So your first diagnostic step is to launch Activity Monitor (/Applications/Utilities) and see where the pinch points are. My Power Mac G5 has been modified from its stock state with a 120GB OWC Mercury 3G solid state drive, a 1.5 TB Western Digital drive, 10 GB of RAM, and a GeForce 7800GT video card.Like a doctor, you need to understand why your Mac is sluggish before blundering in with treatments. Welcome to G5Center, a space to exploring tips, ideas, and resources to get the most out of our ancient Power Mac G5s. But why? What do I want to do with it? Ultimately, that’s the question.Ĭategories News Tags mac pro, old macs, questions Post navigation I’ve tinkered with it but found that its plastic case and roaring fans leave a lot to be desired. Meanwhile, my wife’s old MacBook 1,1 is sitting below me. Our PowerPC Macs are only getting older and there is less speed and power to squeeze out of them as even Linux slowly leaves them behind. It makes them an intriguing option to keep around the house, even as their Mac OS X limitations creep in. Older Intel Macs will become the beloved next generation of low end Macs precisely because they can dual boot in a lot of different configurations, from Linux to Windows. Especially if you can get access to these old Macs for next to nothing. Like all old Macs, the key question is why – why do you want to run them? Do you want to tinker? Do you want to learn? Do you want to scrounge around for old parts? Are you into nostalgia? Are you just curious? They are all good reasons. I’ve got an older but decent graphics card in here too (procured on the cheap). The Mac Pro 1,1, despite its limitations on the Mac OS X side, makes a hell of a Windows machine. On the other SSD, I’m running El Capitan, which is okay to do somethings especially within a browser like Firefox. In the end, I am typing this blog post from Windows 10 installed on a second SSD (that I had pulled from another machine). (And yes, I recognize that I am posting this on a G5 site.) Would I max it out internally? Add external hard drives? Make it less power hungry?īut, and there is always a but with these old machines, I ended up with an inexpensive dedicated NAS that sips power and does a lot more for less. The Mac Pro, even the 1,1, for all of its warts has plenty of expansion space. With a firmware upgrade to make it act like a 2,1, more RAM, and a slightly better eight core Xeon processor, I had intended to turn it into a 24/7 file server to be accessible remotely. I ended up with a Mac Pro 1,1 in decent condition via a university surplus sale for less than $100.
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