iMac G5 Crashing... Advice Needed

[E36 Pilot]

Hi all,

I hope some of you can shine some light on a problem I'm running into.

My 17" G5 iMac (purchased new in December 2004) will power on, run for between 2 to 10 minutes, then make a slight popping sound and power off. In the last 2 days I've tried to start the computer a total of 5 times. 4 times, it powered off, as explained above, and one time I was able to use it for a few hours, then shut it down as usual.

Temperatures are as follows:
CPU: ~49C (52-55 while opening apps.)
HD: ~33C

I read a lot about power supply and temperature issues. If my power supply is bad, I'd think I wouldn't be able to start up at all.

Any help is much appreciated.

Ted

 

[mad jew]

Take it to Apple. It still could be a faulty power supply, despite being able to start up. It could also be a failing logic board.

 

[portent]

Early iMac G5s were widely affected by capacitor problems, due to a rash of bad capacitors that hit the entire industry around that time. Impending capacitor failure might account for those symptoms. If it turns out this is the case, (and only Apple will decide) your iMac will probably be fixed by Apple for free.

 

[Eidorian]

http://www.apple.com/support/imac/repairextensionprogram/

 

[E36 Pilot]

Thanks for all the info. My serial number falls in the range of the capacitor problem. Guess it's time to see the Genius bar tomorrow...

Thanks for all the help!

 

[Lazze]

My 8 months old 20" 2.0 Ghz iMac G5 did the same thing a month ago - then it stopped doing anything at all . The last time it shut down I was unable to power it up again and it had to be taken in for repair. That took 3 weeks. After I got it back the same thing happened again and 28 hours after I got it back it died once again . So for the last month, I've been without my iMac (this is being posted from my girlfriends 5 year old PC).