[crooner]

Oy...
I was installing a PCI card in my 2.7Ghz G5 when all of the sudden [i]my Mac powered up![i/]

I had (stupidly) neglected to pull the power cord after shutting down. Nevertheless, this had never happened to me on any Mac I've ever owned. Still have no idea what caused it to startup.

In any case, the fans kicked in, the red light lit up, and I pressed and held the power button to shutdown. This failed to work. I scrambled to replace the clear thermal shield but before I managed to get it in place I heard a beep about three seconds in length. Have no idea what it was, but, apart from alert sounds, my experience has been that a beeping Mac is an unhappy one.

Ultimately, I had to yank the power cord and once I re-checked that all PCI cards were indeed installed properly, I tried to reboot. Nada. Zip. Nothing. No power light, no fans, no chime... nothing.

I left the machine unplugged for about fifteen minutes, pulled and replace the mobo battery and pressed the CUDA button. Still no go on re-attempt. I started pulling components and extra RAM and after some random fiddling, I discovered that my Mac would ONLY power up if I [i]did not[i/] have my 22" ADC Apple Cinema Display attached to the ADC connector on the 850 XT.

My setup is the Apple Cinema Display, an SGI 1600SW run from the DVI port on the 850 XT and a second 1600SW run from a Radeon 9200 PCI card. (10.4.2, all latest updates - though no QuickTime 7.0.2 or iTunes 5 yet).

I decided o re-seat the 850 XT, but upon doing so, the card refused to work at all.

I grabbed a Radeon 9800 (128MB for G4 and G5) I had purchased for my old QuickSilver and installed that. No matter what combination of monitor and graphic card connector I tried, my Mac would only boot and work with just one display connected to the 9200.

Note: I did connect the 9800's internal power cord and wonder if that is still necessary as I've read reports from folks who have installed retail 800 XTs and found that the power cable is not needed.

I called Apple Support and they are going to ship out a new 850 XT to me. Frankly, I'm seriously hoping that it will be the simple solution, as I cannot shake the feeling that some damage may have occurred during that ominous beep.

Example: when I let my Mac sleep, upon trying to wake it, I found the fans going full throttle and the Mac refusing to wake up. I must force shutdown and reboot to get things going. Zapping PRAM and pressing the CUDA again failed to fix this issue. This was the first time this ever occurred.

So... anyone have any advice, theories or thoughts on what might have happened? I did boot from the Apple Hardware Test portion of the install DVD and all tests passed. Still, I'm slightly freakin' here.

Thanks in advance for any help you folks can offer.

[seanc]

That doesn't sound good.

Depending on what you were doing at the time could depend on whether you shorted something out and what it was.

The lesson learned is:

ALWAYS DISCONNECT A COMPUTER FROM ALL POWER SOURCES BEFORE YOU DO ANY INTERNAL WORK.

Yes i've shorted out various components in my computers too so you're not alone.
Once you've done it a couple of times, you soon learn not to!

Does the computer function with the radeon 9800 and 9200 installed?

I'd need to see your setup for your monitors to be able to figure out whats connected where, so sorry if you've said that already, it's confusing.

I really hope this new graphics card rectifies your problems.

Sean

[crooner]

Originally Posted by seanc

That doesn't sound good.

Depending on what you were doing at the time could depend on whether you shorted something out and what it was.

The lesson learned is:

ALWAYS DISCONNECT A COMPUTER FROM ALL POWER SOURCES BEFORE YOU DO ANY INTERNAL WORK.

Yes i've shorted out various components in my computers too so you're not alone.
Once you've done it a couple of times, you soon learn not to!

Does the computer function with the radeon 9800 and 9200 installed?

I'd need to see your setup for your monitors to be able to figure out whats connected where, so sorry if you've said that already, it's confusing.

I really hope this new graphics card rectifies your problems.

Sean

Thanks for the reply, Sean.

In the past I always did remember to disconnect my Macs from the power cord, but it was late, I was less than sharp and I screwed up.

To help clarify my display setup, here it is in detail (note that this was all working fine until THE INCIDENT):

My current display set-up is a 22" Apple Cinema Display flanked by two SGI 1600SW's.
The Apple Cinema Display was connected to the ADC port on the 850 XT.
One 1600SW was connected to the 850's DVI port via an SGI MultiLink adapter.
The other 1600SW is run off the ATI 9200 PCI card and also uses a MultiLink adapter.

