PowerMac G5 Dual 2GHz freezes any time, boots sometimes with one processor

corlo76,

You may still have a working mac, it could be damage to the boot drive so try all the usual Repairing Permissions, Disk First Aid, Disk Warrior (if you have it) etc. It may be a virus, but I haven't seen any reports of a mac virus, so I'd say its unlikely.

When it boots & runs slow, check it has both processors working the Apple menu > About this Mac should say Dual 2.0 Ghz, not just 2.0 Ghz. You can double check via Activity Viewer or Apple System Profiler (in Applications/Utilities). ASP will run on the install DVD too, just continue into the installer then select it from the top menu when it shows up.

If the processor goes missing when booted from the DVD there is probably little you can do, it seems to be a complete hardware failure of the logic board and/or processors.

add me to the list...

I've finally resigned my shiny G5 super computer to the role of doorstop (I can't bare to dump it!)

After 3 years and 2 months of excellent service (well apart from a replaced logic board after 18 months) it just decided to die.

All the usual symptoms - kernal panics, freezes, grey screens, turbo fans... After 2 months of trawling forums, testing this and that, changing RAM/hard drives the Apple geniuses confirmed what I'd guessed all along - it could be the logic board or maybe the processors or maybe both! There's no way I'm forking out between £500 and £900 to get it fixed especially after spending £2300 to get a replacement. Were these computers designed to fail after 3 years? I can't believe the amount of similar cases that occur just after Applecare expires.

Ho hum :0(

steve

One more bites the dust.......

It seems a lot of us are getting added to this "list" here on the forum. I have had all the same problems in the above posts. LED power light blinks 3 times, yada, yada, yada.

My PowerMac Dual 2.0 has been to the Apple Genius Bar at the store.....result: bad logic board
I then took it to an Authorized Apple repair shop here in town...............result: bad logic board

Mine is '03 model. I guess I did a little better than most others because mine only crapped out in 5 years compared to you '04 guys! ha!

Can or will Apple take a look at this for us????

Sorry to hear that Drew.

Yep after cleaning completely I got maybe a good 2 hours out of it before another kernel panic. And no its not just you or me...this issue is sytemic. Take a look at the MacWorld forums...there are people adding serials of defective units everyday.

The one time I called Apple and spoke to Tier 1 support, they stated they were "not aware" of any widespread problems. I spoke to Tier 2, and while he stated there were problems, he wouldn't give much detail and said I would need to go to a certified location or Genius Bar and pay the $40 dollars or so for diagnostic to verify. The certified location chalked it up to a failed harddrive - which was incredibly lazy since I doubt they even opened the case to check for dust or check the panic log or kernel panics.

Apple may be monitoring the issue, but they're probably not wanting to do much since this is the older chipset. I find it hard to believe we're on an apple forum and no one on staff has mentioned, monitored, or moderated any of the threads on this or similar issues. Esp. since there was another generation of G5s that fell into a replacement program this year or last.

You may already know this, the 3 flashes of the power light indicate bad RAM. It's explained at the bottom of this page, but it may be worth searching for your specific model's error status's.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2652

Hopefully it's just bad RAM in your case but I'd expect an Apple Genius to pick that up though!

Thanks for the MacWorld link. I hadn't seen how widespread this is. Hmm maybe the term 'class action lawsuit' might get the moderators involved?
It seems unreasonable that the 'Pro level' computers die after 3-4 years of service, especially under similar symptoms.

The only thing I can think of is yet another strip down & then run it from a 10.4.x drive, incase the issue is with Leopard. I have a feeling the damage is already done to the logic board or processor(s).

Hey Drew,

Good job on keeping this thread together and going. Here's a link that may allow for some venting. Don't be put off by the name, they haven't erased us yet: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html

Thanks Samsara,

I've tried the feedback for what it's worth. It's just really frustrating to have a dead three year old G5. I don't mind helping people who may have slightly different issues. I just wish Apple were paying attention, there must be some common fault in all these posts.

