POWER MAC G5 PLEASE HELP ME TOO!!

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Level 1

4 points

POWER MAC G5 PLEASE HELP ME TOO!!

Hello everyone. I’ve always found the discussions to be a great wealth of information and have great respect and gratitude to the individuals that contribute and help us through our problems.

I have a Power Mac G5 (late 2005), dual 2Ghz, 1Gig DDR2 SDRAM, with a 160GB hard drive and an external 250GB hard drive that I use to store most of my files. I've been running tight but had about 50GB's available on the bootable hard drive.

I have been working in Photoshop with larger files but saving frequently.
I happen to be working on a large file preparing to save and the screen went dark grey with a message telling me I need to restart my computer.

When I power up the fan starts to build up and it gets really loud and then nothing else. I only see the red light in the tower on - no chimes, I don't even see the keyboard light go on and the monitor receives no signal.

Learning from the other postings, I've tried restarting with all external devices disconnected with only the monitor and keyboard connected, I've tried rebooting from the disk - had to carefully manually open the DVD drive to put the disk because it seems there is no power coming from the cpu. I replaced the Pram battery but it still did not start up. In all cases I manually held down the power button in from of the tower to power down.

*I read to reset the graphics card. I have the original graphics card that came with my G5, when I checked my serial number online the graphics card was labeled "CTO" - I'm not familiar with this - could someone please tell me how to reset the graphics card?

I love my G5 and want to do what I can to save it. Any response will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Sonia

Power Mac G5, Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on May 3, 2010 10:34 AM

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Answer 1

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

May 3, 2010 10:46 AM in response to sonia j

1GB is not enough RAM for even lite surfing, email, and basic tasks. And definitely need more for photoshop. Along with upgrading RAM I'd upgrade disk drives for better performance: fast boot drive, off load scratch to another drive, 2nd internal drive for media files.

Setup a Firewire boot drive. Buy a copy of Disk Warrior. Clone your system to a 2nd firewire drive. And make sure to have two sets of everything, plus your emergency system.

Monitor the temps (Hardware Monitor) and dust inside and everywhere.

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Answer 2

May 3, 2010 10:59 AM in response to sonia j

Dear Sonia,

This grey haze you saw was a kernel panic and indicates a serious problem with your soft- or hardware.
First thing's first; your G5 has a series of diagnostic leds. The question is which of those leds is constant glowing.

Best regards,
Robbert

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

250,445 points

May 3, 2010 11:49 AM in response to sonia j

Hi Sonia, and a warm welcome to the forums! 🙂

Great advice from The hatter!

The RAM should be no less than 4 GB for what you're doing, in my opinion.

My G5 with 10 GB & only Mail & Firefox open has only 6.5 GB Free RAM, & still is using 19.52 VM space on the Hard Drive!

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Answer 4

May 3, 2010 12:21 PM in response to sonia j

And eventually you will want to update to 10.4.11

The 10.4.11 combo update link for:

[PowerPC-based Macs|http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx10411comboupdateppc.html]

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Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

May 3, 2010 12:43 PM in response to sonia j

My eyes are getting old and I missed the kernel panic line:

I happen to be working on a large file preparing to save and the screen went dark grey with a message telling me I need to restart my computer.

http://www.macmaps.com/kernelpanic.html
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html

The sweet spot for any G5, for lite work, is 1-1.5GB. Throw in CS2 or something, some files, the stress of having your boot drive having to be primary scratch along with VM swap files, and probably highly fragmented free space.... recipe for disaster waiting to happen.

But your Apple Hardware Test CD is a good place to start.

When there is a freeze, like you had, the directory of your drives is usually corrupt and even IF you had used Single User Mode and Applejack and/or the basic diskutil command line FSCK -fy that may not be enough (and give the false sense of security while driving on thin ice).

If it were only corrupt NVRAM, which happens on boot or startup and get a panic, is easier to deal with.

Most of the time, RAM is #1 suspect, and with only 2 x 512MB and those 4 yrs, RAM is probably cheap.

The 160GB drive was and is holding you back. Today's 640-750-1000GB drives are under $100 and fast. And you can also use 10K WD VelociRaptor in that machine (300GB $199 is nice size, or $125 for 150GB makes a nice boot or scratch drive).

Some more things to look into and think about...

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Answer 6

May 4, 2010 11:30 AM in response to The hatter

Dear Sonia,

I think I have the same problem, please check if the light is named "LED 806 Checkstop." If so, your CPU might be damaged.
Mine sometimes boots, and after about half an hour, the display freezes with the message, "System failure = cpu3". If the CPU is damaged, this might be the worst case.
Ask for any support, or ... buy a new one. I will do the same.

Hope I could help you,
Chris

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Answer 7

sonia j Author

Level 1

4 points

May 5, 2010 10:22 AM in response to The hatter

Thank you all so much for your advice and suggestions. I have learned a lot and now familiar with the dreaded Kernel Panic message and hope never to see it again.

I don't think I can use the Apple Hardware Test CD because I can manually insert a CD in the drive but nothing happens. The cd/dvd drive doesn't seem to get power or the signal to read it. I'm double checking exactly which red lights are on. I've let it run on for about 10-15 minutes max because the sound of the fan running so loudly scares me - I think the longer it runs, it may damage something.

I spoke with a local Mac repair store and they said it's likely be the processor and would cost about $450 parts and labor. If nothing else seems to work, how bad is it if it is the processor?

I realize I do need more RAM and was thinking to buy more just before this happened - go figure. I can see how the larger drive and scratch drive would be less stress on the machine and would have to do if I plan to continue working with larger files on my computer.

I realize it's an 2005 Power Mac and newer CPU's are out there. Even if it is the processor and I get more RAM and larger drive- it's still cheaper than a newer MacPro. Is it fooling to think my G5 is worth saving?

Thank you to everyone,
Sonia

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Answer 8

May 6, 2010 8:02 PM in response to sonia j

Hi I'm having the exact same problems as Sonia j, but I have a Quad G-5 with 4GB Ram 1.5 TB internal, 3 TB external hard drive. My problem only started a few weeks ago after the last software update. Both of my red LED lights come on if I try to render anything and it freezes, the only way to power down is to hold down the power button till it shuts down. This G-5 has been a workhorse since I got it in late 2005 and I never had any problems until I installed Leopard last summer, then I started noticing increased fan speeds for the simplest tasks. I'm a video editor so I do a lot or rendering and video encoding. Since yesterday the red LEDs stays on constantly and the fans run at the highest speeds. I have been trying to reinstall leopard but it won't start up from the disc without freezing. If anyone has any update on what to do about this recent problem please let us all know. Thanks

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Answer 9

BDAqua

Level 10

250,445 points

May 6, 2010 8:18 PM in response to cameradude2

Hi cameradude2, and welcome to the forums! 🙂

Have you blown the dust out lately?

Get Temperature Monitor - 4.51 to see if it's heat related...

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19994

And/or iStat Pro to check Fan Speeds & such...

http://www.islayer.com/apps/istatpro/

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