Pc Tech Needs Mac Tech's Help

[steve42000]

I’m quite stuck I have just bought a Power Mac G5 that was not working to try to familiarise myself with the systems but I’m having little luck repairing the issues which are

• System powers on but no beeps or sounds just a blank screen
• Fans run at normal speed then start to spin very fast (as if there is a heat build-up)

When I received the system the video card was not seated correctly

My questions

• I have a DVI cable that only fits in to the smaller DVI port Labelled 2. Do you need an adapter for the larger port to DVI to use on a non Mac monitor?

Thank you all
Steve

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

The fans will do that if its not booting to the OS which controls the fans. If you have the installers that came with the machine or a 10.4 or 10.5 installer, boot holding the option key to go into boot mgr. Once there it should boot to a blue screen with arrows and (possibly?) a couple of boot selections. One being the install disk, the other being the hard drive if it sees it. Boot to the install disk by clicking that option then clicking on the straight arrow. Once booted to the installer, select your language. After that you will be presented with a menu bar at the top. Go to utilities/disk utility and see if disk utility sees the hard drive on the left hand side.

BTW, What kind of monitor connection are you using, VGA? mini DVI?
EDIT: If you are geting vidoe with the mini DVI you should be fine.

 

[steve42000]

The system has an Nvidia A146 Graphics card in it. It has two DVI ports one a little bigger that the other the larger one is labelled 1 and the smaller 2 I have a DVI cable to VGA in port 2. (Sorry if this is all obveus to Mac users but this is literally the first Mac I have ever used)
Thanks
Steve

 

[14049752]

The larger one is not a DVI port. It's ADC. It's a connector that sends video, usb and power to an apple monitor.

If the screen is grey when you start it up, hold option as AMT said and see if a CD (os disc or otherwise) will boot.

Also try resetting the pram and pmu. You should be able to find a small button on the motherboard labelled PMU. Push it and see if things change.

 

[steve42000]

Thanks for letting me no about the ADC port and i have no image just black screen no video seems to be getting to the monitor.
I have already reset the PMU but have no idea how to reset the Pram ??
Thanks Again

The larger one is not a DVI port. It's ADC. It's a connector that sends video, usb and power to an apple monitor.

If the screen is grey when you start it up, hold option as AMT said and see if a CD (os disc or otherwise) will boot.

Also try resetting the pram and pmu. You should be able to find a small button on the motherboard labelled PMU. Push it and see if things change.

 

[14049752]

You reset the pram by holding apple, option, p and r (I think? I always just do it...never remember the keys...) on the keyboard when it starts up. If you already reset the pmu, it probably won't do anything.

Next up you should do normal hardware diagnostics. Check the power supply (but not with a PC psu tester and not with a pc power supply.) See if you can find the pin-out and test it.
Try swapping ram. Try unplugging all non-essentials. Test the little 3.5v battery. That's probably all you can do without apple test parts.

 

[steve42000]

Thanks but as you presumed it didn’t do anything. i hear the fans running but still no video / audio and no lights on the keyboard (is the dvd drive suposed to eject when i push the eject button on the keyboard because nothing happens)
Mac’s are a whole new beast.

Thanks again
steve

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

You reset the pram by holding apple, option, p and r (I think? I always just do it...never remember the keys...) on the keyboard when it starts up. If you already reset the pmu, it probably won't do anything.

Those are the correct keys for zapping PRAM. The only thing is some of the G5 towers you could zap the PRAM separately and others the PMU reset also zapped the PRAM. Anyway when zapping the PRAM keep holding the key combo down until you hear at least 3 chimes (if any?).

The optical drive will eject when holding down the mouse button at startup since you had asked about that. Check the front near the power button when the system is turned on and see if the power LED flashes or stays solid. Is the system getting any kind of startup chime? If you could provide more specs on the machine that would be helpful. There should be a sticker at the bottom when you open the side panel door below the plastic cover which says the specs.

 

[steve42000]

Spec is
aantalip: 0
Serial number: CK411HQYQVJ
Model: M9032 PowerMac G5 2.0GHz-DP model=g5
Group1: PowerMac
Group2:
Generation:
Bus speed: 1.0GHz
Memory - number of slots: 8
Factory: CK (Cork, Ireland)
Production year: 2004
Production week: 11 (March)
Production number: 20500 (within this week)

I have managed to get video to the screen i re-seated the CPU,s but i have a flashing folder with a Mac icon and a question mark is this the sign of
No OS on the HDD
i can’t seem to execute any commands from the Keyboard either i have plugged in to a windows machine and it works fine but i can’t seem to get the CD to eject ? Any ideas

Thanks
Steve

Those are the correct keys for zapping PRAM. The only thing is some of the G5 towers you could zap the PRAM separately and others the PMU reset also zapped the PRAM. Anyway when zapping the PRAM keep holding the key combo down until you hear at least 3 chimes (if any?).

The optical drive will eject when holding down the mouse button at startup since you had asked about that. Check the front near the power button when the system is turned on and see if the power LED flashes or stays solid. Is the system getting any kind of startup chime? If you could provide more specs on the machine that would be helpful. There should be a sticker at the bottom when you open the side panel door below the plastic cover which says the specs.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

When powering up hold down the mouse button. That should get the optical to eject, then follow the directions stated in a previous post regarding running disk utility.

 

[steve42000]

Thanks for all the advice
I’m getting there slowly I have video now and I can hear the chime at boot but I can’t get past the screen with the folder icon and the question mark according to Apple it indicates that the system doesn’t no where the boot disk is located but I can’t rectify it yet. Tried booting in to safe mode with the shift key but it won’t work I can get the T - Boot into Fire wire target disk mode to work and the Option - Boot into “Start-up Manager” but there is nothing in this menu just an arrow and a refresh icon.

Thanks’
Steve

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Thanks for all the advice
I’m getting there slowly I have video now and I can hear the chime at boot but I can’t get past the screen with the folder icon and the question mark according to Apple it indicates that the system doesn’t no where the boot disk is located but I can’t rectify it yet. Tried booting in to safe mode with the shift key but it won’t work I can get the T - Boot into Fire wire target disk mode to work and the Option - Boot into “Start-up Manager” but there is nothing in this menu just an arrow and a refresh icon.

Thanks’
Steve

Its obviously not seeing the Hard drive according to what you are saying. First of all you mentioned that you had to reseat the processors and video card in this thing, which is telling me someone has been screwing with it before you got a hold of it. I'd check to see if the SATA cables are connected to the HD and logic board first.

Did you get the install disk into the optical drive yet? If so start up holding the option key to get to the boot manager to see your boot options. When there you should at least see the install disk to boot from that.

 

[steve42000]

I would like to thank anonymous Mac Tech and 14049752 for their expert help it was much appreciated all is good now I am looking at a fresh install of OSX Leopard and seems stable for now.

I was about to give up for the day and came to the conclusion that if I couldn’t get it running I could at least learn how the thing goes together so methodically I striped the whole thing right down to removing the PSU and the 3.6v Battery I made sure all connection were perfect when I rebuilt it. I then when out and bought OSX 10.5.6 and did a fresh install for now all seems ok. I have learnt so much from fixing this G5 so I am very happy.

Once again thank you

Anonymous Mac Tech's
And
14049752

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

And another Mac tech is born! Glad we could help.

 

[rusty.nells]

And another Mac tech is born! Glad we could help.

And you helped him with his first steps. You should be proud