{"slug": "restoring-an-xserve-g5-when-apple-built-real-servers", "title": "Restoring an Xserve G5: When Apple built real servers", "summary": "The article summarizes the author's acquisition and restoration of an Apple Xserve G5, a PowerPC-based server from 2004. It notes that while this model was not the first or last Xserve, it is considered the most interesting, but suffers from a common issue with its Delta power supply due to the \"Capacitor Plague,\" where poorly rated capacitors wear out from heat and heavy use.", "body_md": "Recently I came into posession of a few Apple Xserves. The one in question today is an Xserve G5, RackMac3,1, which was built when Apple at the top—and bottom—of it's PowerPC era.\nThis isn't the first Xserve—that honor belongs to the G41. And it wasn't the last—there were a few generations of Intel Xeon-powered RackMacs that followed. But in my opinion, it was the most interesting.\nUnfortunately, being manufactured in 2004, this Mac's Delta power supply suffers from the Capacitor Plague. The PSU tends to run hot, and some of the capacitors weren't even 105°C-rated, so they tend to wear out, especially if the Xserve was running high-end workloads.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/restoring-an-xserve-g5-when-apple-built-real-servers", "canonical_source": "https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/restoring-xserve-g5-apple-server/", "published_at": "2026-03-13 14:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-22 21:40:48.027478+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["hardware"], "entities": ["Apple", "Xserve G5", "RackMac3,1", "PowerPC", "G4", "Intel Xeon", "Delta"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/restoring-an-xserve-g5-when-apple-built-real-servers", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/restoring-an-xserve-g5-when-apple-built-real-servers.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/restoring-an-xserve-g5-when-apple-built-real-servers.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/restoring-an-xserve-g5-when-apple-built-real-servers.jsonld"}}