Re: Working life of G4

In article <starsabre-1DFC40.13205004062006@localhost>,
jt august <starsabre@xxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <timmcn-A54A81.09191304062006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Tim McNamara <timmcn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <C0A76AC9.2D4F%teflon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
teflon <teflon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi,

I have a dual 500 G4 'Gigabit Ethernet' Power PC, bought new almost
six years ago. It's been working perfectly in all that time until a
few weeks ago when the power supply blew. I replaced the supply with
a re-furbished exchange unit and everything's peachy again ... for
now.

Should I consider selling, I wonder, or should I push on. It's done
everything I've asked of it and, though initially expensive, has been
money very well spent. Just how much more I can expect from this
wonderful machine?

IME the maximum service life of a Mac is at least 8 years and probably
longer.

I just moved up to a g4 agp 450Mhtz, but I will be upping the cpu to 800
or faster later this year. I am moving on from a G3 350 only because I
want to do iDVD. The Beige tower will become the kitchen computer for
online recipe access and iTunes, but it is still well functional
otherwise. These days, I can live a generation behind because used
prices are so cheap. The Sawtooth only cost me $100 plus $28 shipping,
and I snagged an 80 gig seagate locally for $20 at a garage sale. A
Mactel Mini would run me $800, which is beyond my current means. Also,
I am still using a pBook 520c as my mobile word processor.

jt

Hooray for the Power Mac G4 (AGP graphics) system!!! Mine also started
life as a G4/450, and I've had it for ~8 years (sound right?). I bought
it used, and it came with loads of sw (much more than I needed, but I
kept nearly everything but Toast and VPC), plus the kybd/mouse, which
I promptly replaced with models I like better. I've recently upped the
CPU to a 1.5GHz, and have 1.37GB of RAM. The machine runs OS 9.2.2,
and does a fantastic job with all my apps. The only thing I have yet to
pin down and fix is frequent freezes when restarting, which never
happened till I started upgrading all my software prior to installing
the hw upgrades. Already have a suspicion about it, but that's something
for another thread ;)

Even if I had the $$ right now, I'd wait till we have a second generation
of G5 towers till I even consider budgeting for one. As it is, I plan to
install another internal HD in my system and installing OS X Tiger on it,
now that X can run some Classic apps faster than 9.x can do natively.
I'd say to everyone who has a reasonably well-behaved G4 to hold
onto it, upgrade it as you are able, and get the most bang for your
buck before moving it aside to buy a new primary system. I have never
experienced any hw failures with this machine, and I'm hoping the
internal HD will keep on keepin' on till I'm ready to replace it.

Happy computing,
Eric
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