PowerPC iMac G5 Gaming problem

[Warrior2K17]

Hey

So I have this 1.9 GHz iMac G5, with 2.5GB of ram on 10.5.8, that does something weird when I try to play games. Whenever I try to play any game that I have, the game has a weird checkerboard look and i can barely see the game and what I can see is all distorted and weirdly colored. I believe it has something to do with graphics card, but I'm not too sure. Any one know that this is and if it's worth the fix? I have attached a pic of what it looks like on Minecraft and this is what it does on EVERY game I play.

 

[wobegong]

Hey

So I have this 1.9 GHz iMac G5, with 2.5GB of ram on 10.5.8, that does something weird when I try to play games. Whenever I try to play any game that I have, the game has a weird checkerboard look and i can barely see the game and what I can see is all distorted and weirdly colored. I believe it has something to do with graphics card, but I'm not too sure. Any one know that this is and if it's worth the fix? I have attached a pic of what it looks like on Minecraft and this is what it does on EVERY game I play.

A wild guess, GPU overheating? Maybe one of the fans has packed up, often when a GPU gets too hot it will corrupt the screen and a game will stress it. Do you have iStat Menus or other utility to check the GPU temp?

 

[Warrior2K17]

None that I know of should I download one to check? And how could I cool it?

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A wild guess, GPU overheating? Maybe one of the fans has packed up, often when a GPU gets too hot it will corrupt the screen and a game will stress it. Do you have iStat Menus or other utility to check the GPU temp?

Should I get one to check and how could I fix it if this is the problem?

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A wild guess, GPU overheating? Maybe one of the fans has packed up, often when a GPU gets too hot it will corrupt the screen and a game will stress it. Do you have iStat Menus or other utility to check the GPU temp?

Ok so I downloaded Miniusage to check, but I don't see temp for the graphics card.

 

[wobegong]

Hi I'm not familiar with Miniusage but looking at the Apple page it seems not to support GPU temp monitoring so thats why you can't see it.

I'm also not too familiar with the iMac G5 but would be surprised if it doesn't have a GPU temp monitor you will just need to find a piece of software that displays that (I use iStat Menus - older version for PPC which you can download here http://macdownload.informer.com/istat-menus/3.19/)

Capacitors were also VERY prone to blowing out (literally) on the G5 iMacs so it could well be one of those on the way out as well but to be honest this sounds very GPU specific.

 

[Hrududu]

These models with the iSight have this GPU problem. I was able to fix one that I had come into the shop using a heat gun on the chip. AFIK, it never happened again.

 

[Zotaccian]

It seems to be overheating or solder failure, iMac G5's with ATI -cards are more prone to fail than the first rev. iMac G5 with NVIDIA -card, atleast based on what you see on discussion forums.

If it is solder failure the chip can be reattached either by reflowing or reballing, so it is really not a problem in the chip but its connection to the motherboard.

Have you tried simple 3D software / tests like Open Mark, does it happen with it also? All 3D leads to graphics corruption?