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PowerPC G5 1.6GHz not starting up..please help!

Hello everyone

I should firstly add that I have been having display trouble for a few years now (only showing video after a few restarts), so this may have something to do with what happened the other day, which is as follows:

I was online but on the phone to a friend, then all of a sudden the fans of my PowerPC G5 started going wild, as if the room temperature rapidly increased (I've had this issue before too). The screen cursor from my tablet pen (little arrow) was frozen (don't recall this happening for a long time), so the only thing I could do was a forced restart from the main power button at the front of the G5. It did start up again, but with messed up video (as if I pulled the power cable out of a TV). I thought not to worry, as I usually have video issues and a few restarts usually sorts it out, however the next forced restart produced no video (just a black screen) and more to my concern, no white light or start up chime! Following restarts have been the same.

There is a start up sound when I press the power buttton (I think maybe some brief fans as well), but no light or that power on chime noise. My feeling is that I now have the original video issues combined with a failure of somekind! Please help as I am really worried that this might be something serious.

Does this sound fixable to you guys??

Thanks for reading,

Adam

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8), PowerPC G5 1.6GHz

Posted on Dec 30, 2013 8:03 AM

46 replies

Feb 2, 2014 7:36 AM in response to BDAqua

Hi Bruce, I am still awaiting the diagnosis but will let you know.

Regarding the USB enclosure, I think I follow what you've done. I'm assuming that the repair shop where I've put my G5 will be able to extract my data, at the least, if any other repair is too costly. It sounds as if, when the hard drive is out, you can connect USBs to it, and start it up on another Mac, is that correct? Thing is, I don't have another Mac to do this anyway, so any rescue from now on will have to be from the engineers. They want about £65 per hour (post diagnosis), so unless it's an easy repair, I'll be going for the saving data only option, and preparing a funeral for the G5. Sounds like you've made a wise decision though, saving your files, and probably to consider a new Mac.

Thanks

Bruce762

Level 1

4 points

Feb 2, 2014 8:49 AM in response to Adam Simpson5

Hi Adam

I think you are a bit confused by what USB hard drive enclosures are; they are just housings which allows the hard drives to run as separate external drives, similar to ones from Lacie and others. If your hard drive is okay, which it probably is, you don't need to rescue anything as the data on the hard drive will be available to be accessed by your new Mac, presuming you get one. For the cost of about £15 for an enclosure and about ten minutes of your time, this is the best way forward. The G5 Mac is designed for easy access and removing the drive is easy (no tools required) and fitting it into an enclosure is just a question of sliding it in and doing up the screws. Don't pay someone to "recover" the data on the drive if the drive is actually okay.

One point though, if you buy a new Mac, you will not be able to boot from your G5 drive, as the G5 system is Power PC and not Intel, and Power PC applications won't work either. Don't worry too much about this, though, just move on and enjoy the new Software.

I have been using a late 2013 Mac Mini for a few months and had it networked to the G5 through my BT Infinity broadband router, so I could access all of the files directly through the Mac Mini. I now have a lot more desk space as the G5 is gone and the two hard drive enclosures, together with my other FireWire drives and an Apple SuperDrive (for DVDs and CDs) take up far less space. If you still want to use your monitor and keyboard, get a Mac Mini and a SuperDrive.

Feb 4, 2014 8:41 AM in response to Bruce762

Hello Bruce, thanks for this, I think I'm understanding it more now. So, if I was to get another PowerPC G5, for instance, I could take out the hard drive from the problematic G5, connect it to a USB enclosure, and then access all the files on the new G5?

I'm actually considering this, as I have some software which will only run on PowerPC G5s anyway, and it was doing the job fine before, for what I need to do etc. I've heard now on the new Adobe software, it's all about monthly payments, and I just can't afford that right now. I just need to use the Internet and some Adobe software, so another cheap working G5 seems to be the cheapest option, and if I can access my old data from the broken G5, then all the better!

Thanks

Bruce762

Level 1

4 points

Feb 4, 2014 9:15 AM in response to Adam Simpson5

Hello Adam. If you get a "new" Power PC G5, than all you need to do is insert your drive from your old one into the second bay in the new one, presuming it only has the original drive in place. Again, no tools are required; just turn the lever on the right-hand side upwards, and slot your drive in, connect the two cables (push-fit) and then turn the lever back again. Both drives will come up on the desktop and you can decide which to boot from (I would boot from your drive and wipe the existing one, and use that as a back-up drive).

Adobe, I think, are shooting themselves in the foot with their new licence policy, at least as far as non-professional people are concerned. The only Adobe software I use is Acrobat Reader; my photographic needs are handled by Aperture 3, an excellent programme, especially for RAW files.

Good luck in finding a new Mac.

