PowerMac G5 clicking noise but no power

[iceman45575]

Hello everyone,

I acquired a PowerMac G5 with a bad power supply. I just replaced it with a working one from eBay, however when I plug the power cord into the back of the machine I hear a clicking noise and a white light over the power button flashes for a quick second. When I press the power button nothing happens. The clicking noise also occurs when I detatch the power cord from the machine. It is a PowerMac 2 Ghz dual processor 7,3. Any ideas on what to do?

Thank you

 

[1042686]

I believe that’s the Mac saying there’s some issue with ram. Reseat the ram and try again. Make sure the ram is inserted in matched sets.

 

[iceman45575]

I believe that’s the Mac saying there’s some issue with ram. Reseat the ram and try again. Make sure the ram is inserted in matched sets.

Thanks for the reply. I just tried this a few times only putting in 512mbs. I used 2 256 sticks and I'm assuming both go in #1 slot on the top and bottom? I tried this with 2 different sets and it's doing the same thing.
Here is a video to show what's happening.

 

[1042686]

If you think about the memory banks as:

Slot 1
Slot 2
Slot 3
Slot 4 - X

Slot 4 - X
Slot 3
Slot 2
Slot 1

Your matched sets go in from the inner most set outwards, starting where the x’s are. Try a couple
Matched sets The inner most slot 4 of both banks and see if it will boot.

 

[iceman45575]

If you think about the memory banks as:

Slot 1
Slot 2
Slot 3
Slot 4 - X

Slot 4 - X
Slot 3
Slot 2
Slot 1

Your matched sets go in from the inner most set outwards, starting where the x’s are. Try a couple
Matched sets The inner most slot 4 of both banks and see if it will boot.

So my computer's slots are actually like this:

Slot 4
Slot 3
Slot 2
Slot 1

Slot 1
Slot 2
Slot 3
Slot 4

I tried:

Slot 4 -X
Slot 3
Slot 2
Slot 1

Slot 1 -X
Slot 2
Slot 3
Slot 4

as well as...

Slot 4
Slot 3
Slot 2
Slot 1 -X

Slot 1 -X
Slot 2
Slot 3
Slot 4

but both aren't working... Any other ideas?

 

[1042686]

Numbering is really irrelevant - the pairs go in from the inner most slots outward. If you have other sticks, I’d give that a try. It is entirely possible that your ram is bad.

You may also have damaged ram slots preventing The computer from working. Some folks have had success testing this by running a hair dryer over the inner slots for a few minutes to get them hot (the solder points expand with the heat making contact with the trace) and then try and turn it on.

If it turns on, you know the slots are bad. The fix is to unfortunately replace the logic board.

 

[iceman45575]

Numbering is really irrelevant - the pairs go in from the inner most slots outward. If you have other sticks, I’d give that a try. It is entirely possible that your ram is bad.

You may also have damaged ram slots preventing The computer from working. Some folks have had success testing this by running a hair dryer over the inner slots for a few minutes to get them hot (the solder points expand with the heat making contact with the trace) and then try and turn it on.

If it turns on, you know the slots are bad. The fix is to unfortunately replace the logic board.

I really appreciate all the help. I'm not sure that there is anything else I can do because I tried a couple different sticks of RAM and I tried heating it up first and I'm still not even getting anything to turn on.

 

[DeltaMac]

Do the fans "kick" at all at the moment you see the power LED on?
Have you tried removing the lower processor, to test if you can get power with a single processor installed?
If that works (or not), swap the other processor into the top to see if that changes anything.
Try removing all PCI cards, leaving only the graphics card (Reseat that card while you are there...)
Is there ANY change if you leave ALL ram sticks out? If the RAM is causing this issue, no RAM should give you repeating single flash on the power button LED after pressing the power button (because no RAM installed!)
Does the power LED ever come on, even briefly, after pressing the power button? -- or only one brief flash when you plug in the power cord.
Have you tested the power button itself? That plugs in to the front panel board, and is a simple task to bypass that for troubleshooting.

 

[iceman45575]

No the fans do not do anything at all.

Do the fans "kick" at all at the moment you see the power LED on?
Have you tried removing the lower processor, to test if you can get power with a single processor installed?
If that works (or not), swap the other processor into the top to see if that changes anything.
Try removing all PCI cards, leaving only the graphics card (Reseat that card while you are there...)
Is there ANY change if you leave ALL ram sticks out? If the RAM is causing this issue, no RAM should give you repeating single flash on the power button LED after pressing the power button (because no RAM installed!)
Does the power LED ever come on, even briefly, after pressing the power button? -- or only one brief flash when you plug in the power cord.
Have you tested the power button itself? That plugs in to the front panel board, and is a simple task to bypass that for troubleshooting.

No the fans don't do anything at all. I currently do not have the time to try and swap the processors so I will have to do that later. However I did have the chance to remove all the RAM as well as all PCI cards (including the video card) and it does the same thing shown in the video. I will try to update once I have the time to mess with the processors.

 

[reddrag0n]

i have the exact same issue but mine clicks even when the psu is out of the machine. when i plug in the power it does it's double click thing and thats it. no startup, no fan no bong. just a dead computer.

fyi, g5 dp 2 with a 5200 nvidia

*edit*
turns out that once i took the actual board out of the psu housing, there are a couple of scorch marks along the traces. so i think this psu is actually dead.