Why is my Emac so reliable?

[LukeIntosh]

As a collector of vintage macs on occasion you have a few faulty ones knocking around, Pretty much all of mine are defective, IMac, Classic II and PB140 are all defective in some way,

however my Emac just refuses to die, sure the tube turns red when the Computer shed is cold, but it always fixes itself once it has warmed up, it somehow even survived a power surge which wiped out an OptiPlex, P3 box and my Fabled Tangerine IMac.

i can't remember which model I have exactly because it is super heavy, and I haven't had the time to roll it over and read the model off the bottom.

Does anyone else have a sort of "I Refuse to go down without a fight" Mac Computer similar to my Emac? I would love to know!

 

[CircuitBored]

The eMac is just a weird beast. I believe it is based on the iMac G4's logic board with analogue circuitry by Hitachi (? maybe LG or other). It was specifically designed to be able to withstand the wear and tear of a school environment, resulting in a construction that is fairly bulletproof but nightmarish to disassemble. Part of the machine's ridiculous weight is due to the extra glass piece that is placed in front of the CRT. It's not a real flatscreen CRT at all. If you look closely, you can see that the pixels around the edges of the screen are slightly warped compared to the centre due to refraction. A lot of eMacs have under-binned processors (i.e. the chip is clocked lower than it is capable of running), which likely helps with longevity a bit.

They're not without their problems. A lot of them were victims of the capacitor plague of the early 00s and I recall there being a known issue with their internal video cables too. At this point in time there's likely a bit of survivorship bias at play regarding your particular machine. My own eMac is very reliable but it doesn't get much use because it's such an impractical thing compared to a G4 tower.

I haven't had the time to roll it over and read the model off the bottom

The serial and machine specification aren't written on the underside. On the eMac they are written on the inside of the optical drive's door. Flop it open and you'll see. This was likely done to prevent destroying the spines of IT personnel who would otherwise have had to flip over a literal ton of eMacs just to do basic asset management.

As far as "just won't quit" Macs of my own: my oddball choice is the MDD G4. It is the only vintage Mac I own that has never given me any trouble at all. It works every time and always has in the eight years that I've owned it. This is likely due to the PSU having been replaced under warranty by the previous owner. The MDD is not generally regarded as particularly reliable but this one is an insanely high-miler. It was a media server for a theatre and ran 24/7/365 for a decade or more before being retired. More than 87,000 hours of run time is impressive for any piece of technology.

 

[akator70]

I think there are outliers, specific examples of machines that live longer than most.

I have a 17" G4 iMac that is similar, it just keeps going. Later iMacs that I also bought new died relatively quickly after just a few years of daily use, but that G4 has been solid.

 

[Cory5412]

+1: the eMac was pretty massively overbuilt as part of having been designed and sold for K-12 education in particular.

It's also 10+ years newer than the Classic and PB140, and also not a laptop.

W/re iMac G3s: it's probably just the luck of the draw but slotloading CD drives are less long-lasting overall and iMacs ended up with plastic that degrades so badly over time.

Anything "modular" (not an AIO/laptop) will survive better longer term, in my experience, in part because there's fewer wear parts and the other wear parts are easier to replace, e.g. modern PSU and drive replacements exist so as long as you recap anything that needs it and don't suffer battery acid leaks things should stay running long-term.

Not that you can't keep a laptop or an AIO running longer term, but they require specific care.

 

[cheesestraws]

however my Emac just refuses to die

I assure you, any hardship that you could inflict on this machine pales into insignificance in comparison to the total chaos that schoolchildren would have unleashed on it in the role it is designed for...

 

[LukeIntosh]

I assure you, any hardship that you could inflict on this machine pales into insignificance in comparison to the total chaos that schoolchildren would have unleashed on it in the role it is designed for...

Hahaha, yeah kids where BRUTAL to the poor HP DC5850s in secondary school

 

[LukeIntosh]

+1: the eMac was pretty massively overbuilt as part of having been designed and sold for K-12 education in particular.

It's also 10+ years newer than the Classic and PB140, and also not a laptop.