Feb 6, 2014 7:56 AM in response to Bruce762

Hi Bruce, oh okay, sounds even better by the minute. The revelation to me, that if I wanted to get a new Mac and run some design applications, I'd have to pay a monthly rent, when I don't do that much designing at the moment, has made the option of another PowerPC G5 more appealing. This way I can get my old Adobe applications back on it, as they were fine for what I was doing. When one day I get more serious about things, then I'll consider the rental scheme, and a new Mac.

So, all PowerPc G5s have 2 hard drive bays then?

Anyway, I think I'm drifting off from the original topic here😁, I'm still awaiting news from the repair shop!

Thank you

Bruce762

Level 1

4 points

Feb 6, 2014 9:00 AM in response to Adam Simpson5

Hi Adam

Yes Power PC G5's have two drive bays; have a look when you get it back. The original one should be at the top and the spare bay is underneath (top right hand side when viewing from the open hatch). Full instructions are given in the instruction manual that came with the Mac, and it also tells you how to add additional RAM (they are to the left behind the fan enclosure, which just pulls out) and are fitted in horizontal pairs (easy to fit as well).

Let me know how you get on.

Feb 7, 2014 10:12 AM in response to Bruce762

Hi Bruce, hmmnnn the repair shop are taking much longer than what they estimated, I'm hoping that I'm going to get some good news!🙂

It is starting to sound like I could get another PowerPC G5 for the price it might cost to fix my existing one, and then just add in the hard drive, like you say, but I'll wait to hear from them. Might actually start checking out some G5s on ebay or something now!

Yeah, will let you guys know what is happening. Thanks for all the help!

Feb 24, 2014 7:36 AM in response to Adam Simpson5

Hi Bruce and BDAqua,

The engineer said that my 1.6Ghz G5 was beyond economic repair. There was issues with the video card, start up of the hard drive, amongst other things. He sort of sounded like he just could not be bothered to fix all these things, was just not worth it! So, I never really got a specific answer regarding what the actual problems were!

But the good news is that he had a better spec PowerPc, probably the last PowerPc G5 model before Intel, and he put my old hard drive into this and I bought it off them! So, I currently have all my old data and software back, along with a display that actually starts up EVERY TIME! Yes, it's almost a miracle lol!

This was an Apple authorized store, so if anyone else has problems with an old G5, take note! It's probably better to buy another one if you can't fix it yourself! So, I have to thank BDAqua and Bruce for all their help and advice!

One question I do have though, is that on the desktop I seem to have two hard drive icons. The man did open up the unit in front of me, to see how many hard drives were in there, and he said one (my old one), so I don't understand why there are two icons. One has the name of my hard drive, which was put in, and the other one is named 'spare', but when you click on either, they both seem to just open exactly the same folders. There does seem to be a difference in memory allocated to each one though, I'm a bit baffled! Can these be merged into just one?

Thanks again!

Adam

Bruce762

Level 1

4 points

Feb 24, 2014 7:52 AM in response to Adam Simpson5

Hi Adam

Pleased that you have a working G5 again. Your query about the "spare" hard drive may be a redundant link to the original one. Ask your engineer how to get rid of it (I have no idea).

Hope your "new" machine lasts for a bit.

BDAqua

Level 10

239,675 points

Feb 24, 2014 11:57 AM in response to Adam Simpson5

In Finder's Menu, select Go menu>Go to Folder, and go to "/volumes". (no quotes)

Volumes is where an alias to your hard drive ("/" at boot) is placed at startup, and where all the "mount points" for auxiliary drives are created for you to access them. This folder is normally hidden from view.

Drives with an extra 1 on the end have a side-effect of mounting a drive with the same name as the system already think exists. Try trashing the duplicates with a 1 or 2 if there are no real files in them, and reboot.

Mar 3, 2014 10:35 AM in response to Bruce762

Thanks Bruce, I won't be storing any more work on it, so I'll be ready for when it goes down! 🙂

Mar 3, 2014 10:36 AM in response to BDAqua

I'll have a look into that BDAqua, thanks!

Mar 21, 2014 12:43 PM in response to BDAqua

Hello BDAqua, sorry for the delay. I've been having all sorts of fun with my new G5, this time system software issues!🙂

Regarding the Volumes folder. I found my 'spare' drive in this folder, but nothing with an extra 1 or anything at the end. The drive in question seems to be ejectable, and when I click eject, it disappears only to return upon restart!

I was wondering if this is a disk utility issue, something to do with partitioning, as both drives have different memory capacities. Enclosed is some screen shots.

Anyway, I think I caused havoc the other day, by adjusting user permissions in get info (as the spare drive said I didn't have full permissions to do certain things with it!) so I'm happy to keep both drives if it means peace with

my G5!

Thanks