MacPro G5

[Mrmike]

After living life happy with a PC I decided that it was time to try an Apple. I figured they make a great phone and all. So I bought a used one. I will explain in great detail as to what is going on. I am missing a small piece of the puzzle and hope that you the reader can help me understand.

I have a Mac Pro G5 dual 2.5 ghz processors.
120 GB hard drive
2 GB ram

I know that these units had water coolant leaks and caused issues. This one was no different. I had the red warning light on the systemboard saying that one of the processors was bad. I purchased 2 new 2.5Ghz processors which came with a new heatsink. I installed them into the computer. Before I did that this computer did nothing. This is what I get now. The computer fires up, meaning I can hear the fans spin. I hear the hard drive spin. The power light lights up for a second and then turns off. There is NO startup chime and NO video. I have tried a replacement video card but that didn't fix the problem. I have reseated the ram repeatedly and that doesn't fix the problem. I am sure that it is something very easy that I am overlooking. I would love to get this unit running.

 

[pigoo3]

Just a small correction...you don't have a Mac Pro G5...it's just a Powermac G5 (no Mac Pro nomenclature).

If the liquid cooling system has leaked on this computer...that's basically as bad a spilling liquid on a laptop...bad news!

- Nick

p.s. Also...the power supply is in the bottom of the Powermac G5 enclosure...so any liquid that leaks will possibly get into the power supply causing problems.

 

[harryb2448]

Alas coolant leaks usually cause major damage to the logic board and power supply so you may have well purchased a lemon.

 

[Mrmike]

I can't 100% verify that coolant had leaked. The processors had a little corrosion on them, but that was it. One of the processors didn't work, but then again so what. Don't think it is the power supply or I would get no power at all, there is a slight chance that I could but not enough to properly run the machine. So ruling that out for the time being that brings me to the systemboard. They are no marks on the systemboard, meaning no corrosion. No busted caps on it at all, but still a possibility. There are somethings things that I have learned in the last couple of days that no one else mentioned. One being a PC user I am used to seeing a bios screen, which I have found out Mac's do not have. I put in a new hard drive, but it has no operating system on it. So I would have been expecting to see something similiar to a Windows machine with no operating system. Could very well be the video card. I grabbed a spare that I had, but doesn't mean that it works with a Mac. I am going to assume that I have to replace it with one that is compatiable with Mac computers. I am not to worried about if I bought a lemon or not, I just want to learn how to fix it. On a PC machine this would have been fixed already, but the behavior of a Mac is so much different than a PC. There are many more keyboard commands.

 

[pigoo3]

One being a PC user I am used to seeing a bios screen, which I have found out Mac's do not have. I put in a new hard drive, but it has no operating system on it. So I would have been expecting to see something similiar to a Windows machine with no operating system. Could very well be the video card. I grabbed a spare that I had, but doesn't mean that it works with a Mac. I am going to assume that I have to replace it with one that is compatiable with Mac computers. I am not to worried about if I bought a lemon or not, I just want to learn how to fix it. On a PC machine this would have been fixed already, but the behavior of a Mac is so much different than a PC. There are many more keyboard commands.

First things first. There's really no need to mention multiple times that if this PowerMac G5 was a "PC/Windows" computer it would be fixed already! The bottom line is this is NOT a "PC/Windows" computer...and that's why you're posting a question here!

It sounds like you are very familiar with PC's/Windows" computers...which is great...but Macintosh computers are different.

So first things first...from what you mentioned:

- you need a hard drive with an operating system on it
- you need a Powermac G5 compatible video card.

Without a complete set of working hardware (cpu, hard drive, OS, ram, video card, etc.) we really cannot proceed with troubleshooting. It's quite possible after you install a hard drive with an OS...and install a Powermac G5 compatible video card...this computer may work fine.

Good luck,

- Nick