
I'm ready to move on, but set on trying my best to salvage what I can, especially the display. After removing the PS I can see the telltale bulge in a couple of caps inside.
Rob Roy on SimpleMark Version 1.Well, my G5, after two mobo replacements (years ago-under warranty) due to the bad caps, finally had the power supply go the other day. Rob Roy on SimpleMark Version 1.3 Now Available. Nathan on SimpleMark Version 1.3 Now Available. This Is the End: TenFourFox Development to Cease. 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. Welcome to G5Center, a space to explore tips, ideas, and resources to get the most out of our ancient Power Mac G5s. Nathan Categories News Tags airport express Have you seen any other leads to expand the usage of this aging tech? Do you still use Airport Routers for other use cases (like Airplay 2)? I did find that some work had been done to potentially get ssh working on these Airport devices, opening up the possibility of doing more with them, but it looks like that work is incomplete or didn’t lead to anything useful: SmallNetBuilder did some benchmarking of the last Extreme released – it doesn’t fare that well. Unfortunately, the AirPort Extreme, despite having gigabit ports, can’t handle that much speed. My internal network is gigabit, and my FIOS internet connection is gigabit too.
There are some downsides to this, of course. I can easily use it share files between my G5 and other Macs. Yes, there are much speedier options out there, but if you have one laying around, it’s kind of a cool way to repurpose some old tech. On the other hand, the AirPort Extreme makes a very simple Mac friendly file server with a USB hard drive plugged in.
So, while it was set up and available, I didn’t use it much. That gets saturated quickly, and the G4’s processor probably doesn’t help either. I have used a Mac Mini G4 as a quasi-network share, but the G4 has only a 10/100 ethernet port.
I was reluctant to retire it because it just works, but it was time to let go. It’s still usable, for sure, but newer routers, for far less money, do a better job of sustaining throughput and casting a powerful wifi signal. I used it for a few years as my main router, but as technology changes and devices have more processing power, the Extreme couldn’t keep up. Buried at the bottom of one of my bits and parts bins, I have a 5th generation AirPort Extreme.