The whole mess started as I just got my ATTO UL3D SCSI card back from ATTO repair and wanted only to install it, copy data over from my SCSI RAID box and then remove the card as I've transitioned to external SATA drives.

To answer your question, my Mac will function with both the 9800 and 9200 installed. I just can't connect anything to the 9800. If I do, I get a startup chime but the screen(s) never light.

I tried unplugging the 9800's internal power cord to see if this would allow for a connection to the card, but that made no difference. Ultimately, I just removed the 9800 completely and am running just the 22" Apple Cinema Display on the 9200 via an Apple ADC to DVI converter. There is no card in the AGP slot at all now. I'll be very interested to see what happens when the machine goes into sleep mode again.

I sure hope it just turns out to be the 850 XT. I'd hate to think I fried the AGP slot or some other component. Ah, well... thank goodness for AppleCare.

I'll keep you updated. In the meantime please don’t hesitate to offer any more suggestions or advice (that goes for anyone).

Thanks.

[seanc]

Without any other graphics card's installed and only the radeon 9800 does it work then?

Am I right in assuming the cards are:

ATI 850 XT - AGP
Radeon 9800 - AGP
Radeon 9200 - PCI

Do you have any more powermac's?

You could try the cards in there to see if they all work.

This could help you to work out whether the problem is the AGP slot or the graphics card(s).

If it is the AGP slot then Apple should hopefully replace the logic board for you.

Good luck,

Sean

[mousehouse]

I have this frightfull notion that your AGP interface was somehow screwed up. Systematic testing of your cards in another machine and running on AGP-only in your troubled Mac sounds like the way to go.

Good luck!

[crooner]

Originally Posted by mousehouse

I have this frightfull notion that your AGP interface was somehow screwed up. Systematic testing of your cards in another machine and running on AGP-only in your troubled Mac sounds like the way to go.

Good luck!

I fear you may be right...

I received the replacement 850 XT from Apple this morning (wow, that was fast!) and upon installing it and hitting the power button the Mac would not power up at all.

To refresh your folk's memories, my setup (under normal circumstances) is as follows:

My current display set-up is a 22" Apple Cinema Display flanked by two SGI 1600SW's.
The Apple Cinema Display was connected to the ADC port on the 850 XT.
One 1600SW was connected to the 850's DVI port via an SGI MultiLink adapter.
The other 1600SW is run off the ATI 9200 PCI card and also uses a MultiLink adapter.

Simply removing the 22" Apple Cinema Display from the 850 XT's ADC port allowed my Mac to boot without incident. I shutdown, disconnected the two SGIs and connected ONLY the Apple Cinema Display to the ADC. No power. I then setup my ADC to DVI adapter and connected the Apple Cinema Display to the DVI port on the 850 XT. Nope.

Next, I connected only one SGI to the DVI connector on the 850 XT, and connected the Apple Cinema Display to the DVI connector (via ADC to DVI adapter) on the Radeon 9200, and connected the second SGI (via a MultiLink adapter) to the VGA port on the 9200.

The Mac booted fine. All three displays work.

So it seems that no matter what the configuration, be it one display, two or three, things WILL NOT work if I try to connect my 22" Apple Cinema Display to the Radeon 850 XT, even via the ADC adapter to the 850's DVI port. Yet, the 850's DVI port works fine with one of the SGI 1600SWs via a MultiLink adapter.



I don't have a DVI to ADC (note: this is the $19-29 doohickey, as opposed to the $99 ADC to DVI monster mentioned above) so I can't test the ADC port on the 850 XT with one of the SGI displays.

In either case, I think this spells mobo damage which means having to pack things up and take a trip down to the Apple Store. This stinks as I'll be shocked if they'll be able to fix this in a day.

I'm wondering if I should bring my Apple Cinema Display down, too, just to see if that may be the issue... what do you folks think?

[reader50]

If in doubt, bring it. And if they have a spare motherboard on the shelf, they may well be able to fix your G5 that day.

[freebasen]

The symptoms you describe point to a fried AGP slot. The ADC port carries power over a couple of pins on the slot. This is why it worked when you unplugged the monitor for the brief time. When this happens though it usually fries another chip on the board (I don't know exactly what). You'll also hear a lot of QS G4 users complaining about this as this was a huge issue on that revision. Obviously its hard to diagnose without actually seeing the machine, but based on your decription I would say with 90% certainty that you need a new MB.

