Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mac Hammer Fan

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 13, 2004
1,254
456
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac_g5_1.8_17_als.html
My girlfriend has a white iMac G5 1.8 Ghz with 17 inch screen. That machine is running 10.5.8 and has always worked well. Yesterday at startup the desktop no longer appeared. The screen remained blue and next to the mouse appeared a small square with black vertical stripes. Is the graphics card broken or is it the motherboard? Or something else?
PRAM reset does not help, and after a while the fans start to run faster and faster.
Who knows what to do?
TIA.
 
I would open it up and check the capacitors first. These Macs are really easy to open. Follow the directions here: http://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/64481/How+to+open+an+iMac+G5+power+pc+with+isight
If they are bad they will be bulging and may have some leakage present, just look close at them all.
caps_full.jpg

Apple-iMac-G5-Motherboard-Capacitor.jpg
 

comda

macrumors 6502a
Mar 15, 2011
619
85
Just as tampasteve had said. Check the caps. The Imac G5s main known issue was their busting and bleeding Caps. I've already had to take one apart and Replace a handful of caps. This in my opinion is one of apples biggest failures. Many of these machines kept coming back for repairs and apple instead of thinking to themselves "Hey! These caps are really bad, maybe we should change cap manufacturers!" but instead all the Imacs that came back where replaced with the same crappy Caps!! SO people would return a few times with this issue. If your actually going through with this and want to order caps DONT ORDER IMAC G5 CAPS! search their specs. You dont want to order the same bad caps again...If your not comfortable, get someone else to change the caps. Best of luck.
Comda
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.