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Power Mac G5 with non-working USB ports.

C

ctmpkmlec4

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 4, 2014
373
40
Lyons, KS
I acquired a Power Mac G5 today. It's the mid-2004 model DP 1.8. I got it for the case, but it's complete and it boots. The problem is that the USB ports appear not to work. I have pulled the PRAM battery and found that it tests fine (3.75v). This is where I have stopped troubleshooting for the night. In the morning, I will reinstall the PRAM battery and reset the PMU.

Is there anything else I can try?
 
ctmpkmlec4 said:
I acquired a Power Mac G5 today. It's the mid-2004 model DP 1.8. I got it for the case, but it's complete and it boots. The problem is that the USB ports appear not to work. I have pulled the PRAM battery and found that it tests fine (3.75v). This is where I have stopped troubleshooting for the night. In the morning, I will reinstall the PRAM battery and reset the PMU.

Is there anything else I can try?
Click to expand...

My guess is the logic board but before we jump to conclusions perhaps you can do a little more trouble shooting...
1. What do you have plugged in? Is it just the mouse and keyboard or have you tried to see if other things will connect such as a flash drive?
2. Does the front one work?

Worst case scenario I suppose you could try adding a USB PCI card and seeing how far that gets you.
 
I have a Cinema display plugged into the USB port. I've tried each rear port. The keyboard is plugged into a USB port on the Cinema display, and the mouse is plugged into the keyboard. I know the USB ports on the display are fine. I did not check the port on the front of the tower. I'll do a little more troubleshooting tomorrow.
 
My first G5 had that fault. It was a 2ghz model but i can't remember if DC or DP. It started with not recognising USB ports then crashing when I tried to use them before finally dying. I had a friend check it out and it was the logic board. He offered me £30 for it as parts and as I was getting married I took it. Last I heard he used the case for a pc mod job. I regret it in some ways but Mac or the wife....?
 
I have had this happen on PCs before. As A.Goldberg said 1st try he front port than try a PCI USB Card. I have goten USB working on computer using a USB card in the past. It has also NOT worked along with the onboard USB not working. If a USB card doesn't work i would suggest a fresh reinstall of OS X. If it does work just use a USB card.
 
Last edited:
No need for apologies. I was worried I wasn't thinking outside the box. I can install VNC on one Mac and transfer the HDD to the one with bad USB ports. Or... Couldn't I SSH into it and run a command from the terminal that would tell me if the USB ports are visible? I'm not a UNIX badass.
 
I'm far from competent at Unix as well, but you can access system profiler through the command line.

Once you've SSHed in, you can type system_profiler and it will give you a full dump of everything that normally shows up in system profiler.

system_profiler -SPUSBDataType should give you just the information on USB.
 
bunnspecial said:
I'm far from competent at Unix as well, but you can access system profiler through the command line.

Once you've SSHed in, you can type system_profiler and it will give you a full dump of everything that normally shows up in system profiler.

system_profiler -SPUSBDataType should give you just the information on USB.
Click to expand...
Thank you, this is super helpful. When I get some time later tonight, I'll give this command a shot and see what it returns.
 
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