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Liquid-Cooled G5 (Dual 2.7) Explodes...

Hemingray

Hemingray

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jan 9, 2002
2,927
37
Ha ha haaa!
(Okay, maybe not quite explode, but it put out a really cool light show at the Genius Bar!)

One of our users said his G5 wouldn't boot up. Sure enough, pressing the power button on the front would result in a "click" and then nothing. Power supply is bad, I figure. The thing has Apple Care, so I take it into the Apple Store and the Genius is taking a look at it. He decides to plug it in. He didn't even have a chance to hit the power button, when there's a bright flash from inside the case and a loud "POP!" Everyone at the Genius Bar turns and looks. He pauses and then says "Okay, now we're replacing the power supply, processors, and motherboard." I was highly amused!

So I get a call a few days later and they say that the liquid coolant had leaked out, so they'd also need to replace the cover for the power supply, which was on order.

To make a long story short, after several phone calls and 2 weeks of waiting for parts, they gave me "the bad news and the good news": basically they were replacing the machine with a Mac Pro! Dual 3GHz Xeon, 2GB RAM, dual Super Drives, and a much better graphics card.

The Apple Care really paid off on this one! I checked the Apple forums and apparently most of the Apple Stores are starting to do this with the defective liquid-cooled G5s. Has anyone else had this happen to them recently?
 
Hemingray said:
Has anyone else had this happen to them recently?
Click to expand...

Nope, dual 2.5 G5 is plugging away as reliably as ever. Good thing, since Applecare would have expired last month, if I'd bothered to get it in the first place that is.

--Eric
 
Eric5h5 said:
Nope, dual 2.5 G5 is plugging away as reliably as ever. Good thing, since Applecare would have expired last month, if I'd bothered to get it in the first place that is.

--Eric
Click to expand...

I'm in the same situation... Although my G5 is now starting to rattle internally (kinda sounds like a flat tire). I'm hoping I can fix it (at least somewhat) with a nice thorough cleaning. And I'm praying it holds together until the new MP start shipping. I would hate to have to edit on my 12" PB.
 
Nobody thought to have a video camera with, what a shame:(

The Mac Pro is one hell of a beast. Mine right now is encoding a movie, playing music in iTunes, running an access database, then in VMWare I have Win XP, Ubuntu, and Solaris running. The Solaris is running as a virtual photolithography scanner. Some really intense stuff and she is just purring away no problem.
 
There are an increasing number of reports of this happening that it seems to make sense to pick up a cheap Power Mac that is liquid cooled with applecare as a route to getting a Mac Pro.
 
Hemingray said:
basically they were replacing the machine with a Mac Pro! Dual 3GHz Xeon, 2GB RAM, dual Super Drives, and a much better graphics card.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, what was the original config of your PM G5 2.7, and what's the new config of your Mac Pro?

My 2.7 has been having problems rebooting for sometime now, and I finally got AppleCare to look at it. They tried to replace the CPU unit twice, the logic board and the video card. With each of the new CPU units, the G5 wouldn't even boot. So it looks like I'll be getting a new Mac Pro too. Really glad I had AppleCare, as I didn't get it previously on my G4 Quicksilver.
 
My dual 2.5 G5 went up in smoke about a month ago at like 4 in the morning.

Took it to the Apple Store and talked to them for about 10 minutes and it was replaced with a Mac Pro Quad 2.66. Really great service. They even replaced all the RAM and HD Space.

All around great experience.

~Crawn
 
An interesting point of opinion - a supposedly heavy-duty machine that can't survive three years in a very low-stress consumer environment is seen as an asset.

Puzzling.

No experience with G5's but our Pros are the worst workstations in our possession for reliability - so perhaps it's time to Applecare those replacements too (if you can), eh?
 
Sesshi said:
An interesting point of opinion - a supposedly heavy-duty machine that can't survive three years in a very low-stress consumer environment is seen as an asset.

Puzzling.

No experience with G5's but our Pros are the worst workstations in our possession for reliability - so perhaps it's time to Applecare those replacements too (if you can), eh?
Click to expand...

Well, it's specifically the liquid-cooling aspect of these models (2.5 and 2.7) that is the problem. They have been known to leak, causing all sorts of problems with everything once it gets to the power supply. And yes, I have had one "explode", and trip the breakers while it happened. Very exciting. I've had four fail, one was repaired, and three were replaced with MacPros (I run a university computer lab).
 
Glad I got rid of my 2.7 when I did, it always made me a bit nervous.

Apple probably isn't bothering to repair them, because the same problem could arise again later. Even if a machine is out of apple-care, it could put Apple in a legally vulnerable spot if a machine caught fire and/or someone got electrocuted.
 
I still have mine but it has always made me nervous ever since I heard of the incident involving coolant leaks.

When I first heard of the liquid cooled PowerMacs I thought it was a great idea for Apple to use liquid cooling for their highest end models but that gave way to uneasiness when the issue first surfaced.

At work I have been using Windows workstations with Xeon processors for years. If Apple had made the Intel switch sooner there would be a lot more happier Mac users out there! :eek:

Hopefully the magical aura of The Hula Girl will continue to protect and prolong the life of my G5 DP.
 
Sesshi said:
For starters - Multiple PSU failures, some drive caddy issues with 10K drives, not to mention all of the machines which are used in relatively uncontrolled (i.e. non-air conditioned, can be 30C+) temperatures developing instability issues.
Click to expand...

PSU failures? Interesting. I can see x1900XT overheating and causing problems. Memory and north bridge are also running a tad hot. But the rest of the system runs very cool.
 
QuantumLo0p said:
At work I have been using Windows workstations with Xeon processors for years. If Apple had made the Intel switch sooner there would be a lot more happier Mac users out there! :eek:
Click to expand...

I doubt it. The current Xeons are notably better than the previous generation. I was unhappy with the performance of Xeons in desktop gear, and ended up switching to Opteron until my switch back to Core/5100-series Xeons last year. Apple definitely made the switch at the right time in terms of what Intel was offering - it's just a shame they can't engineer a really stable platform for these processors.
 
Sesshi said:
I doubt it. The current Xeons are notably better than the previous generation. I was unhappy with the performance of Xeons in desktop gear, and ended up switching to Opteron until my switch back to Core/5100-series Xeons last year. Apple definitely made the switch at the right time in terms of what Intel was offering - it's just a shame they can't engineer a really stable platform for these processors.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I hear you talkin. The main reason we used Xeons was we required a hardware vendor that offered certified configurations for use with NX and ProE. They weren't the best performing boxes available but the total support package was there. :)

I liked AMD a lot but there were simply no vendors offering high end configurations using AMD processors that were certified for our CAD/CAM environment. :(
 
I've read a couple such stories on these forums and it makes you wonder if Apple did any endurance testing of these machines before they were released. I sure hope when the Mac Pro update finally comes that they are not liquid cooled.. hopefully Apple has learned their lesson on this.
 
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