Working on the G5 quad liquid cooling system

Ramón G Castañeda wrote:

I'm simply in awe of all of you who have posted actually doing all this work on your G5 Quads.

Thank you for posting, each and every one of you. 🙂

Hey, your very welcome Ramón. 😀

It was only because of the generous earlier posts by other's, that I was able to gleen enough info to repair mine. I thought the least I could do is contribute here like others did to help. I would especially like to thank the OP that started this thread-(Heikki Lindholm) and BMaverick for their input. They were my biggest help. I could not have done it without their posts.

So how's your G5 running these days? Any heat or fan issues yet?

- G5Lover

Thanks for the tip. I might do that several months down the road. It depends. I have been around radiators all my life and certain coolants just seem like snake oil compared to regular maintenance. However, if I can keep from opening the system again for at least 3 years. I will have to decide. I left the G5 on all night and day. Just got home and it is at 42 degrees celcius. Such a good feeling. This board was my motivation. Had I not come across it I would never had learned so much.🙂

nospoonzz,

It is a great feeling when you tackle some unfamiliar problem and are successful in fixing it! 😎

Allow me to encourage you to ad a good coolant besides straight water. Ultimately of course, it's purely your choice.

I spent a bunch of time talking to people that know their stuff regarding the products I used in my LCS flush and fill. I researched each product and several forum discussions deeply before turning one screw on my machine. It's mine and other's understanding, that Koolance 702 LCS coolant, ( http://tinyurl.com/k6gnthh ) has a very good track record and is far from being a "Snake-Oil." Go to the link and read the specs on it.

If you are familiar automotive radiators, you also know, they don't just contain water. It's a coolant/water mix. Even so, the manufacturer recommends flushing once a year to remove corrosion build up. Otherwise, they start to plug with gunk. The Koolance 702 is specifically designed for computer LCS systems and has special additive metal conditioners that slow the corrosion process, thus allowing a longer maintenance cycle. There are also lubricant additives in it that help the pumps last longer. It would behoove you or anyone else with a G5 to use this coolant or one comparable. Obviously, Apple had a reason to use a coolant additive, not just straight water when they designed the LCS system. If they had used straight water, our G5's LCS's would have died long ago.

BMaverick, (the guy in this thread, who sell's the original NOS pumps, and who's dad worked for Apple helping design the LCS, checked out the Koolance 702 and recommended it's use. He recommends it mainly for it's ability to inhibit galvanic corrosion when used with mixed metals. Plain water will work for a while, but galvanic corrosion build-up and consequent heating problems WILL reappear without an adequate corrosion inhibitor additive.

Hope this info helps.

G5Lover wrote:

…Which model Mac Pro did you get?…

The only one I could afford. 😀

The big desktop Mac Pro 1,1 2.66 GHz Quad Core (looks just like the G5 Quad on the outside except it has two SuperDrives) is going to replace my dinky Snow Leopard 10.6.8 Mac Book on which I run Adobe Photoshop 13.0.5 and ACR 8.1 exclusively. That laptop I had rescued from the trash, literally; so the budget for its replacement was fittingly tight. It was not free like the Mac Book, but it was indeed very inexpensive. The G5 Quad cannot run Photoshop CS6, as it requires an Intel CPU and Snow Leopard at least.

The old Mac Pro is sure to beat the performance of the Mac Book, hands down. The Mac Book is maxed out at 4 GB of RAM, of which applications only see 3 GB. The Mac Pro comes with 13 GB of RAM, and I'm bringing it up to 16 GB in the next few days, then eventually decide whether it makes any sense to max it out at 32 GB or not.

By means of a simple USB switch box, I share my keyboard, mouse and tablet, as well as my dual, side-by-side, high-end, 22" CRT monitors, between the Snow Leopard System and my G5 Quad running Tiger, which I most certainly plan to keep as my main working machine, as I have a huge bundle invested in software and SCSI hardware that will not run on the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro will use the very same peripherals in the same manner and in the exact same location.

Anyway, I'll most likely be asking questions about this new old machine in the Mac Pro forum.

Ramón G Castañeda wrote:

Please note I edited my last post in order to correct Photoshop CS to read Photoshop CS6. Edits are not broadcast by email.

So I'm still using PS CS in the 10.4.11 OS on my G5. I'm wondering if that old of a version even has the capablility to use my G5 processor quad cores?… Or, if it only uses one processor core. Do you know?

I do remember, long ago I downloaded some duel processor Adobe CS add on for it when I use to use it on my old G4 duel processor.

