My G5 iMac started getting a little flakey the other day, which usually means one thing; the dreaded aging capacitor issue…
See, back in the old days capacitors were basically a can of electrolytic goo, and over two decades or so said goo dries up and leaks out of the can.
If you catch the caps early you can prevent the inevitable leaky mess, but either way this stops things from working. And the only real fix is to buy new capacitors of the same values and replace the old ones, which can be rather time consuming.
Fortunately, I have a spare newer “ALS” G5 that just needed some spare parts – and now I had them.
I’ll hang on to the husk of the old G5 for replacement parts as the years go on; the screen is in really nice shape, and there’s a lot of little parts that could be handy someday.
Listening to "City Lights" by Robert Parker