My Mac, Dual 2.0 G5 Won't Start

Catoogie · Post by **Catoogie** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 2:55 pm

I have a Dual 2.0 G5 and I went to turn it on this morning and when I boot up fans come on, becoming louder and louder until i press the power button.

I don't get the startup chime, hd spins, fans start, then nothing. black screen.

Computer is approximately 4 years old, not connected to the internet, has had no updates and has performed flawlessly until now. Use mainly for light Pro Tools work, ITunes and storing photos.

PLEASE HELP!!!!

Catfish · Post by **Catfish** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 5:13 pm

Any chance your room is real cold?
Ours does this in the winter time, takes 2 or 3 trys to start, or taking a hair drier to the insides for a moment.

Catfish................

Neil Weir · Post by **Neil Weir** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 5:50 pm

I remember mine doing something like this awhile back and I had to reset the SMU, I think it's called. Since then it's been totally fine... You might want to do a search for "dual g5 reset SMU."

Jay Reynolds · Post by **Jay Reynolds** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 6:03 pm

If you can get your combo drive open, throw the OSX install disk in there, close it again, restart, and hold down the "c" key while your machine boots.
Its been awhile since I've done this, but there are some hardware diagnostics on there.

RoyMatthews · Post by **RoyMatthews** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 6:26 pm

Neil wrote:I remember mine doing something like this awhile back and I had to reset the SMU, I think it's called. Since then it's been totally fine... You might want to do a search for "dual g5 reset SMU."

I'm seconding trying this...
...ing

Catoogie · Post by **Catoogie** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 5:51 pm

Finally got around to take the G5 to the Apple Store, the guy at the Genius Bar tried to start it, nope....same issues I'm having. Tries to re-set the pram......nothing.

Opens it up and tries a bunch of things, removing the additional third party RAM, mix and matches it.

I kept mentioning possibly replacing the pram battery (is that the same as the backup battery?), because two of the guys there said that would only affect the clock etc... He said he reseated it but it didn't work. I don't know why they didn't at least try putting a new one in.

In the end, he came to the conclusion that it was either the processor or a board. $400+ for one and $700+ for the other, he would not charge me for labor he said.

I told him I wanted to think it about it and took it with me....

I'm thinking I will try replacing the battery and if that doesn't help then I'll go get a second opinion.

What do you guys think? It's a 4 year old Power Mac G5 Dual 2.0

Would you put money into it? I've been thinking of possibly getting a Mac laptop (before this it was going to be in addition to the G5 tower but now......), what would you guys do?

What would the best Mac Laptop to get for the money?

RoyMatthews · Post by **RoyMatthews** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 5:59 pm

I just had an old G4 mac that wouldn't start up and replacing the battery helped. I don't know about the G5s but I think batteries are like $5. Try it. Of at least test the battery.

sad iron · Post by **sad iron** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 6:02 pm

Catoogie wrote: What would the best Mac Laptop to get for the money?

This looks pretty unbelievable. Only FW 800 though...what's wrong with Apple?

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/features-17inch.html

DryCounty · Post by **DryCounty** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 8:04 pm

I made my new Mac -- a quad 2.8GHz with 4GB of DDR3 on a faster motherboard than the ones in the current Mac Pro. All with this little, amazing device:

http://www.efi-x.com/

I was skeptical through and through (especially if you take a look at their forums), but for about $700 I have a machine that can boot Windows and Mac OS and is nearly as fast if not faster than the current "octo" Mac Pros. Oh, and it also cost about 1/4 as much. I'm currently running Logic and FCP and it's unbelievably faster than my "old" G5 dual 2.0. I can now record overdubs with zero audible latency, it's just amazing.

Real sorry to hear your woes, but if you know a little bit about making computers and can deal with the occasional update headache (well, from the sounds of things that G5 was never updated anyway, so...) I think you'll like it very much. Oh and BTW this will not work on laptops (yet), only desktops that have motherboards that have internal USB access headers.

BTW, if you still want to read more this is what sealed the deal for me:

http://www.macintouch.com/reviews/efix/

iC · Post by iC » Wed Feb 04, 2009 5:32 am

i just had the same problem, same computer. Brought it to mac store.... they ran diagnostics for two days and came back with "this thing is fine". Incredulous, i left and went to plug it all back together at the studio. In minutes, after a bootup, HD crashed again.... i started pulling everything out.....after some experimentation...Turned out to be a bad firewire cable.... All is functioning properly now....
swap your firewire cables before buying a new logic board...

desdinova · Post by **desdinova** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 6:57 am

DryCounty wrote:I made my new Mac

Hacktintoshes can be great and OP, you can make hacktops, but they're not particularly legal. You're not going to get support and updates (magic dongle aside) may or may not break your install. You're not at all likely to be hauled into court but if piracy bothers you, this isn't much different.

DryCounty · Post by **DryCounty** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 7:49 am

If you care to read the EFI spesc here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible ... _Interface

you'll see that there really is nothing illegal about the boot loader itself. The only gray area is that my store-bought copy of Leopard is not installed on a "apple branded" piece of metal or plastic. But wait -- I do have a ton of stickers from the many iPods I've bought. Maybe I can slap one of those on!

Seriously, the thing works and works well. I'm amazed, and for an audio/video production machine I don't need to update it beyond where it is now. If I do, I'll wait and read the forums and then upgrade. If it works, it works and it does work, very well!!

If anybody cares to read specs, here's my machine in a nutshell:

Gigabyte GA-EP45T-UD3R
4GB DDR3 (!!!) soon to be 8GB
2.4GB Intel Quad (now at 2.8GHz, easy to do)
NVIDIA 9800GT (powers 2x24" displays)
Corsair 650W power supply
3x 500 GB HDDs (1 Mac, 1 PC, 1 audio -- backup via FW)
Mac OS X 10.5.6 (all updates applied to present)

Catoogie · Post by **Catoogie** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 2:48 pm

Wel I since doing some research I have found out that this seems to be a pretty commone occurence among people with G5's of that era. Right around the 3 year mark either the processor, the board or both, goes. There is a very informative discussion about this here http://forums.macworld.com/thread/10...t=405&tstart=0.

If you are experiencing this sort of problem I highly suggest you check out the forum and contribute. Apple is fixing some of the computers that are out of warranty for free and others not. It seems to depend on the willingness of the customer service rep you get a hold of.

Thanks to eveyone who contributed to my original post!!!

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My Mac, Dual 2.0 G5 Won't Start

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