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Another dead powermac story...

S

stevey500

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 8, 2004
404
6
Salt Lake City, Utah
Well hell, this sucks!... I guess this is what I get for trying something that wasnt meant to be. I ordered an Nvidia 5200 Ultra 64mb to use in my G4.. so I can use the new Dell 20" LCD that is suposed to be here tomorrow, I found a mod guide to allow it for use in the G4 AGP slots, well I did exactly as said, it looked just perfect, put it in the agp slot, fit just perfectly snug... plugged in my monitor.
I plugged the powermac in, powered up... chime, waited for a signal to the monitor, then I hear.. hisss pop crackle... going through my head was "$h!t @H!TTTT!!!" Unplugged it right away, put my Nvidia Geforce2 MX back in the computer, powered up... Ding..... No signal, no signal.... no signal... holy crap I killed it. On the g3 powerbook sitting next to me I tried to access my website, which is on the powermac im pretty sure I just fried, My page loaded right up no problem. I think I literally killed my AGP slot, and I mean KILLED... My Geforce2 heatsink is a little hotter than usual... so something is very wrong, I have done what I could. I really dont see where anything is burned on my Logic board anywhere, no signs of any burned spots. I looked at the 5200 Ultra and seen no burn spots or any deformed capacitors or any thing. Now I'm out of money and need a new logic board, really really bad. Maybe someone on the board had a digital audio Powermac G4 they are throwing out... can I have the logic board?? I will pay for shipping!! lol, this sucks... Whatever you do, dont do that G5 to G4 Video card mod.
 
Where on earth...

Did you get the idea that a 5200 would work in a AGP Mac?

This is simply false, and more than one person has been 'burned' by it. A new logic board is $400+ and most Ebay boards sell for $200+. Mac G5 5200 video cards (assuming yours was even a Mac card) have been theorized to work, but draw more power than the AGP socket / circuit can supply.

Visit www.strangedogs.com forums to read up on what you should have known before this adventure.

Good luck and do be more careful in the future.
 
well if it's just the agp slot thats messed up. then you may want a pci card to to put is as a cheap alternative
 
stevey500 said:
Well hell, this sucks!... I guess this is what I get for trying something that wasnt meant to be. I ordered an Nvidia 5200 Ultra 64mb to use in my G4.. so I can use the new Dell 20" LCD that is suposed to be here tomorrow, I found a mod guide to allow it for use in the G4 AGP slots, well I did exactly as said, it looked just perfect, put it in the agp slot, fit just perfectly snug... plugged in my monitor.
I plugged the powermac in, powered up... chime, waited for a signal to the monitor, then I hear.. hisss pop crackle... going through my head was "$h!t @H!TTTT!!!" Unplugged it right away, put my Nvidia Geforce2 MX back in the computer, powered up... Ding..... No signal, no signal.... no signal... holy crap I killed it. On the g3 powerbook sitting next to me I tried to access my website, which is on the powermac im pretty sure I just fried, My page loaded right up no problem. I think I literally killed my AGP slot, and I mean KILLED... My Geforce2 heatsink is a little hotter than usual... so something is very wrong, I have done what I could. I really dont see where anything is burned on my Logic board anywhere, no signs of any burned spots. I looked at the 5200 Ultra and seen no burn spots or any deformed capacitors or any thing. Now I'm out of money and need a new logic board, really really bad. Maybe someone on the board had a digital audio Powermac G4 they are throwing out... can I have the logic board?? I will pay for shipping!! lol, this sucks... Whatever you do, dont do that G5 to G4 Video card mod.
Click to expand...

ouch, that sucks.

BTW I just checked the UPS tracking and the LCD is out for delivery today.
 
berkleeboy210 said:
ouch, that sucks.

BTW I just checked the UPS tracking and the LCD is out for delivery today.
Click to expand...

lol yep.. thanks for the smooth transaction!... im patientily ( supposably ) waiting for the LCD to arrive :p... lol I'll have to borrow my dad's mac mini for a little while :)

Yeah I think i'm going to use a PCI card, I have a POS rage 128 a friend is borrowing but he just upgraded to a 5200 PC flashed agp card... so ill wait to get that back.
 
A little luck, sorta..

Well I tried to mess around with it today .. to get the AGP slot working, I took the Geforce2 out... put it back in as tightly as i could. I powered the G4 up to see that it is now giving a signal through the VGA port. The picture was just whitevertical lines about a pixel apart on the most right part of my 17" CRT I was testing with, as the G4 was booting I could see some of the pixels changing colors.. etc. I found a POS ATI Xclaim macintosh PCI video card I booted the machine with. OS X tiger did not have drivers for the card, so it ran in just 256 Color with the PCI card... I was able to open up system profiler and see that the Nvidia Geforce2 card is listed just fine, but wont quite work properly. I shut down to try the other card again. As I was removing the pci video card I seen a capacitor ( at least i think thats what it is, barely hanging on, on the logic board that is right next to the AGP slot, right next to the I/O panel of the back of the G4. I touched it and it came right off, Just to make sure I powered up the machine again and it booted fine, but with the same video problems. I was thinking about it, and could probably solder this piece back onto the board. Is there any experts out there anywhere that know for sure that this may fix my problems I am having? Thanks.. I will post some pictures.
Note: Obviously Drawn in MS Paint
 

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stevey500 said:
A little luck, sorta..

Well I tried to mess around with it today .. to get the AGP slot working, I took the Geforce2 out... put it back in as tightly as i could. I powered the G4 up to see that it is now giving a signal through the VGA port. The picture was just whitevertical lines about a pixel apart on the most right part of my 17" CRT I was testing with, as the G4 was booting I could see some of the pixels changing colors.. etc. I found a POS ATI Xclaim macintosh PCI video card I booted the machine with. OS X tiger did not have drivers for the card, so it ran in just 256 Color with the PCI card... I was able to open up system profiler and see that the Nvidia Geforce2 card is listed just fine, but wont quite work properly. I shut down to try the other card again. As I was removing the pci video card I seen a capacitor ( at least i think thats what it is, barely hanging on, on the logic board that is right next to the AGP slot, right next to the I/O panel of the back of the G4. I touched it and it came right off, Just to make sure I powered up the machine again and it booted fine, but with the same video problems. I was thinking about it, and could probably solder this piece back onto the board. Is there any experts out there anywhere that know for sure that this may fix my problems I am having? Thanks.. I will post some pictures.
Note: Obviously Drawn in MS Paint
Click to expand...

Years of troubleshooting and soldering under the hood here. Are you sure that cap is from the Mac's logic board, and didn't fall off the fried AGP card instead? Anything can be resoldered if the trace and pads aren't skrewed on the PCB. I would be willing to perform the operation for you for $5 (to cover gas and materials) + return shipping if that's all that's wrong, but couldn't guarantee that it is the cause of the video problem.. I don't think that it is because a 35V cap doesn't seem likely to be on any of the VGA lines.. then again, if its being used to smooth choppy power, it could be the fix.. Can you double check the video cards for missing caps? Generally, if anything's gonna "pop" "sizzle" or "bang", it's a capacitor first..
(Send me the highest detail pictures you can take of your main board and the offending AGP video card that caused the trouble so I can look for any visually recognizable problems).. fixm(-remove4emailantispammeasure-)@adelphia.net

-Matt Carrell,
FIXM Computer
Moreno Valley, CA
 
Well I'm very sure the piece came off in the picture where I pointed it out, because I can see the broken solder point... but the thing is, I dont know exactly which way it goes on, does anyone out here have a Digital Audio computer and would like to take a high resolution picture of their PCI/AGP slot area for me? that would be nice :) thanks...
 
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