Just picked up a really clean PowerMac G5 (dual 2.5 PCI-X). Owner said the video card was bad. I had another slower machine with a working video card, so I figured I'd just swap it out and have a nice, fast G5 as my bridge machine. When I first tried booting it up with the original graphics card I got the boot chime, but no video out over DVI (which I somewhat expected).
So I swapped the graphics card with one from another G5 and initially I got video output, but there were no hard drives, so I shut it down. Added a hard drive from the other G5 and OS X started to load and then it looks like it hung.
Wanting to rule out something weird with the HD, I threw the boot CD that came with the G5 and restarted, holding down the C key. Boot chime with no video again. I've now swapped for a 3rd graphics card, put the original, zapped the PRAM, reset the SMC, restarted again. Tried throwing a PCI VGI graphics card in there... No video out on either video card. Tried removing all the RAM but one pair, used RAM from the working machine, no change.
If I leave the machine running for a few minutes, the fans increase until they are max speed and then it just stays running at full speed until I hold the power button down to shut it down. The power LED on the front of the case is solid white (no blinking) and if there's a diagnostic LED on the motherboard (I know there is on my other PM G5), it is not turning on.
Any ideas what might be causing the issue? CPU?
I have a Dual 1.8 Powermac G5, but it has a PowerPC G5 970 CPU whereas this one has the 970fx CPU. Not sure if I can try swapping the CPUs between the machines to rule out CPU failure as an issue. Also, can I run the dual CPU motherboard with a single CPU at a time to similarly test it out.
Any ideas would be appreciated, as I've seen several people with similar symptoms on the PM G5, but never seen a confirmed reason. Thanks!
So I swapped the graphics card with one from another G5 and initially I got video output, but there were no hard drives, so I shut it down. Added a hard drive from the other G5 and OS X started to load and then it looks like it hung.
Wanting to rule out something weird with the HD, I threw the boot CD that came with the G5 and restarted, holding down the C key. Boot chime with no video again. I've now swapped for a 3rd graphics card, put the original, zapped the PRAM, reset the SMC, restarted again. Tried throwing a PCI VGI graphics card in there... No video out on either video card. Tried removing all the RAM but one pair, used RAM from the working machine, no change.
If I leave the machine running for a few minutes, the fans increase until they are max speed and then it just stays running at full speed until I hold the power button down to shut it down. The power LED on the front of the case is solid white (no blinking) and if there's a diagnostic LED on the motherboard (I know there is on my other PM G5), it is not turning on.
Any ideas what might be causing the issue? CPU?
I have a Dual 1.8 Powermac G5, but it has a PowerPC G5 970 CPU whereas this one has the 970fx CPU. Not sure if I can try swapping the CPUs between the machines to rule out CPU failure as an issue. Also, can I run the dual CPU motherboard with a single CPU at a time to similarly test it out.
Any ideas would be appreciated, as I've seen several people with similar symptoms on the PM G5, but never seen a confirmed reason. Thanks!