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Powermac G5 Not booting

M

Miles caddy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 27, 2015
3
0
So today i picked up a g5 for £25. No idea what the model was but it said it powered up so i figured why not. Can always use the case for a hackintosh and sell what works if it doesn't boot. Anyway turned out to be a 2004 2ghz DP, 4.5 Gb ram!!, fx5200. no hard drive though.

The machine powers on and chimes but has no video and after around 2 minutes the fans slowly ramp up to full.

Things ive tried are resetting the pmu and reseating the ram and gpu with no luck.

Want to try everything before i do the oven trick


Any suggestions would be great.
 
Miles caddy said:
So today i picked up a g5 for £25. No idea what the model was but it said it powered up so i figured why not. Can always use the case for a hackintosh and sell what works if it doesn't boot. Anyway turned out to be a 2004 2ghz DP, 4.5 Gb ram!!, fx5200. no hard drive though.



The machine powers on and chimes but has no video and after around 2 minutes the fans slowly ramp up to full.



Things ive tried are resetting the pmu and reseating the ram and gpu with no luck.



Want to try everything before i do the oven trick





Any suggestions would be great.
Click to expand...


That would be because it has no hard drive, thus it has nothing to do and the fans kick up. If you stick a drive in and install OS X on it, it would probably work fine.
 
Ok, ill give it a go, Would have thought it would have displayed the no os icon though
 
It should actually be displaying a flashing question mark (because it's looking for a system to boot from).

Reseat the video card. If that does not work you probably need a new video card.

Try a different (Mac) video card, preferably one you know is good.

If no video at that point then it might be the logicboard.

Best to eliminate options before baking what could be a perfectly good logicboard.
 
it sounds like ur memory controller (the U3 chip) has failed. you can try baking the mobo that works for some peeps (theres a vid on youtube about it) (fit some known good ram make sure it is not the ram causing the problems as i know G5s can be a bit pickey when it comes to ram)
 
poiihy said:
I think by "breaking" he means take it apart.

OP said this:


----------





Is Powermac G5 ram the same as Powermac G4 ram? Would ram from Mile's Powermac work in a Digital Audio G4?
Click to expand...


I honestly have no clue, I'm sure it would though if it has the same DDR type
 
Miles caddy said:
So today i picked up a g5 for £25. No idea what the model was but it said it powered up so i figured why not. Can always use the case for a hackintosh and sell what works if it doesn't boot. Anyway turned out to be a 2004 2ghz DP, 4.5 Gb ram!!, fx5200. no hard drive though.

The machine powers on and chimes but has no video and after around 2 minutes the fans slowly ramp up to full.

Things ive tried are resetting the pmu and reseating the ram and gpu with no luck.

Want to try everything before i do the oven trick


Any suggestions would be great.
Click to expand...


I think I know what your problem is... computers need a hard drive in order to boot[CITATION NEEDED].
So without a hard drive your PM G5 has no OS to load[CITATION NEEDED]
You should buy a SATA 1 hard drive, and install OS X
 
mzs.112000 said:
I think I know what your problem is... computers need a hard drive in order to boot[CITATION NEEDED].
So without a hard drive your PM G5 has no OS to load[CITATION NEEDED]
You should buy a SATA 1 hard drive, and install OS X
Click to expand...


Just a tip, make sure you read what everyone else has posted first, because in the second reply, I said the exact same thing...
 
I sincerely doubt this is a U3 failure because in my experience, it would beep to show that it cannot access the RAM. My money is on a bad GPU as I have burned out a FX5200 card before. The fans ramping up is due to the fact that the G5's cooling systems are entirely software controlled. Until a OS is booted then the kext does not load and therefore the computer protects itself by blasting the fans.
 
poiihy said:
I think by "breaking" he means take it apart.

OP said this:


----------



Is Powermac G5 ram the same as Powermac G4 ram? Would ram from Mile's Powermac work in a Digital Audio G4?
Click to expand...

Not a chance.

DAs use 168 Pin PC-133 SD-RAM.

Most G5s use 204 pin DDR PC-3200 RAM, although the late '05 models use DDR-2 PC2-2400.

The RAM from a G5 might work in an MDD G4. These use DDR RAM. Depending on the exact model, they specify either PC-2100(133mhz system bus) or PC-2700(167mhz bus). Generally, you can use faster RAM without a problem. You also have the issue of stick size. G5s can take sticks as large as 1gb, and up to 4gb or 8gb(depending on the exact variant, and more directly on the number of slots present). Some MDDs will recognize 1gb RAM sticks, although you are still limited to 2gb total(even though they have 4 slots). Other MDDs will ignore 1gb sticks and only read 512mb and smaller.

A 1gb PC-3200 stick could be used for the internal RAM slot in a the later model iMac G4s(Apple officially specifies 1 512mb inside and 1 512mb SO-DIMM next to the airport slot, but they will work fine with 2x1gb. My main iMac G4 is set up this way). You could also use a 1gb stick in a G4 mini.
 
California said:
I think I have a working fan from that model that I was about to throw out (i might have two, but for sure, one). Let me know if you want it for the price of shipping from CA
Click to expand...

Huh that's very interesting... you're nearby me! But I probably can't get it... I already got a whole box of fans from ebay recently and it would be hard to beg for more lol :p

Approximately how much do you think it would cost to ship a G5 fan in the same state? $2? $5?
It costed $12 to ship the box of fans I got from Ohio and they costed $0.99 so the total price was only about $13 for them all. If the G5 fan costs $5 then it's probably not such a good deal...

But if anything... please don't throw it away!! :eek: :(
 
Good news

So after trying all the suggestions turns out that the Dvi-vga adapter i was using had all the analog pins snapped off, not sure how this happened, maybe i lent it to somebody who used it in the wrong slot? But after buying a new one it now shows the No OS icon. Time to hunt down a spare hard drive and get this thing running. Sorry to everyone who wanted parts :D
 
Miles caddy said:
So after trying all the suggestions turns out that the Dvi-vga adapter i was using had all the analog pins snapped off, not sure how this happened, maybe i lent it to somebody who used it in the wrong slot? But after buying a new one it now shows the No OS icon. Time to hunt down a spare hard drive and get this thing running. Sorry to everyone who wanted parts :D
Click to expand...

glad to see it works :) £25 too nice deal (my G5 cost £60)
 
Miles caddy said:
So after trying all the suggestions turns out that the Dvi-vga adapter i was using had all the analog pins snapped off, not sure how this happened, maybe i lent it to somebody who used it in the wrong slot? But after buying a new one it now shows the No OS icon. Time to hunt down a spare hard drive and get this thing running. Sorry to everyone who wanted parts :D
Click to expand...

The first rule of support is: Check the cables
The second rule of support is: Check the cables again
 
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