[Sir Real]

Hi all, I'm a newbie to this board so apologies if this has been covered elsewhere...but I doubt it! Have recently started having problems with my G5 iMac, freezes, beachball of death etc. Couldn't work out what was causing it, and I'm not new to Macs, so did all the usual stuff...reset PRAM, PMU, SMU etc. No joy. Eventually the computer just gave up the ghost completely and refused to start up. I took the internal drive out, and lo and behold that couldn't be recognised when I hooked it up to my Macbook Pro. I naturally assumed it was a problem with the drive that had been causing all the previous issues. Bought a brand new Barracuda, 1.5 Terrabytes, installed it. Also bought new OS 10.3 system install discs, as I had somehow lost my old ones. Rather foolishly I formatted the drive using Disk Utility off an OS 10.4.1 system disc that I had borrowed (before I received my 10.3 ones). Problem I am having now is that I can't boot from the 10.3 CD, I put it in, hold down 'C', all seems fine...grey apple appears on screen...then the weirdest thing I've ever seen, the Apple jumps diagonally about half an inch to the right down the screen, leaving some minor visual glitches in its wake. And that is as far as it will go...
I'm extremely confused, I've tested the CD in my laptop, and all seems fine. Was going to try installing using target disk mode, but for some reason when I do that the laptop just assumes that I want to install it on the internal drive, and won't let me...
Totally flummoxed, anyone got any bright ideas?

[64stang06]

Well, what version of 10.3 is on those discs exactly? The first iMac G5 installed with 10.3.5 (a specific build for that machine as well), and so if you just have 10.3 on the disc, it definitely won't boot from it.

Can you list the specs of your machine for us to help you better?

[Big Mac]

Bulging capacitors?

[Sir Real]

Thanks for your replies :-) Well, it's a 17" 1.8 model, upgraded to 2gig ram, and now with the hefty new 1.5 terrabyte drive. Probably a second revision if I remember correctly. I thought that it had 10.3 installed on it when I bought it, which I then upgraded to 10.3.9 (as far as it can go), but if they shipped with 10.3.5 then I guess it must have been that. The discs I bought are just 10.3, so I guess maybe that is the problem. Will have to try and track down a newer version of the OS and try that...
As for bulging capacitors, I didn't look when I had the back off (but didn't know that I ought to), will check next time I take it apart...

[64stang06]

Yea the early iMac G5 machines suffered from bulging capacitors and thus Apple extended the logic board repair program for those. If you see any, you'll need a new logic board, and I don't think Apple has the program anymore.

Edit: nope, not anymore. Apple - Support - Battery Exchange + Repair Extension Programs

[Sir Real]

Yeah, actually this iMac has been in for repair three times already, all under Apple repair programs...has had a new DVD drive, new graphics card, and new logic board...pretty much a whole new computer lol.
You'd imagine that when they replaced the logic board (which was the most recent thing to fail, a couple of years back), they would have put one in which didn't have the same issues, but who knows? Fortunately I have my Macbook to fall back on for work, but unfortunately a lot of the software that I use the most hasn't been (or never will be) ported to Intel, so obviously I'm keen to get the iMac back up and running...
As a side issue, I was wondering if it was possible to run an earlier (PPC) version of OSX on my Macbook under an emulator? Would help out while I';m trying to sort out the iMac...

[64stang06]

Well the software that's not a Universal Binary or Intel app will (and should) still run on the MacBook via Rosetta (NOT the language software).

In regards to the logic board issue, I know when the program was first announced, some of the early boards still contained bad capacitors and therefore, those will die again. Apple sorted this out of course, but it doesn't help someone like you who has had the board replaced already.

[Northeastern292]

I have somewhat of a similar problem with an iMac I got off of eBay...the machine freezes on startup, but no kernel panic is in sight. The video is a bit off colored, like a fuzzy TV. I had an idea to do a repair that is similar to the ones found on iBook's.

DIY obsolete iBook logic board repair :: projects :: geek technique

Would that work?

[ChrisB]

You might also have bad RAM. Have you ever run Apple Hardware Test on this iMac?