Working on the G5 quad liquid cooling system

Thought I'd share this method I came up with of safely running the pumps without accidentally touching the other electrical pins on the pump plug. Click the photo to enlarge it to read.

From what has been discussed up to now, I gather that we are really in the dark as to Delphi vs. Cooligy and as to single vs. double pump.

This is an enlarged image of one illustration found on page 98 in the G5 Quad section of the service manual. Notations and arrows in red are mine:

What's more relevant is the fact that there are no reliable, documented sources claiming revision 2 is more or less reliable than revision 1. Some say Delphi pumps are more reliable (as in a post I referenced earlier, maybe in a different thread), while others say Cooligy.

The problem is that, as shown in the image above, Delphi and Cooligy components are intermingled in the same LCS system.

I'm beginning to be inclined to believe my morally crooked but extremely able tech who said Panasonic pumps were used in some units (perhaps Dual G5s, not Quads) and that Apple abandoned them in short order because "they did not last as long as has been hoped".

Bottom line, absent more authoritative definitive, we know nothing about the issue, nor can we do anything with whatever LCS system each of our Quads may have.

FWIW, this is the most useful page among the web sites I've run across when attempting to research the issue:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/faq/powermac-g5-liquid-cooling -info-leaks-issues.html

Below are screen shots in lieu of live text excerpts:

…

…and, finally:

I sum, I am left with the final (and somewhat comforting) impression that the LCS problems have to do with the early G5s, and not at all with the G5 Quads. Mine was built at the end of June, 2006, so it was one of the very last ones.

G5Lover wrote:

…On your duel pump LCS system, you won't hear swooshing sound when the coolant becomes low… The temperature and fan speeds will be your only indication of low coolant… you can monitor temps, fan and pump speeds…

Are there any suggested safe ranges for that?

Here are the values I show at this precise moment, with the weather report showing 90ºF:

Compared to last year at the end of April, at a time when outdoors temperature was probably around 75ºF or less:

I finished my flush and fill of my duel pump Cooligy LCS yesterday and I'm happy to report the machine is up and running very quiet today. Everything went extremely well. Fan speeds back to normal and the machine is very quiet. Here's my celcius temps and fan speeds today.

I was able to do a minimalist flush and fill only on the B Core side, of the LCS, replacing only one original hose from that side of the system, then converting one of the stub-offs on the radiator, to a reusable fill/flush valve like Chris did on his duel pump. I used Tygon plasticizer free hose for the replacement. Before I started the project, iStat Pro, reported no problems with the the A core temps so I did not flush that side or mess with anything related to it. I'm a firm believer in the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I'm sure I will need to flush that side at some point but until it starts showing abnormal temps, and fans start to ramp up, I won't mess with it.

The most important thing I discovered in this quest:

Apple went to a lot of trouble to make this duel pump system leak free and vapor leak free. Upon close examination of the hose I removed, I found that it's lined with a clear polypropylene or polyethylene liner. It's not just black radiator or fuel line hose, it's made from two separate materials bonded together. I'll post a close-ups here soon.

Also, the connections at the barbs have some sort of clear rubber sleeves just in front and behind the barb itself. These sleeves are put on before the hoses were installed-probably to create a tighter friction fit against the inner liner of the hose. Also as shown in earlier pictures on this thread by Chris, Apple epoxyed the ends of the hoses to the pipes just to be sure. I'm sure that the original hoses would never need service if left alone. IMO, on this duel pump system it's best to remove as few hoses as possible when servicing it. In addition, because of the propylene liner on the inside of the hose, there was no crud build up like we've seen in some of the pictures of earlier LCSs. Having this plastic liner also helps prevent water or gas vapor from escaping over time through the hose itself. Again, because of the nature of the original hoses, it's best not to replace them unless its absolutely needed. Of course unfortunately, they cannot be reused either. My product of choice to replace the hose is transparent plasticizer free Tygon hose.

