Urgent! PowerMac G5 Smells Like It's Burning; Red Warning Light!
I have a paper due today, and the only copies of it are on a PowerMac G5 (Early 2005, 2.0 GHz, OS X 10.4.11) and a USB flash drive that I can't use with any of our Windows laptops.
Power Mac G5 (Early 2005) - Technical Specifications
I was using the PowerMac G5 last night, and I noticed a sudden, sharp burning smell. It smelled like someone had left an iron sitting too long on a shirt. Upon further investigation, it seemed to be coming from the rear fan vents (which were roaring much louder than usual; I believe this is called "hyperdrive"), so I put the Mac in sleep mode and took the side panel and air deflector off to see what was causing it. The smell left pretty quickly, so I couldn't really tell where it came from inside the computer, but I did notice a bright red warning light beside the RAM (behind the front power button; inside the #4 area in this diagram):
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Power_Mac_G5_open_labeled.jpg
I immediately did some digging around on the internet, and found this forum discussion:
g5 noisy fan, red light
http://www.info.apple.com/usen/cip/pdf/g5/073-0891.pdf
While it seems that this should fix the light, (A) I couldn't really see the sensor described, even with a flashlight, (B) the Air Reflector Sensor Board sticker thing seems to still be in place on the plastic Air Reflector tab, and (C) I can't see how the sensor's not working would cause the computer to smell like it's burning!
I also skim-read a couple other things and got the impression (from the first link below) that this model has had pretty serious issues with the power supply unit in general. Considering it's practically ten years old, it may be unusual that the computer hasn't had this problem sooner!
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/powermacg5/topic4026.html#d02jul2009
My PowerMac G4 smells like burning plastic -- what the heck is going on!?
RE: SMELLS LIKE BURNING??? STINKS! LITERALLY
Does this seem to be a power supply issue? Is there a way to solve both the red light/fan hyperdrive issue AND the burning smell problem?
If I don't get this fixed in time, I may be able to go to the library tomorrow and get the project off of the USB drive using an iMac... But it will be late. 😟
PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.4.11)
