New-to-me G5 with issues.

Hello. Newbie here.

I've owned a macbook since they replaced the ibook, and I used an older G4 before that... but I am in no way Mac/Computer savvy...

I was recently given a G5 tower, minus the SATA hard drive. When I picked it up, I was told by the previous owner that the processor was "shot", and the optical drive was questionable.

The tower appears to be in relatively pristine condition, no scratches, and upon opening the case, there wasn't much dust - but we cleaned it out anyways.

Either way, we hooked up a hard drive, a screen, plugged it in, and fired it up.

The light comes on, the very "macish" chime sounds, and the screen comes to life. But, all that appears is the "?" icon. And the fans rev up and seem to go faster than they really should...

I was told that if the processor(s) were "shot", there would be a noise indicating a hardware issue. There is no noise, but the fans really worry me. Having never owned a G5 before, I have no idea if this is normal...

We tried to load an OS last night, but couldn't seem to get it work, and are going to give it another crack tonight.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Many thanks.

Do you know the specs at all? I know you can't click on the apple as you can not boot it up. What hard drive did you install? How is the drive formatted?

Do you have any OSX Retail DVD's around you can try? The one with your Macbook would never work as it's for the Macbook and also Intel only.

What OS and what discs? You do need as stated full retail install Tiger or Leopard discs.

I tried 10.2 Jaguar.

I have Tiger discs that I'm going to try tonight.

The specs that I do know are written down at home... I'll post them after work.

I doubt 10.2 would even boot leave alone install.

Is the Tiger a Retail or a DVD that came with another machine? OSX DVD's that come with a Mac are for that model with the same specs only and will not install on another Mac with different specs. If it's a Retail version it will work.

Keep us posted!

Well 10.4 seemed to work, I had a set of retail discs at home.

The fan has stopped running on high. Really, the whole thing is quite quiet now.

I got the OS loaded, and ran some updates, etc., and everything seems to be running alright. It froze once, but I'm thinking that might be more of a memory issue than anything.

As far as I can tell... it's a 1.8 dual processor powerPC. It's a 2004 build, but I don't know if it's early or late.

We don't know what this was supposed to come with... at all. Any ideas?

If you click on the Apple and on About This Mac, how much RAM (memory) does it show?

beetle.babe said:

We don't know what this was supposed to come with... at all. Any ideas?

Click to expand...

Check the sticker on the back of the mac and it should list the shipped specification.

Hope this helps.

For the fan issue, if they do seem loud go into System Preferences > Energy Saver > Options and ensure Processor Performance is set to Automatic. For a 1.8DP original system would be Panther OS X.3.4. Tiger is much better and if you beef the memory up, Leopard OS X.5 will run very nicely.

It said 3GB of memory.

Although the OS loaded, and works, the computer has started to lock up. We fiddled with the memory and it seemed to get better, but now it's back to being finicky and freezing.
We only used the memory that came with the machine.

Hi there,
Have you tried zapping your PRAM?

Resetting PRAM and NVRAM

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.

Your computer's PRAM and the NVRAM are reset to the default values. The clock settings may be reset to a default date on some models.

Click to expand...

The above is a direct quote from Apple's support page
Try this first, then report back, please - You may also have to press and hold a button on the motherboard, but someone will give you instructions on how to do this later, if needed.

Hope this helps.

Okay - problem diagnosed - at least, we think.

So, we took out one processor, and tried to run it. Then we did the same with the other.

Right now, it's running on the second processor (loaded in the primary slot), and it hasn't locked up in over 2 hours. We've surfed the internet, loaded some applications...

This seems to be our issue.

the fans revving up is a surefire indicator that there is something wrong with a G5. whenever mine has had a "moment" thats the first thing you notice.
also G5's can be really difficult to troubleshoot on, my mrs is an apple techie & she said there are no surefire " oh that symptom means that fault" certainties when diagnosing G5's as they will often mislead you at every turn possible!
the Ram slots are an often overlooked source of problems!
anyway you sound like you know what you're doing, good luck