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stoid

macrumors 601
Original poster
My parents called me from home today rather upset. There was an unexplained power outage today. Their 733Mhz Quicksilver PowerMac G4 was in sleep mode and now it won't turn on. When they push the power button the light comes on, but there is no startup sound, and the internals (fan, HD) don't turn on. What's wrong with the machine?!? It's just about three years old now, and has never had any problems since the day it was pulled out of it's box.

Thanks in advance for your help!
 

kgarner

macrumors 68000
Jan 28, 2004
1,512
0
Utah
You might have them hit the PMU swich. That's the Power Managment Unit. Sometimes it gets screwed up after an outage and needs to be reset. Hopefully they didn't get a surge (Its a surge protector, right?). If it was that and they didn't have it on a surge protector, it could be fried somewhere.
 

stoid

macrumors 601
Original poster
It is plugged into a surge protector (a rather nice one actually per my advice). Hopefully it is just the PMU. How do they reset the PMU on the tower? BTW, they are out with grandma celebrating her 88th birthday, so they won't be in until later tonight so it'll take a bit to know if it worked.
 

kgarner

macrumors 68000
Jan 28, 2004
1,512
0
Utah
It should be a small button on the mother board. I would look at Apple's supprt site to help you locate it exactly.
 

stoid

macrumors 601
Original poster
Well, they finally got around to resetting the PMU, and that didn't fix the problem, any other suggestions? We REALLY want to avoid having to get a new computer.

I just realized that the computer is three years and 2 months old. So even if we had gotten AppleCare on it, we'd be up sh*t-creek. :mad:
 

TEG

macrumors 604
Jan 21, 2002
6,621
169
Langley, Washington
Try disconnecting the power, then resetting the PMU. Then Plug it in, the Viola.

If that doen't work, I'd say the P/S is fried, and To have them get it replaced. It sucks, but it happens to them all.

TEG
 

stoid

macrumors 601
Original poster
Oh dear, that's what I feared. :( If they call the AppleCare hotline, do you think that they will at least provide advice? What about hauling the thing down to their local Apple Store and talking to the 'Genius' Will they need to haul their bulky CRT monitor down there too? Of course this had to happen just days after the iMac G5 is release and I tell them to go get one. Now they think that I somehow did something, even though I am over 300 miles away. :eek:
 

Mechcozmo

macrumors 603
Jul 17, 2004
5,215
2
stoid said:
Oh dear, that's what I feared. :( If they call the AppleCare hotline, do you think that they will at least provide advice? What about hauling the thing down to their local Apple Store and talking to the 'Genius' Will they need to haul their bulky CRT monitor down there too? Of course this had to happen just days after the iMac G5 is release and I tell them to go get one. Now they think that I somehow did something, even though I am over 300 miles away. :eek:

Well, you can call AppleCare. Apple in the past has been rather nice to people, so simply explain that your parents computer died, etc, and they don't have any clue as to what the bloody heck to do...y'know, get sympathy. They probably will help, short of a brand new machine. Also, at the Apple Store, they have some monitors of their own i should think. Call ahead maybe? I hope that your machine does live...because our house has one of those too and it dosn't have AppleCare no more....

Hehe, and if they think that you did do something..."Never suspect conspiracy when stupidity would achive the same result."
Of cource, that would require an indirect insult. Dear lord, I'm off topic... :eek:
 
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