Thanks again. It did help. Just finished adding a "T" fitting and changed the distilled water only for a coolant /distilled water blend. This process of removing the cpu's and cooling assembly went a lot faster the second time around. I used GM Dexcool. I think it seems to being doing more than I expected. Lowered my temps another 4 degrees celcius at idle. I have a iMac 21" Latest edition. But I spend more time on my Power Mac G5 Quad. It is still so capable. A great machine.

PS CS1 (8.x) is so old that it is only a distant memory to me. Since Photoshop is my digital darkroom, any version prior to CS6 is no longer remotely acceptable. If you don't have at least ACR 7.x, you're leaving a lot of image quality on the table. The rendering in ACR 7.x is so demonstrably and hugely superior to all earlier versions.

No wonder your G5 Quad runs cool! 😀

That's why I've been using the MacBook just for ACR in Photoshop 13.0.5 (CS6) and then take the images to CS4 for final processing and printing.

You seem to be obsessed with duels. Those were outlawed in the last millennium, regardless of weapons chosen. You mean dual processors. 😉

nospoonzz wrote:

Thanks again. It did help. Just finished adding a "T" fitting and changed the distilled water only for a coolant /distilled water blend.

Glad to see you added some coolant. 🙂 Curious tho, what made you decide on that particular automotive brand?

The"T" fitting will really help with future flush projects. Would you mind sharing a photo of the type of fitting you used and where you located it on your LCS? That would be of great help to others.

I don't use PS CS on my raw captures. I use Nikon's Capture NX which allows me to open and process the raw .NEF (Nikon Electronic Files-AKA, RAW FILES) I also have Adobe's Digital Negative Converter (DNG) which allows me to save my raw Nikon captures as .DNG files instead, (if I want) which can also be opened raw in PS CS if need be. However I agree with you completely that my version of PS CS has very limited tools to work on raw files. So I use Capture NX for this instead. It has some awesome features that I really like.

Capture NX has some great tools that PS doesn't have and is specifically for editing NEF files in their native Nikon format. I still use PS to make other basic file alterations in the end then save a Tiff file of that version separately. That's pretty much my workflow. Both Capture NX and PS CS are on my G5 so I don't have the kludge of having to switch machines to edit raw files and non-raw files.🙂

I don't really think that my machine is running cool just because I have an older version of PS. 😁 That's too funny!

Switching machines takes less than two seconds. No biggie.

I've even contemplated adding a more capable USB switch box to add a Windoze machine to the setup—not! Just kidding. 😉

Nikon makes some fine cameras, indeed some of the very best in the world. But the company has delusions of adequacy when it comes to writing software. I am familiar with Capture NX, even though I don't own a Nikon digital camera. (Yes, I still shoot some film, mostly middle format.)

Anyway, this has gone way off topic. Let's get back on track now. My apologies to forum members.

UPDATE:

The flush-'N-fill of my G5 quad (dueling) dual Delphi pump LCS on 5/20/13 is still keeping things cool. I did a stress test today with ambient room temp at 75ºF. I loaded the processors up with some heavy DVD processing and burning tasks and the hottest I could get any core diode temp was 151ºF/66ºC and it would only stay that warm for a few seconds then stabilize at 135ºF/55.2ºC during heavy processing. The fans did ramp up though to help keep things cool. I had the performance setting in System Preferences set to "Highest" during this test. Normally, I keep my processor performance setting set at "Automatic." The machine uses less energy that way.

Why is it that as I get older, my spelling gets worser. 😉

Ramón G Castañeda wrote:

Are you on Leopard maybe? I don't see those options in my Tiger system.

(I'm too lazy to boot off my optional Leopard OS right now. 😝 )

Ramón,

YES. I'm in TIGER. I should have provided more detail.

Your on the right path tho. Go to Sys Preferences, choose Energy Saver, then click the "Options" button. In the dialog box where it says "Processor Performance" choose your option of "Automatic," "Highest," or "Reduced."

Thank you for the clarification.

Totally forgot about the Energy Saver preferences, as I normally only access them for setting up a computer for the very first time and never revisit them.

I'll try switching Performance from Highest to Automatic and see what happens with the temperature readings after a good while. Fortunately Hardware Monitor keeps a historical curve of the readings.

G5Lover wrote:

Ramón,

let me know what you had the Processor Performance set at when you get there. If it was set at "Highest," that might explain the slightly high idle temps you reported earlier.

Yup. It had been set at Highest from day one. I just changed that. Thank you.

Ramón G Castañeda wrote:

Thank you for the clarification.

Fortunately Hardware Monitor keeps a historical curve of the readings.

Ramón

Where did you get Hardware Monitor? Did it come bundled with something? I really like all the different monitor readings you show in your screen shots. I have iStat Pro widget and Temp Monitor program and both of them have software glitches. They also don't show enough settings for my liking.