05-28-2009, 07:24 PM

Hi all,

I have a rapidly-aging June 2004 PowerMac G5. It just recently decided not to power up.

When I turn on the power button, it briefly lights up, then goes off. There's no startup chime, and it never gets to the gray screen. But fans are running, so it's doing something. In fact, when I leave it on for about five minutes, the fans really start to go!

I unplugged and replugged everything. I made sure it wasn't actually my monitor that was the problem. I tried Control-Option-P-R. I tried hooking it up to a Mac laptop to see if I could at least get to the hard drive. But none of that did anything.

Any thoughts?

Thanks so much!

05-28-2009, 07:42 PM

where you have any symptoms before this happened?

can you boot into your install disc?

05-28-2009, 08:00 PM

I started noticing that my computer was booting up more slowly than usual, but that's about it. I was worrying that I was filling my startup disk too much -a 250gb drive with 18gb available.

I'd like to try booting into my install disk, but don't know how to open the DVD drive...?

05-28-2009, 08:03 PM

Try holding down the mouse button right after you press power and keep it down. Tray should open.

Power Mac G5 and Mac Pro: How to open the CD/DVD tray

05-28-2009, 08:07 PM

to open the drive:

1. Restart the computer and hold down the mouse button when you hear the startup sound.

if that doesnt work then

2. Restart the computer, hold down the Option key, and use the startup manager to open the tray.

if that doesnt work then

3. Insert a paper clip into the manual eject hole, which is located on the bottom right or left side of the drive (depending on the model), under the bezel. A paper clip inserted into this hole unlatches the drive. Next, bend the paper clip into a hook and put it under the drive's tray. You should be able to pull the tray out at this point.

if you still cant get it then

4. During startup, press and hold the Command-Option-O-F key combination to enter Open Firmware, type "eject cd" in lower case letters, then press return.

05-29-2009, 12:07 AM

Thanks for the suggestions as to how to open the DVD drive. That worked, and I tried the install disc.

Unfortunately, the computer didn't respond to the C command. I tried Disk Warrior, as well. But still, no luck.

I also reset the PMU and tried Safe Boot. The farthest I've been able to get is the gray screen, with a couple rounds of the spinning gear. That's further than yesterday, which was just black screen.

Does that lack of response to the install disc mean a motherboard problem?

05-29-2009, 12:27 AM

Try changing the hard drive first and see if you can boot off the OS DVD.

Net....