G5 cooling system leak!

It will be interesting to see if more of these leaks develop. The oldest watercooled Macs are just about 2 years old, maybe the problems are just beginning.

Mine's only 3 months old, not leaking (yet?)

Hi Alex;

Knock on wood. I also can say that my Quad which I have had since the begining of December has worked flawlessly as tele_player has said about his.

I did get the Applecare package for mine just incase.

Allan

Delphi is a division of General Motors (the car maker) and they make things like pumps, alternators, electric motors, etc. for GM cars. Yes, they also make the radiator and cooling system for the Power Mac G5 dual 2.7 and quad 2.5. I personally have decided to stay away from these models because of fears of leaking coolant. If the coolant did leak, the repairs would be extremely expensive, probably killing the motherboard and power supply.

I had heard that there were a small batch of G5s manufactured in the Fall of 2004 that may have had the potential to leak under the right (wrong?) conditions. I understand that the problem was quickly corrected and that Apple was quietly replacing the affected G5s if the owners complained long enough (warranty or not) ... I think they can tell by your serial number if you are in that group ... I expect you are affected based on buying it in November of 2004.

If I were you, I'd take a plenty of digital photos around the top of the power supply, but don't disturb anything. Don't take "no" as answer on this one.

Good luck!

KK

Yes, you are not the only one. Three weeks ago my computer blown up because of a leakage in the cooling system. I just bought this computer 5 Months ago. It is now three weeks ago and I still waiting for my new computer.

VERY GOOD!

Computer and services ae both bad. This is the second one for me. The first one didn't work at all.

P.s. I thought I bought the Ferrari under the computers?

Add me to the list of the unlucky. My dual 2.7 sprung a leak last Friday, fried the power supply, motherboard, etc. It's $2.5K repair. The worst part is I'm 30 days out of warranty and AppleCare has basically said "too bad". I'm screwed and they're not going to cover it. I could understand if it was normal breakdown but a coolant leak that fries the whole computer is an obvious design flaw.

I'm a 20+ year diehard Mac user and I've got several Macs working everyday editing video. I wouldn't edit on anything else but I'm really disillusioned with Apple at the moment.

My advice to anyone who owns one of the liquid cooled G5s is make sure you keep it under applecare or you could end up with a four thousand dollar doorstop.

I'm a 21 year veteran of Apple's products and can understand some folks not choosing AppleCare protection if they plan on selling their machine before the one year warranty is up.

But AppleCare is really nothing to be ignored if they plan on keeping the machine longer than the one year warranty. Especially if their business depends upon it.

Computers are incredibly complex machines and with Apple being so innovative and breaking new ground all the time, it just pays to have that 3 year piece of mind. By the time 3 years are up the machine is usually due to be upgraded anyway. Sell the old and buy the new.

Apple depends so much upon third party companies for their manufacturing and parts, it's really tough to get a very high level of quality that one could take a chance and not get AppleCare Protection.

After all just one hard drive failure pays for it.



IMHO Apple perfectly in their rights to refuse to fix anything out of warranty/AppleCare. After all those costs are passed upon the rest of us in higher prices for new Apple products.

I don't particularly like paying for someone else who tampers with their machine to make a claim for a new one and upgrade for free.

I could not agree with DS_Store more!

He is right on in this opinion.

BTW Raymond, please stop referring to your failure as a cooling system failure!

The pictures you previously posted clearly show that someone sprayed Coke or coffee into your computer.

Add me to the list of the unlucky. My dual 2.7
sprung a leak last Friday, fried the power supply,
motherboard, etc. It's $2.5K repair. The worst part
is I'm 30 days out of warranty and AppleCare has
basically said "too bad". I'm screwed and they're
not going to cover it. I could understand if it was
normal breakdown but a coolant leak that fries the
whole computer is an obvious design flaw.

I've heard of people getting their liquid-cooled units repaired within 90-days out of warranty. I would call Customer Relations and explain your situation. The squeeky wheel gets the grease.

- Bmer
Mac Owners Support Group
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We bought 7 dual 2.7 G5s in june 05. In september, one of them leaked and fried the power supply. I had read about it so wasn't very surprised. It took 2 months to get it repaired but apart from that, all ok.
A couple of weeks ago another one died, and yesterday a third one started blowing smoke from behind. All the same problem.

Paranoid, I checked on the other ones and at least one has noticeable leaking so it is bound to break down soon.

Of course the warranty is now void but we have AppleCare for all of them. So, although I am not totally depressed, I feel a huge dissapointment about the design of these machines and about Apple not recognizing this. This failure should be fixed no matter what the warranty says, it is obviously a major design/component problem (4 computers out of 7!) and Apple could be subject to class suit legal actions.

I had no luck with numerous calls to Customer Relations and/or Apple Care. No matter how squeaky I've been, I get the same stock funeral parlor answer "I'm sorry for your loss". I was told that they haven't had enough reports of failure of the cooling system to consider it a "design flaw" that would entail them doing some kind of extended coverage for the problem.

I'm sh*t out of luck it seems.

I should have know better than to let it fallout of warranty with a new system like this. I know that things break sometimes and thats just the way life is. A motherboard goes or memory goes bad, the world isn't perfect, and sometimes you just have to take the hit. I've had such good luck with the reliability of Apple products over the last 20 years that those kinds of failures were risks I was willing to take by not extending the warranty. But the level of damage from this cooling system leak is a whole 'nother animal. It's basically destroyed the entire computer. That was a risk I wasn't aware I was even taking. I guess I've learned a very expensive lesson.

I wouldn't wish what's happened to me on anyone but maybe if they get enough people with the problem, or they start getting some negative press, Apple will do something to make good. I LOVE Apple but they need a slap on the *** on this one.

That's very disturbing, but you've had an opportunity to learn something most people outside Apple can't find out - which part of the system fails first. Did you learn where the leak developed? Was it in a flexible hose, or in some 'hard' part of the system?

If it's a hose/clamp type of issue, people out of warranty should be able to inspect and replace things before the failure occurs, saving big $$$. If it's a leak in one of the metal parts, we're in a risky position after AppleCare expires.

Add me to the dual 2.7 coolant leak list. My mac is 13 months old and greeted me yesterday with a cloud of smoke and crackles/pops before shutting down. When I opened it up there was a dried crusty puddle under the processor towers. I suspect the processors fried when I woke it up, running on no coolant. Could have been leaking for some time.

Not really posting to enter the debate over whether mac should cover this or not. More to put liquid cooled G5 owers on alert. Look for coolant residue.

In a few of the threads here, I've seen some debate over whether this is really happening or not. Well, it it is. Tick, tick, tick, tick.....

G5 dual 2.0 rev A (home); G5 dual 2.7 (work) Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Any new design is bound to have problems. Just look at all the problems the first Mac Books and MacBook Pros are having: exploding bulging batteries, discolored palmrests, whining.... and these are with elements of a computer that have been around for years. You'd have to expect problems to occur with a revolutionary design in the case of liquid cooling. That's why it is always prudent to wait for the second revision to these machines.