D55 LED on logic board means ... what??

Question

D55 LED on logic board means ... what??

My G4 tower just died. Sort of. I've been having random freezes, kernel panics, crashes for a couple of weeks now and it all culminated last Friday the 13th with the complete inability to get the machine booted at all. My only clue is an LED on the logic board: D55 is glowing bright red.

Interestingly enough, whatever this means, a clean wipe and restore (all the way back to the original software shipped by Apple - OS9.x) allowed the machine to be resurected. Sort of. It will not boot from the OS X (Panther) install disk, nor will it allow booting from a second drive with OS X on it.

Am I doomed to use this machine only in OS9 forever, or is there something I'm overlooking? Something this D55 LED is trying to tell me?

Frisky

If there's any truth to reincarnation, I want to come back as one of my dogs!

Posted on Jan 15, 2006 4:40 PM

Reply

Answer 1

PB PM

Level 4

2,480 points

Jan 16, 2006 1:32 PM in response to Benny Archuleta

The red LED is nothing to worry about, in fact if its not lit up then your in trouble. I had the similar problem with a Powerbook G3 a few months, it's L2 cache died... rendering the machine unable to run in OSX. Are there any error messages coming up when you boot into OS9x? Its also possible the logic board is starting to die. I had some OSX problems in August last year and the techs though my board was dieing (I knew it was a software issue, but they wouldn't believe me) and it would only boot in OS9. OS9 seems to be far less demanding on hardware, and so death pains may be prolonged, or remain hidden when using it, much longer than in OSX.

Reply

Answer 2

Jan 16, 2006 2:42 PM in response to PB PM

No, no error messages from OS9. System Profiler (OS9 version, of course) reports the L2 cache as being fine.

I've tried the install disks from both Panther and Tiger, with no luck. I don't want to try Jag, as almost all of the software that will need to be reinstalled was "10.3 or greater".

G4/450 Mac OS 9.2.x formerly OS X 10.3.9, before this problem!

Reply

Answer 3

Jan 19, 2006 3:37 PM in response to Benny Archuleta

After going through all this nonsense, buying a new machine (I wanted one anyway, though I couldn't afford one), I finally discovered what the REAL problem was with my G4 tower.

The cpu cooler fan died! The processor upgrade card was overheating.

So, I'll go down to Best Buy or someplace, get a new cooler fan and put the machine up for sale on Craigslist. At least I'll be able to recoup part of the cost of the new G5 dualie.

Frisky

Reply

Answer 4

PB PM

Level 4

2,480 points

Jan 19, 2006 5:20 PM in response to Benny Archuleta

Yeah, systems with upgrades do sell alright, around $500-600 sounds right depending on hard drive size, RAM, and other upgrades.

Reply