[zl9600]

i'm hoping some new price drops will put a few solid g5 dp 2.0's on the market this january, and i hope to snap one up.

so my question(s) would be:

1.if you were buying a pre-owned g5 dp, where would you look to buy it?

2. what kind of steps would you take to test it out (assuming you could test it's performance with the ability to get your $$ back if it was a crapper)?

3. is there a standard benchmark test (or a shareware app i could run)?

4. any builds/cards/configs to avoid or seek in the 1.8/2.0 dp range?

thought i'd look for some opinions here before i trolled ebay and any other rec'd places to look for a good one. i'm a design prof.

holiday cheer 2u!

[bighead]

Make sure you get it with AppleCare, as parts are very expensive.

You can run multiple instances of Chess playing itself as well as the iTunes visualizer with the framerate cap turned off to test the CPUs under stress (or you could run distributed.net)

I'd also zero the hard disk, though many people are not fans of this procedure (Detrius being one of them.) I had my Seagate 100 GB portable drive freak out during the zero process, which is the reason I do it. Better to do it before important data gets onto the drive.

If you can, take it to an Apple store. They won't "certify" it for you. No place will, Apple Authorized or otherwise. However, they have diagnostic tools that can test the hardware and give you an indication of other possible component failures. Ask nicely, and anyone with the diagnostic discs might be willing to do it for free.

If it were up to me, I'd replace the DVD-R and hard disks right off the bat with a new DVR-108 and a few Western Digital drives. I don't like desktop Seagate and Maxtor drives, which is what Apple uses in a good number of towers.

[awcopus]

If anything, imho, buy a refurb unit from Apple directly or from SmallDog Electronics or PowerMax (basically, a reputable firm). Refurbs come with AppleCare as an option. Get it.

You can get lucky with used machines, but I think you're taking too big a chance to save how much money exactly? Say you buy a new machine and it "costs" you (hypothetically) $600 more than a used machine. You're going to use this machine for the next three years, let's say, so the cost per year of the new machine is $200, way less than a dollar per day. Seems silly NOT to get a new machine at that point right? Especially if you get stuck with a bad used machine and have to spend who knows how much money to get yourself out of that fix.

Just some food for thought. Good luck with your purchase.

Originally posted by zl9600:
i'm hoping some new price drops will put a few solid g5 dp 2.0's on the market this january, and i hope to snap one up.

so my question(s) would be:

1.if you were buying a pre-owned g5 dp, where would you look to buy it?

2. what kind of steps would you take to test it out (assuming you could test it's performance with the ability to get your $$ back if it was a crapper)?

3. is there a standard benchmark test (or a shareware app i could run)?

4. any builds/cards/configs to avoid or seek in the 1.8/2.0 dp range?

thought i'd look for some opinions here before i trolled ebay and any other rec'd places to look for a good one. i'm a design prof.

holiday cheer 2u!

[jamil5454]

If you buy a refurbished straight from Apple, there's a high chance it works properly. Most of the time people return their computers because they change their mind about something or decide they want a faster DP powermac. Or because their 3rd party Ultimate SCSI Card™ doesn't work like they expected. If you have any problems with it, usually Apple does a good job of supporting you. I wouldn't buy Apple stuff from anyone else.

[zl9600]

fantastic things to think about. and you're right about apple care and apple store; i had not considered the warranty issue. i know i've saved a gazillion having apple care on my PB.

is the apple care warranty transferable (between diff. owners of same machine)? you have until the 90 day period is up to buy it, correct?

thanks again!

[Al G]

AppleCare is transferrable (it goes with the machine, not the owner). However, I think there is an official procedure you must follow to do the transfer.

I'm not sure, but for some reason I think AppleCare must be purchased and activated by the original owner, but again, I could be wrong about that. Don't take my (our) word for it; talk to Apple.

If the used machine comes with AppleCare then you won't really have to worry about it being a crapper because Apple will fix anything that might be wrong--even if they have to replace virtually every part in the machine.