D

Spread the word. A major Apple reseller told me that since the G4
Macs G5's have been made in China instead of California,
they have seen a major increase in problems since then and highly recommends 3yr. Applecare.

In light of this forum and others I believe him. Also considering people are digging out their G3's for ebay sales and they work without problems leads credence ot the quality issue of China made Macs.

Buy an old California Mac or go back to PC..great choice.

$2,000 Paper Weight Owner

Again.

Drew,
Thanks for the input, we are obviously think of the same things. I did all that you mentioned before even posting my original post. Did the whole permissions and first aid on the disk, first in the box with the problems and then I removed it and placed it in my Mac Pro at work and ran it again. The results were that there were errors and they were repaired. A second scan showed no errors. I also ran a virus scan a number of times and it found no known viruses.

I have not seen it drop a processor yet, still shows as Dual 2.0 in the info pane.

This morning when I tried to start it up I got to the gray apple logo screen and it just hung there. It did this three times before I loaded it up in the car. I just dropped it off at one of our local Apple certified techs, so I guess now only time will tell. Although, if I was a betting man they will more than likely start out by saying I need to replace the power supply, and then it will just snowball from there.

I have had a similar issue for a few months now. I have a dual G5 2.3ghz Power Mac that I use at work. I work at a large company that has standardized on Windows computers, and lucked out in acquiring my Mac despite the policy. It happened to be orphaned from an older project and I claimed it. This ***** for me because I can't get a new one even if I wanted to - the only replacement systems here are Dells with Windows XP :/

I have not noticed dropping down to 1 processor. But there are intermittent freezes, and kernel panics with the full vacuum of death. Odd thing is they usually happen when I am not even in the office. I don't put it to sleep, just let the screensaver turn on.

I use it for development and often need remote access to it, so its unreliability is a huge problem. I haven't bothered disassembling it yet, but it definitely sounds like faulty hardware. I've built and broke enough computer of all types to recognize the difference between hardware symptoms and software symptoms - your defrags, scans, and repair permissions will get you nowhere, don't waste your time. This is just plain faulty hardware.

Add one more to the list. I noticed this problem a few weeks ago and it's become unbearable. I have a dual 2.7 G5 with 4.5GB RAM. Sometimes I hear a click and the computer completely freezes, other times it just turns to the rainbow of death icon and can't stop 'thinking'. Sometimes when it freezes the fans get really loud, other times they don't. But whether I'm just browsing the web, listening to iTunes, or trying to record music with Logic, I can never get more than 5 minutes of computing without a fatal freeze. And sometimes when I reboot the freezes occur before the OS even finishes loading. I'm using 10.4.11. I'm assuming this isn't a software issue and that upgrading to 10.5 won't do the trick...

And I can't even run a hardware test because the mouse always freezes on the 2nd page when selecting the language to use. Does anyone have a solution yet other than lugging this hunk of junk into the Genius Bar?

Well I took my machine to the local Apple Certified techs and all they came back with was they hard drive was no good and I should replace it. They say they did a simple system reset, whatever that consists of. So after hearing they wanted $99 for a 250 GB hard drive and an additional $99 to install it I payed my bench fee and took it home to install a new hard drive myself.

Well after installing a new hard drive the problems are still there. Sometimes turning on but nothing on the monitor, sometimes freezing on the gray apple logo screen, sometimes fully booting and freezing after a while, and of course freezing and setting the fans off when going to sleep. So of course the hard drive had nothing to do with the errors, even though they were confident a new hard drive would get rid of all my problems. I have checked out the new hard drive a number of times, even using the Apple service disk the tech was absent minded enough to leave in my system, and no errors on the hard drive.

Now I'm trying to decide if I want to go back to the techs or just bite the bullet and get a new one. I know $40 for a bench fee is a heck of a lot cheaper than a new machine, but it sure seems like they latch on to the first minor problem they find without looking further. I am leaning towards taking it back to them at least once more.