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Need help diagnosing Power Mac G5 1.6 issue

A friend recently gave me a late June 2004 G5 Power Mac (model A1047). They teach at a local college and the school gave it to them when they upgraded their equipment. The school cleaned it off, gave it to them, and they brought it home. However, they never bothered to set it up, so I am the first person to have put it together and plugged it in since two years ago.


Unfortunately, instead of having a nice chime and wecome screen, the screen remained blank. Though the fans turn on and it sounds like something is happening with the hard drive for a few moments, there is no LED light on the power button and no chime. After about 20 secs or so, the fans start to speed up considerably.


According to my friend, they used the computer right before school IT cleaned it, so it was working before then. Not sure of RAM or hard drive specs as I have not been able to boot the machine to determine them.


I'm hoping someone here can give me guidance on how to tackle the diagnosis on this. The last time I used a Mac is when I had a Performa back in 1995 or so.


Here's a list of things I have noticed or tried so far:


- No LED lights are lit on the logic board unless the plastic air deflector is removed, in which case one of the lights turns red.

- Have replaced the PRAM battery, but still can not reset the PRAM (CMD-OPT-p-r has no effect).

- Have unseated and reseated the two RAM sticks. Even if I remove the RAM and turn on the computer, I still do not get the warning chimes.

- Have removed and reseated the video card.

- Have pressed the SMU button.

- Power is going to the monitor (power light is on).

- Have tried the hair dryer trick around the RAM banks but it had no effect (though it is possible the hair dryer wasn't hot enough).


I do not have extra RAM or an extra video card available to test with. And I would prefer not to gamble on the purchase of either unless necessary.


What should be my next steps in diagnosis? Have I missed any common sense tactics here? For ex., could a bad keyboard be the reason for the inability to reset PRAM, or would the chime still be necessary to make that work? Are there other areas than the memory banks where heat should be applied?


Any suggestions are greatly appreciative as I would really love to make this machine work. But given its age, I would not want to go broke doing so.


Many thanks,

Stuart

PowerMac

Posted on Sep 20, 2013 8:29 PM

Reply
5 replies

Sep 20, 2013 10:29 PM in response to SKazanow

Hi Stuart,


If they wiped it & didn't install an OS at all, then all you see is normal.


Hold alt key at bootup, do any boot options show?


Can the donors provide an Install Disc?


Might call Apple with the serial# & see if they have original replacement Discs cheap, or a 10.65 or 10.5 Install Disc for it.


How to find the serial number of your Apple hardware product...


http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1349

Sep 21, 2013 1:22 PM in response to BDAqua

Bd, shouldn't they see the flashing question mark folder? Seems to me the machine is doa.


See if you can get into the startup manager. If so, you have a good hint that the hardware is semi functional.


Try holding down the option key then power on. This brings up the startup manager. Click on your hd. Click on right arrow key.



Your statup manager may be slightly different, but this is the idea.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106178



Sometimes if volumes don't appear in Startup Manager (what you get when you hold down the Option key at startup), you need to reset the Mac's PRAM, NVRAM, and Open Firmware. Shut down the Mac, then power it up, and before the screen lights up, quickly hold down the Command, Option, P, and R keys, until the Mac has chimed twice more after the powerup chime. Then, before the screen lights up, hold down Command-Option-O-F until the Open Firmware screen appears. Then enter these lines, pressing Return after each one:


reset-nvram

set-defaults

reset-all


"The reset-all command should restart your Mac. If so, you have successfully reset the Open Firmware settings."

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1812?viewlocale=en_US


How to eject a cd from the internal cd drive:

eject cd


List of devices:

devalias


List of variables:

printenv

Sep 21, 2013 5:50 PM in response to rccharles

Bd, shouldn't they see the flashing question mark folder?

Usually, but not always, that's if it can't find the drive it thinks it's supposed to boot from, but if it finds the drive & starts to try to boot from it you won't see that, if the problem isn't so bad with the drive that it halts the system, you'll usually, but not always see the circle with a slash, no enter icon.

Sep 22, 2013 1:37 PM in response to SKazanow

I think there should be at least one LED lit on the logic board indicating trickle voltage, not sure on the 2004s that don't have as many as the only list I have is for the 2005 G5s...


LED 1—CPU A: red—contact Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider

LED 2—Overtemp: red—contact Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider

LED 3—Power On: red—the main power is on

LED 4—Trickle: yellow—Power Mac G5 is plugged into the wall correctly

LED 5—Open Firmware good: green—no problem

LED 6—CPU B: red—contact Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider

LED 7—Checkstop: red—contact Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider


Have you reseated all the power connectors?

Need help diagnosing Power Mac G5 1.6 issue

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