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Unsatisfied with G5 tower performance

K

krilled

macrumors newbie
Original poster
About a month ago I upgraded to a G5 tower from a TiBook, and I am very disapointed with its performance. It locks up frequently, particularly when I quit programs, fails to wake-up from sleep a lot, and won't eject discs or open the CD tray until I reboot the entire system. I've run the hardware test, everything came out fine, so I'm beginning to wonder if I just got a lemon.

I actually just got the internet two days ago, so I had the computer for about a month before I had a chance to download the most recent updates, and it seems to be locking up a bit less, but it's still not nearly as stable as my tibook was.

I'm running OSX 10.3.8 with a 1.8 GHz G5 and 512mb of ram. Can anyone think of anything I might try before I call up apple and ask them to exchange it?
 
Hmmm, you need to turn off the "act ******" option. 😉 Naw, give Apple a call. Sounds like hardware problems.
 
You've repaired permissions? Also get MacJanitor (free) to run those maintanence scripts...

If that fails try the never-say-die option: Backup your users folder and do a complete disk erase and fresh install of OSX.
 
krilled said:
About a month ago I upgraded to a G5 tower from a TiBook, and I am very disapointed with its performance. It locks up frequently, particularly when I quit programs, fails to wake-up from sleep a lot, and won't eject discs or open the CD tray until I reboot the entire system. I've run the hardware test, everything came out fine, so I'm beginning to wonder if I just got a lemon.

I actually just got the internet two days ago, so I had the computer for about a month before I had a chance to download the most recent updates, and it seems to be locking up a bit less, but it's still not nearly as stable as my tibook was.

I'm running OSX 10.3.8 with a 1.8 GHz G5 and 512mb of ram. Can anyone think of anything I might try before I call up apple and ask them to exchange it?
Click to expand...

I have the same problems! Got my 1,8 G5 a month ago too, and when I have used it for some time, it won't open the CD tray, and after that I usually get the spinning beachball. As usual i suspect that it is font related, but I don’t know for sure.
 
i don't know if this failing to wake up from sleep bit is an apple thing

my old power computing power tower pro never failed to wake up from sleep and it used os 8.1

my 300 mhz ibook, with os 9.0, sometimes doesn't wake up from sleep mode

my dual 500 power mac, with os 9.2, usually doesn't wake up from sleep after a few minutes

i hope my next mac does not have the waking up from sleep problem

btw...the two pc computers i use, with windows 98 and windows 98SE both wake up from sleep no matter what
 
Kirk said:
I have the same problems! Got my 1,8 G5 a month ago too, and when I have used it for some time, it won't open the CD tray, and after that I usually get the spinning beachball. As usual i suspect that it is font related, but I don’t know for sure.
Click to expand...

My old G4 Powermac used to do that... strangest thing. Just won't open the CD tray after some time.
 
dferrara said:
My old G4 Powermac used to do that... strangest thing. Just won't open the CD tray after some time.
Click to expand...

yep, my dual 500 mhz g4 power mac does that, too

and i have to reboot to open that tray...maddening!!
 
My G4 tower used to get very confused by scratched DVDs. Inserting one could bring the whole system to a screeching halt.

That said, the computer won't eject a CD if a program is still using it. So if a CD won't eject, the first thing to try is quitting all apps.
 
broken_keyboard said:
My G4 tower used to get very confused by scratched DVDs. Inserting one could bring the whole system to a screeching halt.

That said, the computer won't eject a CD if a program is still using it. So if a CD won't eject, the first thing to try is quitting all apps.
Click to expand...

That is true, but it won’t open even if there is no CD in the tray.

I just ran a software update, and no problems so far (crossing fingers . . .)
 
I'm going to try to repair the permissions right now, but I would think that a fresh-out-the-box mac wouldn't have that problem? As for the CD tray, it's interesting that other people are having that problem, although it never really happened with my tibook. As previous people have said, it happens just as often when there is no CD in the drive at all. Quite a strange bug.
 
krilled said:
...but I would think that a fresh-out-the-box mac wouldn't have that problem?
Click to expand...

I remember once reading (probably here) that the factory installation of system software could sometimes be a bit ropy... I always do a full erase and a clean reinstall when setting up a Mac for the first time.
 
Looks like the problems have been solved for me after installing 10.3.8.
I also had problems disconnecting my iPod, but everything seems to be working fine now. Knock on wood . . .

Edit: Never mind. Now I can’t open the CD tray anymore . . .

🙁
 
I'm having the EXACT same problems that Krilled wrote about at the top of the thread! I've had my computer for about ten days and every so often will not wake up from sleep, nor will it open the CD tray unless I reboot. I'm trying to figure out what causes it to not wake up from sleep ... ruled out non-Mac USB devices since it happened today with only my keyboard plugged in.

Has anybody who has experienced these problems got them resolved? HOW? Please post.
 
Though I have never experienced this problem myself, I have heard reports of some people fixing it by disabling the "spin down hard drive when idle" option in the energy saver panel. It might be inadvertly sleeping the optical drive, which prevents it from ejecting. Just a thought?
 
Also, another thing to try is to install the 10.3.8 combo update. If your computer got an of the 10.3.x patch updates installed, this will clear issues caused by those. Note, you should repair permissions (if you haven't) before you do this.
 
Hello all,

First time post. I had to register just to respond to this thread. My friend recently bought the same machine (late model single 1.8 G5) and had the EXACT same problems you are mentioning here.

The heart of his problem lay in a crap set of RAM that MacMall bundled with his machine. My advice would be to remove any third party RAM and run it with just the default 256 for a bit and see if that solves your issues. He actually mentioned that his machine ran faster with the 256 MB than with the 768, as it was so screwed.

Anyhow, he's been going strong with no hiccups for a month now with 2 new sticks of RAM from Crucial.
 
Since I disable Wake on lan, my G5 doesn't hiccup anymore. i don't even remember the last time I had a beach ball.
 
When I ran 10.2 on my iMac, it would never wake up from sleep. The sleep light on the screen would turn off, the fans would spin up, and the sound worked, but the screen displayed nothing. Had to do force reboot to be able to gain control of it.

Never had a problem with 10.3.
 
**HOW TO FIX THESE PROBLEMS**

In the Energy Saver panel:
1. Uncheck "Put Hard Disk to Sleep When Possible"

2. Set sleep time to "Never" (you can still use display sleep, though)

3. Uncheck "Wake for Ethernet Network Administrator Access"


These are some kinda-known issues with the Late 2004 Single processor G5.
For more info, read "Strange behavior of the 1.8 G5 (Late 2004)" on Apple's dicussion forum.
Under- Home > Power Mac > Power Mac G5 > Usage

Link:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@69.SBrOapvuT7A.1@.5998b321
 
jefhatfield said:
yep, my dual 500 mhz g4 power mac does that, too

and i have to reboot to open that tray...maddening!!
Click to expand...
Have you tried opening iTunes and going Eject CD?
I use that workaround because I have a PC keyboard and keep forgetting which key is mapped to the Eject button...
 
I've had the CD problem with my g5 once since I got it, of cource it was when I had a friend over and I was showing him how much cooler macs are 🙄

but most of the time my machine runs great and I've had it for about 6 weeks.
 
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