Was given a quad core Mac Pro A1186 ( 1,1) and...

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Level 1

8 points

Was given a quad core Mac Pro A1186 ( 1,1) and...

Is it really worth trying to do anything with it? I mean it was free, It still works fine, but from my understanding, I can't run higher than 10.7 on it, the video card upgrade is expensive and not worth the trouble, I am not really a Mac person at all, I wouldn't have one if it wasn't given to me. PC has always been a better option for me, as I can use it how I need to, not how the OS or hardware forces me to.

I know by mac standards this is really out of date, is there really anything that I can still run on it that makes it worth keeping?

Just looking for thoughts or opinions really on if this mac is still useful. I've seen a few sell on ebay at the $400-$500 price range.

How hard would it be just to dual boot and use as primarily a windows machine and set to just be a media server?

I don't know, I just feel that with how fast apple out-dates its products, this may just be a doorstop?

MacBook Pro, A1186 ( 1,1,)

Posted on Apr 14, 2014 1:12 PM

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Answer 1

Pengie76 Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 15, 2014 9:04 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Grant, I do NOT consider Mac OS X the best OS. I prefer windows or linux.

But thanks for the insight.

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Answer 2

Apr 14, 2014 2:33 PM in response to Pengie76

Anything that sells on eBay for US$500 (plus shipping and the thing weighs over 40 pounds) is clearly "worth something" to somebody.

You haven't given us anything about yourself to latch onto and suggest a use, except one:

That has a Xeon Procesor running around 2GHz, can accept a lot of RAM, has four drive bays and two optical bays, and it will run Windows if that is all you want from a computer.

It can also run the absolute best Operating Interface for general use available for any desktop system, Mac OS X. Or could run both at once or one after the other if you like.

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Answer 3

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Apr 15, 2014 8:27 AM in response to Pengie76

I have one and still using it after 7.5 yrs and ran Vista 64-bit on it for years.

It is not a good Windows candidate.

It can with effort run Windows. Install Windows on PC, move drive to the Mac and continue the install and activation on the Mac.

It can with upgrades probably - RAM, SSD, graphic card, $45 to buy OS X 10.6.3 and 10.7.5

Make sure it works and boots, that it has OEM DVDs and a fresh unused system for someone, and donate it or sell it.

Macs may be outgrown when talking laptops, but these things run better today than they did new, and can even upgrade processor to a pair of 5355 Xeon for under $100 - turning it into an 8-core and more efficient cpus.

iPhones and such, sure those go out of date even faster. But with easy upgrades like RAM ($100 for 16GB is not bad even today), and $139 for SSD mean it boots in 4 seconds, and another 10 seconds a dozen or so apps are ready and launched to where they were.

Graphic cards are more of an issue because the drivers are only bundled in OS X if you use as a Mac and not all cards work. And getting Mac OS 10.9.x means using 3rd party methods and a valid copy of OS X that you own and downloaded and bought through Apple Store.

But you can stuff 16TB of storage in there.

However, there are small $349-699 mini i5 boxes from Intel and Gigabyte that offer Intel 5200 graphics and can do as home media servers and entertainment hubs.

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