Post by: Paddy on November 07, 2008, 08:36:33 PM
Ah...a restart should fix it! So, I shut down and restarted and left the room while it went through the process, to come back to a small jet landing in my office. And no video. This isn't good - restart again, using power button. It chimes....and then I wait. And wait. Nothing, nada, zip. Brief HD noises, but I do mean brief. Black Screen of Death.
Hmmm....
In the following two hours, I reset the PMU (several times), tried to reset the NVRAM, pulled all the RAM and then put each pair in and restarted (4X, since there are 8 sticks), disconnected all peripherals except for the monitor, took out all installed PCI cards...and still nothing. I didn't take out the video card, though I did have a good look at it, and it seemed well seated. Maybe I should have removed it and put it back, but given the lack of HD startup activity after the chime and the strange fan behavior, I decided to skip swapping out the video card with the new one I have waiting for my son's birthday. I even took out the PRAM battery and tested that with a voltmeter - it was fine. If the G5 was left for more than 5 minutes upon restarting, it slowly revved the fans to jet engine level. Every time. Tried booting every which way too - safe mode, single user etc., (except in FW target disk mode - never thought of that) - even opened the optical drive with a paperclip to see if I could boot off a CD. Nope.
Poking around online more or less confirmed my worst fears. It may well be a logic board failure. Because of the fan issue (and no, it's not running hot from what I can tell) I'm somewhat doubtful that it's just a video problem either. If it's a thermostat/sensing problem, then why no video?
It's not comforting to see the statistics for the dual 2.5GHz here either: http://www.macintouch.com/graphics/pmg5_components.pngPretty much the same symptoms as reported here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?m...77�
There seem to be a lot of unhappy G5 owners out there with logic board failures at around 3-4 years. I haven't even read that whole thread - it runs to something like 16 pages!
Should know by Monday afternoon. Running on my MBP in the mean time - and pulled the main drive from the G5 before dropping it off. (Has a cloned backup drive in there now).
I really, really wasn't planning on buying a new Mac Pro just yet...and given the rumors/speculation and time span since the last Mac Pro update in January last year, I might be better to wait a couple of months and limp along with the external drive and the MBP. Not a prospect I particularly relish - the internal drive on the MBP is nowhere near big enough for all my files.
Post by: kimmer on November 07, 2008, 08:52:20 PM
The only tea I have is Constant Comment, but I'd be happy to send you a bag or 2.
Post by: daryl66 on November 07, 2008, 09:11:13 PM
QUOTE(Paddy @ Nov 7 2008, 09:36 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Today, every time I did anything - and even sometimes when I didn't, my G5's fans would rev like crazy and the CPU use would skyrocket. Odd, methinks. I shut down a whole bunch of apps - no help. It wasn't just one app either - it was whatever I was using. And I also heard it revving away all by itself a couple of times when I wasn't even in the room.
Paddy; Those are the exact symptoms My Imac G5 displayed before apple replaced the logic board 2 times and the Powersupply 3 times under its extended warantee. After they finally swapped them simultaneously the Imac ran for over 2 years.
As you may recall I just went thru a dieing scenario again. I wont bore you with the details but after almost 2 weeks of agony I managed to get all the data and apps transferred to a borrowed G4 laptop. After much trial and error testing I finally came to the conclusion the problem is in fact the logic board once again. (400-500 bucks replacement)
I have had 11 different Macs since 1986 and this is the first one I will have to relegate to the surplus parts/or junk heap. We are still trying to decide what and when to replace it with.
Good luck
Daryl
Post by: gunug on November 07, 2008, 10:47:14 PM
Post by: krissel on November 08, 2008, 02:55:05 AM
Post by: sandbox on November 08, 2008, 04:36:55 AM
seriously, can you salvage it or is the cost prohibitive?
Post by: Gregg on November 08, 2008, 09:05:50 AM
Post by: chriskleeman on November 08, 2008, 09:29:28 AM
I too am sad to hear about your G5 Paddy.
Chris K
Post by: Paddy on November 08, 2008, 11:26:31 AM
It's not an easy replacement either:
http://community.sonikmatter.com/forums/in...showtopic=38754
Of course, I can keep my fingers crossed and hope that if it IS a dead logic board, that the cause is a coolant leak, not that I actually saw any leaks...but there might be something going on that I couldn't see (yet). Apple apparently has either been repairing (at no cost) or replacing the leaky G5s with new MacPros! Needless to say, I'd be quite happy if I got a new Mac Pro.
We shall see.http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/G5_coolant_leaks.html
Post by: gunug on November 08, 2008, 02:07:22 PM
Post by: Paddy on November 08, 2008, 02:35:43 PM
Post by: Xairbusdriver on November 08, 2008, 04:28:45 PM
Here's hoping that Carbon finds just a bit of that in the wrong place and vacuums it away with glorious results! 
Post by: Paddy on November 10, 2008, 05:56:33 PM
IT HAD A LEAK. And due to the legal agreement I just received from Apple, I can't tell you anything more. Suffice to say that (1) I'm very happy and (2)my profile info will change in oh, a week or 10 days.
Methinks you can guess the rest.
Post by: daryl66 on November 10, 2008, 06:09:17 PM
QUOTE(Paddy @ Nov 10 2008, 06:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Weeellllll....no cats to blame here!!!!
IT HAD A LEAK. .....
IT HAD A LEAK. .....
Great news. Keeps my faith in the ole boys at Apple. Have fun with the new toy.
Daryl
Post by: chriskleeman on November 10, 2008, 07:41:51 PM
Congrats, Paddy! Can't wait to hear about the new toy!
Chris K
Post by: kimmer on November 10, 2008, 07:59:00 PM
Can't wait to hear about your new toy.
Post by: krissel on November 11, 2008, 04:05:40 AM
That's one of the reasons I didn't want to get a G5, I figured someday the piping would leak. Great to know Apple is being a good guy in this.
Post by: Paddy on November 11, 2008, 07:53:28 AM
