iMac G5 PowerPC Problems - PSU, capacitors, mid-board... Which is it?

[c0bracommander]

So it seems that I have one of the unfortunate iMac G5 PowerPCs that has power problems. Emits an electrical smell. Fans go at full blast. Goes into an indefinitely suspended state and won't respond until physically pulling the plug on it.

It seems the consensus is that there are three main problems/solutions:
1) Replacing the Power Supply Unit
2) Replacing the capacitors
3) Replacing the mid-board

Ideally, I'd like to pinpoint to issue to find out if I just have to replace the capacitors or what, which could be inexpensive and I could even do it myself.

I opened the case up and 3 of the capacitors are bulging. Thankfully they aren't leaking, yet. Should I just purchase replacement capacitors and change them all out? Take the entire machine to a Genius Bar?

I'm at wits end here. It's a computer that I like, but I don't want to keep investing money into it, if it's just going to keep giving me problems. I just added a 1TB hard drive and 2 gigs of ram. That would really bum me out if I can't fix this.

Gah. I just want this fixed. Too bad the replacement warranty thing expired in Dec. 2008 for the video and power issues. (http://www.apple.com/uk/support/imac/repairextensionprogram/)

 

[robert05au]

If the power supply is smelling it is a problem which needs replacement and also the logic board is likely damaged and will require replacement both are covered under an extended warranty due to the problem when it came out.

I had an iMac G5 before my intel one and it had both the power supply and logic board replaced three times before it went well without any further issues.

 

[c0bracommander]

If the power supply is smelling it is a problem which needs replacement and also the logic board is likely damaged and will require replacement both are covered under an extended warranty due to the problem when it came out.

I had an iMac G5 before my intel one and it had both the power supply and logic board replaced three times before it went well without any further issues.

This is now WAY out of warranty (even under the protection program which ran until Dec. 2008).

Think they'll approve of an instance like this, or am I S.O.L.?