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What do you think is wrong with my PowerMac G5 (a plea for advice)

A

Adros

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 3, 2009
54
1
So I bought my PowerMac G5 a long long time ago... to me at least. Got it back in 2005, my senior year of high school and it has been my stalwart companion ever since. Graduating from college this year, and I decided it was time to upgrade to a new intel, and they came out with the new G5's, and I found out about the ADC student discount! All came together quite nicely, then my PowerMac died!

What Happened
I downloaded a huge .dmg file from my university, (Adobe suite) and double clicked to open it, and the computer basically slows to a crawl, I wait a few minutes and then I get a kernel panic! So I restart, I get the Apple to show up, spinning disk, and then another kernel panic!

What I have tried
So at this point I have exhausted my knowledge of what to try:
1. Starting up in safe mode (Get the apple but no spinning disk)
2. Starting up from installation disk to do a hardware check (kernel panic, after spinning disc)
3. Starting in firewire disk mode (This is weird, it starts up and I can read anything in the disk drive (such as instillation disk) but cannot see the hard drive)

What should I do
Well the computer it way outside the warranty at this point, and like I said I am ordering a new G5 in the next couple of days. Basically all of the data was backed up except for a few files. Anyone have any ideas of what might have gone wrong, (I know it could have been many things! But anything stick out?) something I could do to fix it (that doesn't involve replacing expensive parts) and could I put the hard drive from my PowerMac into my new G5 to see if its working at all, and if so could I grab files from it?

Sorry if this was long and rambling, and thanks for reading all the way to the end!
 
They are now Mac Pro's, not G5's. You will be buying a Mac Pro if you are getting one with the Intel chipset. It depends on if your current hard drive is SATA, which I kind of doubt. You won't be able to put it in the new machine, but there are cables or enclosures you could get to hook it up.
 
The "huge .dmg" you downloaded from your university - was it, by any chance, less than legitimate? there was some malware floating around in a few bootlegged software packages.
 
Nah 100% legit. My college has a deal with adobe that we can download the software for free. Definitely a good copy. ;)
 
Try another hard drive in there... betting it is a hard drive failure. You would be surprised how difficult it is to diagnose a failing hard drive on the PMG5s for some reason.
 
Hmm so if the hard drive is dead anyway to test for sure? I thought starting up from the OS X disk would still be possible.
 
Take out or disconnect the hard drive and try starting from the install disk...

A failing hard drive can give you all sorts of errors.
 
My money is on logic board or processor failure. HD's don't cause kernel panics, he would get the folder with a "?" and the desktop would not load. Starting up from the install disk would work if it was just the HD. If it were the vid card he would get a black screen. If it were the power supply it wouldn't start at all. Only possibilities are RAM, logic board or processors... and the logic board and processors are known to fail.
 
Abidubi said:
My money is on logic board or processor failure. HD's don't cause kernel panics...
Click to expand...

They do if your computer is expecting data and there's nothing but constant delays, take for example if the data happens to be part of the OS's cache file!! I've had this issue when one of the HD's failed in a RAID0 setup. The system kept crashing, system log didn't even record the activity... was really bizarre:eek::eek:
 
Abidubi said:
My money is on logic board or processor failure. HD's don't cause kernel panics, he would get the folder with a "?" and the desktop would not load. Starting up from the install disk would work if it was just the HD. If it were the vid card he would get a black screen. If it were the power supply it wouldn't start at all. Only possibilities are RAM, logic board or processors... and the logic board and processors are known to fail.
Click to expand...

He needs to pull the hard drive to find out, like I said. Have you owned a Powermac G5? I've owned four of them.
 
I second (third?) the advice given. Pull the drive and try the install disc. Computer repair is usually the process of elimination.
 
Well I pulled out the hard drive, and kernel panic! Suppose the hard drive is all right after all.
 
Old fashioned advice, but try zapping the pram. Baring a physical problem, it's about the only thing left if it panics without any hard drives hooked up.


Resetting PRAM and NVRAM

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.
 
iVoid said:
Old fashioned advice, but try zapping the pram. Baring a physical problem, it's about the only thing left if it panics without any hard drives hooked up.


Resetting PRAM and NVRAM

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.
Click to expand...


Heh forgot to mention that in my first post, but I did that as well.
 
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