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Power Mac G5 - Three LED Flashes with Good RAM (A Case Study)
- Thread starter iMacC2D
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This information is gold. And I highly appreciate it as I have a G5 that is dead due to this exact problem. I have a working logic board but can't change it out until my tools arrive.
Would be great if I could repair the existing board using the wonderful info you've provided but I don't have experience with things like that. 😱
Would be great if I could repair the existing board using the wonderful info you've provided but I don't have experience with things like that. 😱
noodle654
macrumors 68020
Wow man this is some amazing information, thank you for sharing this. My G5 DP 1.8GHz recently died from this...tried the reflow and while it worked it didn't work long enough before it died and I sold it off.
Now that you highlighted the backside heatsink on the logic board all of this makes perfect sense to me. Right now it is the hottest part of my DC G5, it never drops below 130F.
Now that you highlighted the backside heatsink on the logic board all of this makes perfect sense to me. Right now it is the hottest part of my DC G5, it never drops below 130F.
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ouimetnick
macrumors 68040
California
macrumors 68040
That's interesting but remember there are specific ram standards for Powermac G5's. When I owned that same machine, I had to buy brand new ram to make it work and even with eight gigs of ram it was too slow anyway. Worked my way up to a Quad.
The idea that a reflow is needed makes sense and there used to be a company in Arizona who would reflow the broken memory slots on Powerbook G4's, they would reflow the video chips on iBook G4s and probably (if they are still in business) would reflow the boards on these PMG5s.
Still PMG5s were ridiculously notorious and picky about memory. The need to seat the ram chips in matched pairs, in ascending or descending order of size, was also a pain.
The idea that a reflow is needed makes sense and there used to be a company in Arizona who would reflow the broken memory slots on Powerbook G4's, they would reflow the video chips on iBook G4s and probably (if they are still in business) would reflow the boards on these PMG5s.
Still PMG5s were ridiculously notorious and picky about memory. The need to seat the ram chips in matched pairs, in ascending or descending order of size, was also a pain.
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srp
macrumors regular
Sorry to necro but why was this removed? This was exactly the info I was looking for and it's not available anywhere else.
Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/2016060...d-flashes-with-good-ram-a-case-study.1676857/
Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/2016060...d-flashes-with-good-ram-a-case-study.1676857/
@iMacC2D removed most (but not all) of his posts older than Apr 15, 2018 for unknown reasons. Is this behavior that should have been caught by moderators? I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to edit posts, but deleting content like this is bad manners. Some forums like 68kmla.org don't let you edit posts after awhile which is not convenient.
srp
macrumors regular
I’m just glad that I bothered to find it in the archive, because the part about applying pressure to the memory controller at boot is exactly what I was looking for and the only place I can find the issue referenced.
There are some useful pictures showing the underside of the logic board on these machines too.
Cheers for the internet archive!