G5Lover

Here is the picture of the inside of the Cooligy LCS hose I promised. As you can see it is made up of two separate products bonded together. A typical rubber on the outside with a poly plastic inside liner of (I'm guessing), polypropylene or polyethylene.

This liner creates a super durable virtually gas impermiable barrier. The earlier single pump systems didn't appear to have this type of hose—at least none of the rebuilds I've seen posted have indicated that this special hose was used.

G5Lover wrote:

…what are the problems you are having with the LCS? And what exactly were the previous repairs you mentioned you had done?

It has been my good fortune not to have any problems whatsoever with my G5 Quad after the aforementioned initial repairs.

The outer aluminum case was damaged during transport by United Catapult Delivery, aka UPS. The private party that I bought from had in good faith gone out of his way to contract with a professional packing and shipping company in Lake Charles, LA, to ensure proper shipping, but my feeling is that some low-level employee(s) actually dropped the machine onto a hard floor before packing it to turn it over to UPS and never 'fessed up to the owner of the firm, as there was negligible damage to a single corner of the outermost cardboard box.

Fortunately, there was no damage done to any of the internal parts.

I used the occasion of the case swap to

• upgrade the RAM to 16 GB;
• install a mutant, flashed 550MHz nVidia GeForce 7800GTX 1,700MHz with 512MB VRAM video card to drive two identical but differently branded dual high-end v22" CRT monitors;

• install a brand new ATTO ExpressPCI UL5D LP SCSI card

• install physically separate Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 and Leopard 10.5.8 internal boot drives;

—I have the intrusive Spotblight, Dashboard and Time Machine permanently disabled;

—USB wireless 'n' available but connected to the Internet via wired Ethernet;

—FW flatbed scanner;

—2 SCSI scanners (one tabloid-size transparency scanner and a film scanner);

—various internal & external HDs;

—FW Epson 2200 and Ethernet Samsung ML-2850ND printers;

—2 X Back-UPS RS 1500 XS units.

I run Photoshop 11.0.2;

Adobe Bridge 3.0.0464;

Adobe Illustrator 12.0.1;

VueScan 9.0.96 [last version for PPC];

Adobe InDesign 4.0.5;

OptiCal 3.7.7;

SpectraView 1.1.00;

Fontographer 4.7.3;

Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.3.1;

MS Office 2008 (MS Word, Entorage, Excel);

Several browsers like TenFourFox 17.06, Opera 10.63, Safari 4.1.3, Camino 2.1.2, etc.;

and a host of other applications and utilities like Quick Time Pro, iMovie, iDVD, DiskWarrior. etc.

The first five on that list run practically 24/7, simultaneously and screaming fast.

I share both monitors through their respective front panel input selectors, and the keyboard. mouse and ocassional tablet through a rugged USB switch router box, with my Snow Leopard OS 10.6.8 consisting of an Intel Mac Book maxed out at 4 GB of RAM exclusively in order to run Adobe Camera Raw 7.4 and 8.1RC hosted by Adobe Photoshop 13.0.4, the only software that I need to run in 64-bit OS 10.6.x.

I couldn't be happier with this arrangement.

G5Lover wrote:

…no wonder you took so long to answer my question!…

Nah, I happen to be fighting acute pneumonia and bacterial bronchitis at this time, something not easy for an old septuagenarian geezer like myself with a host of other irreversible, chronic medical conditions. So I find myself typing even slower than usual. 😀

G5Lover wrote:

… They definately dropped your machine really hard. That's a shame…

…Looks your shippers dropped your's before it even got to a box.😢

Yes; no doubt about that.

The seller had requested and paid for both FedEx and an original G5 shipping box from Apple. The shipping company's employees obviously disregarded both requests.

They used two new, but generic cardboard shipping boxes, one smaller than the other to fill the space between them with Styrofoam blocks and peanuts. There was practically no appreciable damage to the smaller inner box, and only one bent corner in the larger outer box.

