Dual-Processer Liquid Cooled G5 Boot Fail

[Snipeye]

Here's my situation:

A couple few days ago, my G5 just randomly froze - I could move the mouse, but I couldn't drag anything, all progress bars stopped, even the progress bar animations stopped. I rebooted, and it worked fine for around 15 minutes, then froze again - I tried dragging something, and left it. About 15 minutes later, it unfroze for a second, and the window dragged to where I put it, then it froze up again.

I thought it might be a failing hard drive, as the boot drive was quite old, so I reinstalled on a different drive, copied over all my preferences, and tried again. It seemed to work for a while, maybe a couple hours at best, but then it froze again. I got it to boot again, ran Onyx, tried repairing everything Onyx could (permissions, clearing caches, EVERYTHING) and rebooted - still no dice. At this point, I can't get it to boot off either drive, and when I try to boot from the CD, it gets to the same point as the drive: Gets past the grey apple + gear, goes to a blue screen, I get a mouse that I can move, and then nothing. I waited almost an hour for it to boot, and from the CD, it got the the 'preparing installation' point, but then seemed to freeze again.

I took the entire G5 as apart as I felt comfortable, cleaned off all dust, looked for any leaks from the cooling system, double checked all plugs and cables, then reassembled and tried booting again - still no luck.

Here are some specs I copied before I tried the first re-install:

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: Power Mac G5
Model Identifier: PowerMac7,3
Processor Name: PowerPC G5 (3.0)
Processor Speed: 2.5 GHz
Number Of CPUs: 2
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.25 GHz
Boot ROM Version: 5.1.8f8
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-000D9358FDA0



ATI Radeon 9600 XT:

Chipset Model: ATY,RV360
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-1
VRAM (Total): 128 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4152
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-A13602-121
Displays:
SyncMaster:
Resolution: 1680 x 1050 @ 60 Hz
Depth: 32-Bit Color
Core Image: Software
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Not Supported
Display Connector:
Status: No Display Connected

Serial-ATA Bus:

ST3250823AS:

Capacity: 232.89 GB
Model: ST3250823AS
Revision: 3.03
Serial Number: 3ND1GXN7
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Protocol: ata
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Serial-ATA
Bay Name: "A (upper)"
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: APM (Apple Partition Map)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Boot:
Capacity: 232.76 GB
Available: 29.23 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s3
Mount Point: /



So, what's wrong? Is it a bad logic board, simultanious hard drive and CD drive failure, what? I tried zapping the PMU and PRAM, neither did anything.

HELP!

 

[Joshuarocks]

Here's my situation:

A couple few days ago, my G5 just randomly froze - I could move the mouse, but I couldn't drag anything, all progress bars stopped, even the progress bar animations stopped. I rebooted, and it worked fine for around 15 minutes, then froze again - I tried dragging something, and left it. About 15 minutes later, it unfroze for a second, and the window dragged to where I put it, then it froze up again.

I thought it might be a failing hard drive, as the boot drive was quite old, so I reinstalled on a different drive, copied over all my preferences, and tried again. It seemed to work for a while, maybe a couple hours at best, but then it froze again. I got it to boot again, ran Onyx, tried repairing everything Onyx could (permissions, clearing caches, EVERYTHING) and rebooted - still no dice. At this point, I can't get it to boot off either drive, and when I try to boot from the CD, it gets to the same point as the drive: Gets past the grey apple + gear, goes to a blue screen, I get a mouse that I can move, and then nothing. I waited almost an hour for it to boot, and from the CD, it got the the 'preparing installation' point, but then seemed to freeze again.

I took the entire G5 as apart as I felt comfortable, cleaned off all dust, looked for any leaks from the cooling system, double checked all plugs and cables, then reassembled and tried booting again - still no luck.

Here are some specs I copied before I tried the first re-install:

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: Power Mac G5
Model Identifier: PowerMac7,3
Processor Name: PowerPC G5 (3.0)
Processor Speed: 2.5 GHz
Number Of CPUs: 2
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.25 GHz
Boot ROM Version: 5.1.8f8
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-000D9358FDA0



ATI Radeon 9600 XT:

Chipset Model: ATY,RV360
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-1
VRAM (Total): 128 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4152
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-A13602-121
Displays:
SyncMaster:
Resolution: 1680 x 1050 @ 60 Hz
Depth: 32-Bit Color
Core Image: Software
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Not Supported
Display Connector:
Status: No Display Connected

Serial-ATA Bus:

ST3250823AS:

Capacity: 232.89 GB
Model: ST3250823AS
Revision: 3.03
Serial Number: 3ND1GXN7
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Protocol: ata
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Serial-ATA
Bay Name: "A (upper)"
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: APM (Apple Partition Map)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Boot:
Capacity: 232.76 GB
Available: 29.23 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s3
Mount Point: /



So, what's wrong? Is it a bad logic board, simultanious hard drive and CD drive failure, what? I tried zapping the PMU and PRAM, neither did anything.

HELP!

Hi, sounds like you did about 60 percent of the troubleshooting which is good.. now, have you tried to run the Apple Hardware Test to see if IT picks up anything unusual? Btw, if you need the most comprehensive of all apple hardware diag tools, I have Apple Service Diagnostic which also has thermal calibration software - useful for if you remove the processors and need to re-calibrate them so that your fans won't sound like a jet taking off.. Let me know if you need this most important utility.

Sounds like a logic board failure somewhere at this point. the Dual 2.5's were notoriously high for liquid cooling leaks and such, but lets hope this isn't the case.. skype me at: psychomacuser343 and we can discuss this further..

Josh

Lets try to save your G5 before it completely dies on you..

 

[Snipeye]

Unfortunately, I bought the computer in very good condition, but second hand. I usually hang on to things like that, but I've looked everywhere and can't find it - I don't think it came with the hardware test disc(s?).

 

[Joshuarocks]

Unfortunately, I bought the computer in very good condition, but second hand. I usually hang on to things like that, but I've looked everywhere and can't find it - I don't think it came with the hardware test disc(s?).

Hi, let me know if you need those. I can archive them and send them to you.. Also, you will need 2.5.8 for your apple service diagnostics needs.

 

[666sheep]

I took the entire G5 as apart as I felt comfortable, cleaned off all dust, looked for any leaks from the cooling system, double checked all plugs and cables, then reassembled and tried booting again - still no luck.

Did you remove CPUs with cooling? Without this you couldn't be 100% sure if there's no leak.

 

[Snipeye]

Josh, if you could get those CD's to me, that would be great. As for removing the CPU's: No, I didn't. Though I feel that if there were a leak, I probably would have seen it, and even if I didn't, wouldn't it have failed slightly more spectacularly than just slowly degrading to the point where it wouldn't boot?