"Vintage" G5 gets no support at Apple Store anymore

[contoursvt]

Some people use a computer as a tool...so spending 1/5th of the worth of a used computer as an upgrade to keep it going for another couple years is easily worth it....easily! The majority of people just care about surfing the net, instant messaging, listening to music, creating basic documents, sending emails and possibly playing around with pics from their digital camera.

Really? Memory, HD, graphic card upgrades are simple. But unless you call switching a CPU + logic board simple, keep talking and show how little you know. Let's I buy an iMac right now, doesn't matter which model. It will run fine for 5 years, and then what? Its value by then is nearly cut in half. Spending even $100 is roughly 1/5 of the total machine's worth. I assume a CPU + logic board would cost more than $100. Why would I do that? Wait, it's just people who are really smart like you, whereas my math skills are completely wrong and I'm completely stupid.

 

[goMac]

With all your learning you you can't even remember the difference between 1 Mbit and 1 MB. The bigger EEPROMs currently used have 128 kB and not 1 MB. That's for starters.

Ok.... same problem though... Changing the units doesn't change the actual problem... But, good job, I mixed up a lower case and upper case b.

Next you are completely mistaken to think that a modern graphics card needs a BIOS or EFI file to work in an Open Firmware machine. That is crap. In actual fact such a configuration would be completely useless for a PPC machine because it would never run Windows. So why would anybody ever want to fit BIOS, EFI and OF on one card? That would not make any sense, unless you wanted to be able to swap cards between all machines all the time.

Well, you're right, a graphics card does not need a BIOS or EFI file to work in an Open Firmware machine... But who is going to make a card that just does Open Firmware?

That would be ATI... and see my point below...

I would not ask such nonsense. For me a PPC card needs to run in a PPC machine and a Mac Pro card should run in all mac Pros under OS X and Windows. That is entirely feasible.

Great. Apple doesn't ship old cards for old machines and they never have. Talk to ATI. They handle legacy support.

In fact, during the G4 days, every time a new machine came out the AGP bus increased speeds and the new cards certainly didn't work on the old machines because of the higher bus speeds. Apple didn't even change chips and this problem happened all the time.

And for those folks who think that Apple deserve no criticism for their lack of after market support I just think you are hopeless. Keep wasting your money for new machines where simple upgrades would keep your machines happily running for years.

Supporting older machines has always been left to the GPU vendors. ATI currently ships a 3870 for older machines. They specifically did not ship one for the G5. Again, they are the ones to talk to, not Apple.

If it's such an easy thing, why is ATI not shipping the 3870 for G5's? They write the drivers, they do the hardware, they have the power to do it without any interference from Apple... The truth is there simply isn't a market...

(also, fyi, I knew someone who worked on the Open Firmware team at Apple. The team is gone and no longer exists. There is no one at Apple who does Open Firmware stuff anymore.)

 

[gugucom]

So after a rather lengthy exchange of pleasantries we arrive at the conclusion that Apple do not support legacy hardware. Legacy being everything that is not currently sold. I can see the day coming when the last modular Apple product will become legacy and the product range will be completely made up of throw away stuff with a life of 6 - 24 months.

 

[Darthboarder]

It won't even get to that stage. It powers on but doesn't ever start the OS. I took out all of the ram except what came with it new. How would I find what part number for the logic board is? I'll start looking on Ebay. Thanks again for any advice
Darthboarder

It won't even get to that stage. It powers on but doesn't ever start the OS. I took out all of the ram except what came with it new. How would I find what part number for the logic board is? I'll start looking on Ebay. Thanks again for any advice
Darthboarder

There is hope that the logic board isn't fried. I would throw out the RAMs and make sure that you use only those RAM sticks that were previously working in the machine. Then you need to arrange the RAM sticks in a symmetrical fashion. If you have two RAM banks (which I believe you have) fit the sticks from the inside to the outside and use identical sticks to the inner pair of slots and the next set of slots going out from inside.

You should also use the diagnostic disk that came with your machine. It is usually the second DVD which also carries the apps like iLive and iWork samples.

Logic boards are only available from Apple and part vendors that canibalized old systems. They are hugely expensive. Best chance for a cheaper replacement would be someone selling his broken down Mac in parts on Ebay.