W/re iMac G3s: it's probably just the luck of the draw but slotloading CD drives are less long-lasting overall and iMacs ended up with plastic that degrades so badly over time.

Anything "modular" (not an AIO/laptop) will survive better longer term, in my experience, in part because there's fewer wear parts and the other wear parts are easier to replace, e.g. modern PSU and drive replacements exist so as long as you recap anything that needs it and don't suffer battery acid leaks things should stay running long-term.

Not that you can't keep a laptop or an AIO running longer term, but they require specific care.

Thankfully i think the only computer that will be a PITA to fix is the PB due to parts scarcity, I heard somewhere you could use a Rev A Flyback in a slot

 

[LukeIntosh]

I think there are outliers, specific examples of machines that live longer than most.

I have a 17" G4 iMac that is similar, it just keeps going. Later iMacs that I also bought new died relatively quickly after just a few years of daily use, but that G4 has been solid.

Which Imacs just out of interest? the Flat panel ones or the G3?

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

My eMac was my first PPC mac, got it back in 2017 and it also refuses to die. It's been insanely reliable. I've run it enough that I'm confident I didn't get a plague caps system which is good. I think they're so darn reliable because Apple built them to be. They weren't even going to be sold to the public until they had demand they didn't expect. They were built with reliability in mind instead of looks, or cutting-edge technology, which is what causes problems in most Apple products that end up with reliability issues. (Fanless iMac G3, TiBook being two examples).

I think it would known for being one of the single most reliable macs ever if it wasn't for the capacitor plague issues, which weren't even really their fault.

 

[akator70]

Which Imacs just out of interest? the Flat panel ones or the G3?

All of my early Intel iMacs died quickly. I don't think they had adequate cooling. After the first one died I started paying close attention to the temperature sensors. They ran warmer than they should have at light use, and when there was heavy extended HD use, such as with video encoding or software compiling, temperatures would pass 100C. Using the optical drive was even worse.

My experiences with the G3 iMacs was they fared well early, in the first 2-3 years of use, but after that those plastics and optical drives weren't durable. The plastics succumbed to heat and noticeably became more brittle, even before heat discoloration was obvious. The optical drives simply weren't durable, although unreliable optical dirves were (and still are) common (depends on the drive model, manufacturer, etc.).

 

[LukeIntosh]

All of my early Intel iMacs died quickly. I don't think they had adequate cooling. After the first one died I started paying close attention to the temperature sensors. They ran warmer than they should have at light use, and when there was heavy extended HD use, such as with video encoding or software compiling, temperatures would pass 100C. Using the optical drive was even worse.

My experiences with the G3 iMacs was they fared well early, in the first 2-3 years of use, but after that those plastics and optical drives weren't durable. The plastics succumbed to heat and noticeably became more brittle, even before heat discoloration was obvious. The optical drives simply weren't durable, although unreliable optical dirves were (and still are) common (depends on the drive model, manufacturer, etc.).

that may have had a contributing factor to the death of my poor tangerine, though i still can't figure out if it's caps or a shorted flyback which apparently takes out the Horizontal transistor and the Power rails "apparently" I do get an unstable 24V from the connector the main logic board attaches too though

 

[LukeIntosh]

My eMac was my first PPC mac, got it back in 2017 and it also refuses to die. It's been insanely reliable. I've run it enough that I'm confident I didn't get a plague caps system which is good. I think they're so darn reliable because Apple built them to be. They weren't even going to be sold to the public until they had demand they didn't expect. They were built with reliability in mind instead of looks, or cutting-edge technology, which is what causes problems in most Apple products that end up with reliability issues. (Fanless iMac G3, TiBook being two examples).

I think it would known for being one of the single most reliable macs ever if it wasn't for the capacitor plague issues, which weren't even really their fault.

if you are confident enough you can technically replace the caps and the IVAD cable inside, of course this needs a LOT of patience

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I’d probably do it if that happened, but god do I not want to.

 

[LukeIntosh]

I’d probably do it if that happened, but god do I not want to.

I feel you, same with the G3 but I don't want to just cave in and buy an analogue board

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Both my iMac G3s need the analog board recapped I think. Delaying that as long as I can