End of the Power Mac G5

So my beloved Power Mac G5 stopped working right before the Thanksgiving holiday. There were a few warning signs a few days leading up to the failure. At first there was a noticeable slow down, followed by the fans getting louder than normal. Then on the last day it would go to sleep every few seconds. After powering it off it wouldn't turn back on with any video (the fans and the power light would turn on). I also noticed these red LED's inside the case which turned out to be diagnostics lights.

I ended up taking it to the Apple Store Genius Bar who after performing a few simple tests told me they could take it in but the service costs would be very expensive since the computer was considered "vintage". They recommended I take it to a local Apple Authorized Repair center who would charge less so I called a few around the area. One guy wanted $75 just to look at it and the other guy charged $150 per hour just for labor.

I ended up declining both options since I knew the value of the G5 was only worth about $200 on eBay. After googling the problem I came across this article which described the issues as being a result of the G5 liquid cooling leaking out. I ended up giving the internals a closer examination and sure enough there was evidence of corrosion below the CPU's and a tiny bit if coolant leaking out the back of the case.

It's been a good run considering I bought this computer the day it was released in June of 2004 which makes it over 6 years old. I always said I would keep using it until the tires fell off so apparently that day has come. The only thing I regret is that the failure wasn't due to the computer simply getting old but rather a failed cooling system that wasn't even designed by Apple but rather Delphi Corporation (the old GM spinoff). What makes me a sad is that I specifically bought this model G5 since it was the only Apple product at the time that used liquid cooling (I thought that was a geek bragging point). The irony is that if I stuck with a slower model that was air cooled most likely I would still be using it today.

So the wife and kids still needed a computer for running their educational software and paying bills and such so I first put the old iMac G3 back into use. Unfortunately its too slow (maxed out at 1GB of memory and can only run Tiger) to run just about anything so I had to resurrect my old Dell Dimension XPS that I planned on selling. It seems to work fine and with Rob's old Nvidia 7800 card it even runs Left For Dead 2 at a great frame rate. This will hold me over until after the holiday's when I plan on replacing it with a Mac Mini.

The only other question I have is what to do with my G5. It's such a beautiful computer, both inside and out, and I would hate to trash it. I suppose I could recycle the case since its made of a lot of aluminum, use the case as a mod for a PC or sell it online for parts.