It won't ever get to the stage that it beeps 3 times...just powers on with no OS... no beeps...I reset the PRAM. I think thats what fried it. The power was on when he told me to reset the PRAM button. The machine powered down & that was it.

I had that machine and it was EXTREMELY picky about ram. Make sure your ram is "Apple certified for the Powermac G5"

Three blinking lights on the power button and three beeps mean it is bad ram, btw. Also reset the PRAM.

 

[California]

It won't even get to that stage. It powers on but doesn't ever start the OS. I took out all of the ram except what came with it new. How would I find what part number for the logic board is? I'll start looking on Ebay. Thanks again for any advice
Darthboarder

It won't even get to that stage. It powers on but doesn't ever start the OS. I took out all of the ram except what came with it new. How would I find what part number for the logic board is? I'll start looking on Ebay. Thanks again for any advice
Darthboarder



It won't ever get to the stage that it beeps 3 times...just powers on with no OS... no beeps...I reset the PRAM. I think thats what fried it. The power was on when he told me to reset the PRAM button. The machine powered down & that was it.

Did you take out the old hard drive?

Bad hard drives are very difficult to diagnose on Powermacs.

 

[Firefly2002]

Dip an grip your .44, throw it to his dome, tell him if he don't help he'll be swiss-cheesed up an sent home.

 

[wpc33]

Dip an grip your .44, throw it to his dome, tell him if he don't help he'll be swiss-cheesed up an sent home.

After that, he'll tell you if he wears ladies underwear.

 

[DrRock]

question along these lines

I started a similar thread before finding this one, and I came across this info:

"I had that machine and it was EXTREMELY picky about ram. Make sure your ram is "Apple certified for the Powermac G5"

Three blinking lights on the power button and three beeps mean it is bad ram, btw.

I'm having this problem, and I put in 8 gigs of RAM about a year ago. I haven't this happen until tonight, so is it possible that my RAM has suddenly gone bad?

They're 8 1gig sticks, filling all slots available. I don't know the brand, but they were purchased from Other World Computing. Like I said, they've worked fine until now. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

G5 Dual 2.3 Running 10.4.11

 

[Dr.Pants]

@ DrRock

Have you tried removing one pair at a time, and seeing if the G5 boots up then? Do you still have the original RAM?

Its a process of elimination to find out which DIMM is bad...

 

[NIPRING]

Would'nt the Apple Hardware Test do that?

 

[DrRock]

^

Thanks for the info. Yes, it occurred to me to check each stick one by one, but not until after I gave up for the night. I'll try that next. I powered up this morning to see if anything had changed. The three blink sequence has stopped, but it still doesn't start up, and the fan runs high.

I'm looking for my original RAM, but I can't remember where I put it. It occurred to me to try that as well.

As for the hardware test, is that something it should do on its own? Like I said, it won't start up so I can't run any tests at all.

Does anyone know if I can open the disc drive manually and try inserting the boot disc?

Thanks!

*Update:

I removed and reinstalled all of my RAM sticks. I think one or more of them weren't completely seated correctly. I'm thinking they were always this way, and eventually were jostled loose enough to cause the problem. Thanks for all the help!

**New Update
It worked yesterday, but now as I was in Safari, everything just froze up again. I turned it off, and went through the process of re-seating all of the RAM again, and once again, nothing. I'm getting the three blink sequence again.

I guess the next step is to look for my original RAM and try again.

If anyone has any additional advice, I'd love to hear it. Thanks!

***New, new update.

Checked all the Ram, got it to power up with a single pair, and as soon as I tried to open an app, it froze again. Apple Support said to rub an eraser on the connectors, and see if that worked. It didn't.

I located my original factory installed RAM, and I still get the three-blink, incompatible RAM warning light. I know that RAM is good, so this tells me that there is something wrong on the board, I guess. Ouch.

****solved:
Logic board was the problem. Apple paid for the part, I paid for labor. I got the work done locally, and my machine was gone three days. All in all, I'm happy with the end result. Anyone else with this problem should pursue the same avenue. Be "firm, polite & persistent" with customer service. Good luck, and thanks to all who gave info/advice on this issue.