[crooner]

Here's a little oddity to add to the mix:

In prepping my Mac for the Apple Store I performed a clean installation of Mac OS X. Afterwards, just to test things once more, I shutdown, unplugged all displays and tried plugging in in the 22" Apple Cinema Display to its native ADC port on the 850 XT.

Immediately the machine booted. However, I heard one tone and saw the power light on my Apple Cinema Display flash several times (I tried to count, but they were in fast succession - maybe anywhere from 5-8 flashes).
After this, it booted into Open Firmware. I typed "mac-boot" and things proceeded. The Mac booted *fine* from my original drive (probably as the clean installation was performed on an external drive that I planned on installing internally before packing things up).

This was odd, to say the least. I shutdown and tried to power up. Nothing. No power at all. I unplugged the ADC connector and re-plugged... Powered on, long tone, Open Firmware, mac-boot and finally a working Mac.

I looked up error tones to refresh my memory and what I found confirmed what I thought. One beep is supposed to indicate faulty memory.
This was very wierd as I never got this when I did NOT have the Apple Cinema Display connected to the 850 XT.
I shutdown again, attached all displays in my original configuration and reconnected the ADC plug. Same startup routine (beep, OF, etc.) and now all displays functioned properly, just as they did before this problem ever arose.
Still, If I shutdown and try to power up buy pressing the power button on the front of the Mac I get nothing. How bizarre is this?

Will post more if I find anything else today.

Wish me luck.

[villalobos]

Originally Posted by seanc

That doesn't sound good.

Depending on what you were doing at the time could depend on whether you shorted something out and what it was.

The lesson learned is:

ALWAYS DISCONNECT A COMPUTER FROM ALL POWER SOURCES BEFORE YOU DO ANY INTERNAL WORK.

Yes i've shorted out various components in my computers too so you're not alone.
Once you've done it a couple of times, you soon learn not to!

Does the computer function with the radeon 9800 and 9200 installed?

I'd need to see your setup for your monitors to be able to figure out whats connected where, so sorry if you've said that already, it's confusing.

I really hope this new graphics card rectifies your problems.

Sean

I thought it was better to keep it plugged to have a ground?

[crooner]

UPDATE:
Brought my G5 down to the Apple Store. And, of course, when they hooked up an Apple Cinema Display to the 850 XT’s ADC connector and pressed the power button the Mac booted up just fine.

Murphy’s law double-backing on itself.

More of this...

A short hardware diagnostic test yielded no errors. I left for home, grabbed my 22” Apple Cinema Display and zoomed back to the store. The genius there tested it and emerged from the back to tell me that he was 99% sure it was the DISPLAY and not the Mac. He tested it on my Mac as well as another G5 and both yielded the same results. I left both my Mac and the display there for overnight diagnostics.

This, as you can imagine, stinks on hot ice.

One thing that bothered me was the fact that the genius had never heard of the error *beeps* on new G5s - only flashes on the display. Even a search in his tech database yielded no concrete evidence for G5s specifically. Nevertheless, my Mac acted fine with their displays.

The flat rate fee for display repair (my display ran out of Apple Care in January) is about $350-400. Not worth it IMHO. So, seeing as my plan was to (in stages) get a 30” Apple Cinema Display and flank it by two Dell 24” widescreens, I just ordered a dell for $899, thanks to this coupon code:

http://dealmac.com/deals/Dell-Ultra-...ped/95334.html

This ends at 7 AM EST on the 13th

In either case, this is still a major hassle as there will always be that nagging thought over what caused the beep and subsequent boot into Open Firmware.

Until the next installment...

[Todd Madson]

This thread is one of the most terrifying things I've read in a long time.

Brrrrr.....

Here's hoping your hardware issues are resolved sooner rather than later and
without much expense to you.

[crooner]

Thanks, Todd.
Unfortunately, I fear the only real way to getting my system to run "clean" is to invest in new displays.

I picked up my G5 and Apple Cinema Display this morning and they confirmed that my Mac is cool. It's the display. It caused the same exact behavior on several Macs. They wanted $480 to repair it. I told them I'd be back when I can afford a 30".

Yep. Stinks on hot ice.