These picts show only the inner box after removal of the Styrofoam cushioning blocks and peanuts:

They were understandably very quick to refund the packing and shipping charges and to arrange for payment of the meager "standard" insurance coverage but refused to acknowledge the obvious and kept trying to shift the blame to UPS, who apparently didn't want to bother fighting the issue.

BMaverick wrote:

As for finding a tech to refill the system, that is a hard question.

I only know of four people personally who can do this without specialized equipment.

Also, reading G5Lover's ability to change out the fitting to somehting that is more common to connect to is a big help. If he creates a blog or something here with steps and pixs, that would be grand and helpful for all. 🙂

The only way I have done an LCS is with a brake bleeder kit. Yes, changing out the AC fitting to a brake fitting works. Summit Racing has some that work if I recall. This way, the brake kit can vacuum (evacuate) the LCS, and then refill via a reservoir tank. Just using 33% Sierra PG coolant with 66% distilled water works, or buy it pre-made from Koolance, the LIQ-702 coolant. http://koolance.com/files/products/manuals/msds_koolance_liq-702.pdf

http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_vacuum-pump-b rake-bleeder-kit-sunpro_9020007-p

I used a brake bleeder hand pump like the one you show but did not need to install a brake fitting in the radiator. I installed the same fuel shut-off valve that Chris used (see his pictures earlier in this thread). It worked very slick. I applied vacuum to the radiator with the brake bleeder thru the fuel valve when open. Then I shut it. Then I simply stuck the hose into the fluid and opened the fuel valve to suck the fluid into the radiator. I did this until the radiator was full and no more air could be sucked out with the brake bleeder. When I ran the pump it confirmed that I was done. No noise or air bubbles at all. Worked like a charm.🙂

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

This info in this first paragraph has been mentioned before but it's worth mentioning again.The duel pump LCS radiator is divided into two separate chambers for coolant. An "A" Core side (for the "A" processors and "A" pump) and a "B" Core side for the "B" processors and "B" pump). One core for each pump. That being said, each core must be flushed separately. The radiator is really two separate radiators built into one.

When I evacuated the old coolant out of one core only, I saved and measured the quantity. Each core holds apr. 125 ml of fluid.

Diagnosis and compressed service log of my LCS flush: (G5 Quad with duel pump Cooligy LCS)

Rule No.1 FIRST get iStat Pro widget to diagnose the problem.

Rule No.2 If you have an overheating issue DO NOT DO A FAN CALIBRATION OR SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC. IT ONLY CAUSES ADDITIONAL PROBLEMS!! THERE ARE WELL DOCUMENTED ERRORS IN THAT APPLE DIAGNOSTIC PROGRAM. Your problem is most likely one of these basic things- Plugged up radiator or filter, bad pump, super low on coolant.

iStat Pro widget is a wonderful app. because it essentially tells you what's wrong. It gives you all the info you need to figure out what kind of heating issues you have and what your repair approach will be.

iStat told me that my pumps were operating fine but the fans were running extra fast to compensate for lack of liquid cooling, and the "B" cores temps were always 30º warmer than the "A" cores. The "A" cores at idle always ran at normal temp in the 30ºC range. That told me that the "B" core side was the culprit of poor cooling. Since both "A" and "B" pumps were running at the same speed, I figured the "B" side radiator or filter was simply plugged up with electrolysis residue and/or radiator dye sediment. After cleaning the radiator, I found that to be exactly the case. I reverse flushed just the "B" core that was overheating with boiling tap water mixed with about 1/16 by volume Zerex Super Radiator Flush. (safe for aluminum radiators and multi-metals and plastics.) http://tinyurl.com/os2t3bv

When I reverse flushed the "B" side, I got loads of tiny pepper sized grains of green copper oxidation along with the same size red crystals. The radiator fluid was red, so the red crystals were dye sediment from the radiator fluid. Reverse flushing is critical because it forces the sediment backwards in the system, releasing it from the coolant filter and radiator. I did the hot flush twice flushing in both directions. Then I let the hot mixture cool in the radiator. I then flushed cool distilled water in both directions through the LCS until the water came out clean. I drained the distilled water out hooked up my hoses and was ready to put new coolant in. I used Koolance 702 http://tinyurl.com/p253ow5 because it has the longest service cycle of any coolant-3 years service life. Plus, it's formulated to work safe with mixed metals and plastics in LCS environments. It's dye also does not turn to sediment like other lesser coolants.

