Power Mac G5

[jkuz]

Hey guys,
I was recently given a PowerMac G5 by a guy who upgraded to a new machine. He said that it had been working for years and never really had any problems with it. He pulled the hard drive and the ram from it before he gave it to me but everything else has been left alone.
I put a ram chip that is "supposed" to work in PowerMac G5's but....
I cannot get the thing to boot.

I plug in my monitor to the dvi port on the back of the computer
I plug in my keyboard mouse and power it up.
The fans will spin but that is it.
There is no chime, and the power light only blinks once.
I have found the diagnostic info for this but it speaks nothing of the power light only blinking once.

The machine currently has no HDD in it but that really shouldn't matter because I just want to get the thing to boot from an install cd in the disk drive.

Thanks!

 

[simsaladimbamba]

What RAM did you get exactly for what exact PowerMac?

 

[jkuz]

The RAM is from an old iMac G5.
it says:
PC3200U-30331-A1
512MB, DDR, 400, CL3

I had checked crucial.com and I believe that this is the correct RAM for a PowerMac G5 but I could be wrong.

 

[drorpheus]

what exact model do you have? if you go to http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html
and enter your serial# you can find out when and what model it exactly is to determine what ram it actually needs, some of them are different most but not all of them need to be installed in matched pairs, also to boot from a cd/dvd you need to hold down c after turning it on but it wont do anything until you have the right ram in it.

 

[jkuz]

XB3510BZQEU
Is my serial, if you want to verify yourself
but it seems that I am using the right type of ram.
I got another stick of pc3200 400 and put it in and the computer still doesn't want to boot. It does the same as before. The fans turn on and the power light blinks about once a second.

 

[drorpheus]

yeah its a 2003 1.8ghz either single or dual cpu depending on how many G5 logos there are when you open the side panel, it takes pc3200 ddr 400 like you said, how many ram slots do you have 4 or 8? also the ram is supposed to be installed from the inside and outward, so if you have 8 slots and 2 sticks of ram they would go in slot 4 and slot 5, the next 2 sticks you come across would go in slot 3 and slot 6. If you have 4 ram slots the 2 sticks would go into slot 2 and 3.

 

[jkuz]

I do have the 8 ram slots so I put the ram in slots 4 and 5.
Still the same issue

 

[drorpheus]

have you tried both obviously you put the 2 in, is it any different if you put the ram in #5 in #4 and the ram in #4 in #5? also you can try hitting the pmu reset button a little bit lower past the ram slots.

 

[GermanyChris]

here is what I would do:

I would take everything out of the computer, all the cards, optical drives, HDD then inspect everything.

I would blow everything out with compressed air.

I'd clean up the vid card contacts with an eraser.

I'd do the same thing with the RAM then install the sticks in the two slots closest together on the opposite side.

If you have another mac I'd install OSX via external enclosure, if not I'd leave the HDD out for the time being.

Install the CD/DVD Drive after insuring the cables were connected correctly.

If the Computer boots great, if not find a mac and install the OS via external.

If the computer is not yelling at you it's probably not the RAM. I suspect it's the Video Card.

Put OSX install DVD