My friend's G5 is messed up!!

[FF_productions]

I'll quote from my friend: "Well, I thought I would go for a mac because my local tv station uses two and they say they are excellent, and their are quite a few jobs around for fcp editors. But anyways, I brought it home, turned it on, installed fcp, and it worked! But then.......I opened it up and put in 2x256bm just to try it out w/1gb memory (I was going to buy 2x1gb later on) Yes, they were the right speed, type etc. memory. After installing it I closed the case completly and turned it on. All of a sudden after 5 seconds the fans becamse VERY loud. So I waited for it to boot-up, and then I shut it down. I checked all the connections, everything was fine. So then I went to the apple discussion boards, only to find that many other people were having this problem too. It seems that apple made a bad batch of G5's in 2004 so I guess I got one of those. Also from what I read, people are saying that the "geniuses" (the apple repair guys I believe) say everything is fine after running the diagnostics. This is one of the disscussions I found: http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@...23699@.68b26f91
I didn't expect a mac to be this unreliable. I thought macs are supposed to make things "simple". So I can be creative." Someone give me some advice that I can pass along to him..He's losing faith quickly in his first purchase from apple...Help!!

 

[am1971]

Did you take out the extra RAM?

 

[CanadaRAM]

Fans being on full speed generally mean a kernel panic or some failure of the OS (the OS controls the speed of the fans, if speed control is not present, they run at full speed).

As posted earlier, has friend removed the unidentified 256 Mb DIMMs from the machine and restarted? Has he booted from the OSX DVD? Does it run full speed fans when booted from the DVD? Has he run a Disk Utility Repair on the drive (from the menubar on the OSX installer DVD)?

Let me get this straight though:

Friend modifies machine

Machine fails to boot properly

Friend reads a comment online saying that some other dude took his machine into an Apple store and the problem wasn't found

Friend concludes based on reading some comments onine that 1) he got a "bad" machine 'cause he read there was a bad batch, and 2) it's not worth calling or taking the machine to Apple under warranty because Apple will just blow him off with an excuse

Friend proclaims Macs aren't as simple as advertised and he is losing faith in Apple.

Do you see anything wrong with this picture???

 

[IJ Reilly]

Do you see anything wrong with this picture???

Looks kind of normal to me.

 

[SpaceMagic]

No, CanadaRAM is right. The guy had a working Mac, he did something to it, it no longer works 100%. What should he do?

Isn't it obvious? Tell your friend to remove the RAM he put in. Boot up the machine, perhaps resetting the PRAM (hold down option-command-r-p) and see if the machine "magically works" again. Only then, if it doesn't work, phone Apple or take the mac into an Apple Store.

From what you've told us, I doubt it's one of these faulty macs, but faulty ram.

 

[Sweetfeld28]

What OS X version is he running on this supposedly failed mac?

I thought i read in one of the OS X updates, one of the bug fixes was to fix this eratic fan problem. i think it was in one of the 10.3.x updates.

 

[iMacSE500]

I am stuck on the fact that he put in 2x256MB of RAM to get 1GB. The RAM he put in would only equal 512MB

 

[rainman::|:|]

98% chance he used cheap RAM. Macs need good, reliable, brand-name RAM, they're pretty picky about it. Find out where he got it.

 

[theonenonlyjoey]

I am stuck on the fact that he put in 2x256MB of RAM to get 1GB. The RAM he put in would only equal 512MB

It probably had 2x256 already in there from the stock configuration. Adding these would give him 1 GB

 

[wwooden]

I am stuck on the fact that he put in 2x256MB of RAM to get 1GB. The RAM he put in would only equal 512MB

Edit: Guy above me said it.

 

[maxterpiece]

I'll quote from my friend: "Well, I thought I would go for a mac because my local tv station uses two and they say they are excellent, and their are quite a few jobs around for fcp editors. But anyways, I brought it home, turned it on, installed fcp, and it worked! But then.......I opened it up and put in 2x256bm just to try it out w/1gb memory (I was going to buy 2x1gb later on) Yes, they were the right speed, type etc. memory. After installing it I closed the case completly and turned it on. All of a sudden after 5 seconds the fans becamse VERY loud. So I waited for it to boot-up, and then I shut it down. I checked all the connections, everything was fine. So then I went to the apple discussion boards, only to find that many other people were having this problem too. It seems that apple made a bad batch of G5's in 2004 so I guess I got one of those. Also from what I read, people are saying that the "geniuses" (the apple repair guys I believe) say everything is fine after running the diagnostics. This is one of the disscussions I found: http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@...23699@.68b26f91
I didn't expect a mac to be this unreliable. I thought macs are supposed to make things "simple". So I can be creative." Someone give me some advice that I can pass along to him..He's losing faith quickly in his first purchase from apple...Help!!

Tell him that it is a crappy machine and that I'll give him $500 to take it off his hands. He can buy a hell of a lot of PC for that money, right?

 

[FF_productions]

Sorry for the delay...I haven't gotten in touch with my friend, but he went to the apple store yesterday and was choosing for hours of which powermac to get...He's very clueless about macs, he only knows pc's...I'd be angry if I had spent 2000 dollars on a machine that instantly didn't work (had to be the ram)...I'll give him the advice next time i talk to him..I'll tell him to reset everything like the pram and such..as that is most likely the problem..I just thought, it can't be a "bad batch from 2004", this machine is brand new!

Thank You guys for the advice!