I hope.
So, you seem to know very little about computer maintenance in general and couldn't get a G5 working. So you blame the hardware, rather than his personal lack of knowledge. There's a set of simple, methodical steps to work through on pretty much any computer, including the G5. All the info is out there to get that machine running, or at least to disgnose the problem... but no, tell the world it's too difficult for a mere human, so don't bother. A bad workman blames his tools. You wouldn't have coped diagnosing MS Dos/Windows 3.x era PCs either. Personally, I'd have been too embarrassed to post such a video.
I’m sure some small percentage of the world can resurrect these old machines... but the real message here is that it is not worth the effort, not even for “fun” as I was attempting.