Once back together I started the machine guess what?… quiet as a mouse! iStat reported both "A" and "B" cores running in the same 30ºc range at idle. This was my first crack at flushing the LCS and it really wasn't that hard. I will say that I did my research and took my time collecting data before I turned one screw on my machine. Oh, I also dreamed about it a few times 😀 (gross understatement) 😁

All in all, I'm very happy I was able to do this flush by only replacing one original hose, with minimal tampering and invaision of other hoses.

Here's my idle temps again.

Hope this helps those wishing to take the leap and do the flush.🙂

What I Flush With 😁

Thought I would show what I used to back-flush my LCS. I got lucky finding this tool in my father's garage just a couple months ago! My Dad is a retired M.D. and he used this medical irrigation syringe in his practice to flush wax out of patient's ears. He was about to throw it out.

It's made from chrome plated stainless steel and will hold 3 oz of any kind of fluid. The plunger inside, seals against the sides with a large rubber "O" ring. It will work for sucking liquids and squirting liquid. Surgical tubing fits very snug on the needle and the needle is removable. When I first saw it I knew It could come in handy for something other than flushing wax from my ears, so I latched on to it and put it in my tool box.

Well that time came sooner than I expected! I used it to back-flush my LCS with the boiling hot water mixture of Zerex radiator flush. Just for giggles, I went online and tried to find one like it and can't come up with anything close. The nice thing about using this is there was no need to use the LCS pumps to do the job. It made flushing go really fast. There's got to be something similar out there in the mechanical tool realm that will essentially do the same thing. Having to use the LCS pump to do it is time consuming.

Here's a shot of a cross section of hose and the rubber sleeve that Apple put underneath the hose connections, (probably only on the duel pump models) just in front and behind the barbs of the aluminum and plastic pipes. This clear rubber sleeve helped make a better seal against the inner walls of the hose.

Note the right end of the rubber sleeve. One corner of the sleeve had been accidentally pinched under the hose from the factory build.

Interesting, that there are some 1-3/4 inch diameter black rubber bands (each green square in the photo is 1/2") that Apple wrapped around the lower cooling lines and up over the processor screw retaining plates. These rubber bands on my machine had deteriorated and were broken and just hanging when I removed each processor. They were originally used to temporarily hold the screw retaining plates in position as the processors were being installed.

As you can see by the photo below, I replaced them with new rubber bands before re-installing the processors. It's not necessary to do this, but it does help position the screw plates when re-attaching the processors. There is one rubber band/per processor plate. It hooks over one ear of the plate wraps underneath the cooling line, then up over the other ear of the plate.

Replacing your G5 pump or pumps with a new N.O.S. Laing DDC-1T from BMaverick:

For anyone wanting to know how to connect the wires from the connector of a new Laing DDC-1T pump, (purchased from BMaverick, AKA-BMav) to the factory G5 connector. Here is the pin-out mapping chart below showing both connectors. I got this from a fellow G5 owner that successfully replaced his pump with a new one from BMaverick.

Note: The BMaverick pump connector has a number "1" on one side of the connector as a reference of where to start the numbering it.

Here's the link again to new BMaverick Laing pumps that will work on the G5 single and duel pump LCS Quad. http://bmaverickddcpumps.wordpress.com/buy-ddc-pumps-here/

Remember to check to see if your original pump has VC (volume compensation) or not. If your pump has VC, you will need to modify the new pump for VC also. You can find those instructions here. http://www.saunalahti.fi/~holindho/g5-quad-v1-lcs-repair-pump.html