Putting an old friend down – my G5 Mac
Today I had to pay £52 for the privilege of finding out that my old G5 2GHz Dual Processor Mac is dead. But I felt the need to write about it because of the injustice of it all.
It’s taken a painful and long journey which I will attempt to wrap up in just a few paragraphs.
We bought the Mac from Jigsaw in Nottingham. The G5 Dual Processor had eleven fans (!) so it made quite a racket. Mine, even more so, because one of the fans decided to squeak which was incredibly annoying and detrimental to my work.
So it went back to Jigsaw who had it a few days, said they thought they’d fixed the problem and returned it. The squeaking was a lot better but not completely gone.
Instead, something much worse started happening. Now, on regular occasions the Mac wouldn’t start up. It also would crash if the energy saver came on, resulting in ALL eleven fans going at full blast. The first notice I would get would often be when I was informed that there was a “jet engine” taking off in the loft.
The Mac couldn’t go back instantly because I was so busy, but the startup failure was getting worse and worse so go back to Jigsaw it did. They diagnosed a logic board failure, replaced it and sent the Mac back along with a HUGE scratch to one side of the computer which Jigsaw then strenuously denied. Thanks!
A year later, or so, I couldn’t sleep, got up one night and tried to turn the computer on but it refused to start up. The Mac was now out of warranty and Apple Care and I needed a computer urgently, so we purchased a new Intel Mac Pro. The old G5 languished in the loft.
Until today, when we took it to an Apple repair place, with the intention of getting it fixed to use in the office we’re about to move into on Monday. By the time we got home there was a message on the phone saying that it was a logic board failure. And no Apple Care. That’s a £650 repair bill on a computer which is worth £800 in good working order.
The problems with the startup and energy saver only occurred after Jigsaw had it the first time to fix the squeaky fan, so I blame them for effectively killing this computer.
It seems so unfair that a logic board for a Mac can cost £500, that a really fast and useful dual processor G5 can go from being my working computer to useless and literally worthless with one press of the power button.
February 24th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I think that’s shocking.
April 1st, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I am in exactly the same position .
My G5 Power Mac ( bought in ) 2004 refused to start up , nothing appearing on the screen and the fans started up after a about two minutes.
I took it to a mac repair shop to be told the logic board was dead and they recommended getting a new computer .
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:01 pm
It is truly shocking. My Powermac G5 clicked when I pressed the spacebar to wake it from sleep and it was dead as a dodo… pretty inoquous I thought! I dragged the thing to the applestore and crossed my fingers for a few days then, got a call from the Genius Bar in Southampton today saying that they had tried a new power supply and it was still dead, therefore it’s probably the logic board that had blown when the power supply surged. Net result £650!! Surely a logic board can’t cost £500?!
June 8th, 2008 at 4:15 am
It isnt the cost of the logic board but the labor to access the deep innards of the device. A few hours labor and you’re into refinancing your house to pay the bill. Learning to do your own repairs is recommended. I bought tested used parts at iFixit.com in the US to fix my G4 Powerbook and surely there is something like that near you as well. Aloha, mike
August 15th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Ciekawa strona, trafilem tu przypadkowo, ale od dzis bede wpadal czesciej, pozdro
September 11th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
My beutiful G5 dual 2.0 ghz refused to start up one afternoon.
Web reports showed that the Power Supply design was not robust (many reports of failure – the extended waranty for this concern did not include my serial number)
So I bought a new power supply from America – it was cheaper than UK price.
The Mac powered up OK, but after 2 minutes the fans went into limp home mode (full speed) and it sounded like Concorde taking off.
I sent it to a Mac repair centre – £750 to replace the logic board.
For legal reasons the following information is given with no waranty or comeback and should be used at the owners discretion by people who are computer and electrically competent……….
I checked the cables to the fans and deduced that each fan has four cables – 0v, 12v, fan speed sensor waveform, and DC drive signal.
Disconnect any one fan and the Mac shuts down because it thinks the fan has stopped (no speed signal at all)
So I cut the DC drive siganl between the fan and the logic board, then tied the fan’s DC drive up to the 12v line with a 56 ohm resistor making each fan run faster than normal (cost of seven 56 ohm resitors (one for each fan) is on £2.00).
I used Bresincs hardware monitor to monitor the temperature of both CPUs and activated the talk on overtemperature warning facility – just in case.
After 3 weeks the CPUs never go above 40 degrees (the warning trigger is set to 76 degrees) even after heavy Video processing.
I never leave the Mac alone when it is switched on but so far my Mac, which was ready for the skip is performing fine.
I publish this because I was so disappointed with Apple that my Mac was dead (their power supply poor design) – and the joy I now have that its working.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:17 pm
The same thing happend to me, constant crashing with fans on full.
Apple refuses to acknowledge the problem,no joy from Apple customer service, so the upshot is unless I pay £656 for a new logic board all I have left is a worthless pile of junk.
Thanks Apple.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
G5 Mac purchased in 2005. Apple began receiving complaints about their 2005 G5s. Seems the manufacturer used logic boards with faulty capacitors.
My G5 doesn’t get much wear and tear because I am a light user. However a week ago the bottom right corner became very heated, at times the fan sounded like a jet engine and the computer started shutting down all on it’s own.
The Genius Bar at my local Apple store advised me to junk it. I cried for two days.
I took the machine to a geek repairman and he opened it up to show me the swollen capacitors. Of course the logic board needs replacement.
The cost is less than Apple’s estimate but still astronomical
It is my understanding from Google blogs that Apple knew about this problem in 2006 and did nothing. Is that anyway to build loyalty or run a company?
June 14th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
G5 purchased second hand many years ago – dual 2.3 PowerPC, ran like a champ for years, added RAM and an NVidia card because it was more powerful. I’m a PC guy anyway, and the G5 was the wife’s. After upgrading to Leopard, I felt the beast would be part of the daughter’s dowry because it was so bulletproof. Then one day last week it just stopped. No boot sound, fans spinning, drives fine. I tried re-seating the video card, pulling it out, removing and replacing fans, pulling all the RAM. Geeksquad said it’s probably the logic board, $1000 plus labor and two weeks minimum to fix. Apple store said around $800 plus labor and two weeks. This for what’s now very old technology, with absolutely no promise that the logic board is the problem and if not, then more money to replace what might be next (power supply was mentioned, yes). I gave up, used my wife’s recently re-acquired university identification and got a discount on a 24″ iMac dual processor. Happy with the new, disappointed with the old, and much money out later I now have to figure out if I can part out a non-working G5 without even knowing for sure what the problem is! PCs are so much easier to fix and diagnose.