New to the Forum and in need of assistance

New to the Forum and in need of assistance- sometimes my G5 does not boot up

Hello folks, I`m new to this forum and a semi-newb to the mac world... and I`m hoping to get some technical advise.

A few months back my dysfunctional PC gave up the ghost and I decided to try a mac since I`ve heard so many good things about them.

To make a long story short, I`ve got a smoking deal on a used G5 Dual 2ghz with 6 gigs of ram. I love the machine and the OS and it worked great for a few months but it started acting weird yesterday...

When I turned it on it made the "happy sound" but the monitor stayed dark...It came on afetr I`ve pulled most of my USB devices.

This morning: the same thing... and it did not came on until I removed the generic USB hub/card (PCI) that I`ve bought from Fry`s a month ago to plug in my stuff.

Here`s the specs of my machine:
Dual 2ghz power pc, 6 gigs of ram, Leopard 1.5.8, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, a no name generic airport compatible card. Samsung syncmaster 913v monitor ( I had to buy an adapter to connect it to the geforce video card)

There`s one thing I should mention: Once the fan on the geforce video card
started to accelerate until it sounded like a jet engine and the system froze up so I had to pull the plug.
It rebooted OK after that though.

Did someone else here experience similar problems, can it be that the aftermarket hardware (video card, network card or usb card) are conflicting with the original harware?

Any help is appreciated.

Welcome to the forum. First dont pull the plug if u get a lock up hold the power button in 4-5 secs and it will shut down, pulling the plug could happen in the middle of the head writting to the HD and then u have more drama to sort. Secondly remove all extra peripherals and have a read thru here Come back with a status if you still have issues, some one can probably help.
If you still have problems you could download this and install it just as a step to ensure OS is sound.

And if you have a lot of USB attachments, consider getting a mains powered hub as it may be the hub you are using is drawing a lot of power from the G5.

And try to craft a topic line when you post a question that gives the gist of the problem you're having, or at least what it's concerned with. Generic titles don't get much attention.

Thank you gents, with the USB hub removed and some of the steps from Colin`s troubleshooting list done (emptying caches, resetting PRAM) the G5 booted up quite nicely this morning...if it does fine tomorrow I`ll re install the USB card and see what happens.

Be aware USB and USB2 PCI cards are pretty unreliable and cause all sorts of sleep and other problems.

harryb2448 said:

Be aware USB and USB2 PCI cards are pretty unreliable and cause all sorts of sleep and other problems.

Click to expand...

So one of these external powered USB hubs are the way to go?

Yes, by using an external powered hub, you draw a lot less power from the computer.

Mac Pro said:

Yes, by using an external powered hub, you draw a lot less power from the computer.

Click to expand...

Allright, gotta get me one. Thanks.