Sytems of an ageing G5

[Phil Buckle]

Sorry I meant "Symptoms of and aging G5"

My trusty G5PPC which houses my Accel system is exhibiting some new troubling behavior. This Mac has been running trouble free for about 5 years.

It won't shut down correctly. Just hangs and I have to hold the power button to complete shutdown. After this sort of shutdown it won't start up. It hangs on the gray screen.

Another hard shutdown and a restart will get it going. During this "no start" period the fan will be racing at full speed.

Is it a drive dying? Battery dying?
Any thoughts appreciated.

[Craig F]

air or liquid cooled? (if liquid is it leaking)
I'd try hitting the PUM/CODA button (I don't remember what the G5s had)

[Phil Buckle]

No this one is not liquid cooled. It works perfectly all day long and I think this shutting down problem is a symptom of a larger problem.

I only have about 9 gig left on the system drive so I'll free up some space there and see if it helps.

[scottgreiner]

Have you tried booting it from another drive, or the system install DVD?

On a side note, it's a bummer when your computer dies you're faced with this "what to do with my old PCI cards". I got a chassis...

[tonwurm]

remove all connected peripherals, like firewire-, usb-drives, hubs etc. and see if it´s still there

I had a similair problem with an usb hub, removed it and all was good again

[doubtful guest]

Try everything tonwurm mentioned, a few more things I'd try:

If you haven't replaced the pram battery recently, I would do that.

Reset pram, pmu, nvram.

Make sure dust has not collected inside the machine.

Re-seat RAM, PCI cards, hard drives.

If it only crashes at shutdown it is probably PMU related, although I've had stuff like usb hubs or a 3rd party mouse cause that as well. You may also want to try a clean install of OSX.

I've also had a failing hard drive, or bad ram cause problems like this. I've had ram that worked for years suddenly stop working, but usually these cause shutdowns while working.

good luck!

[Phil Buckle]

Thanks so much guys. I'll try all of the above and let you know how the old workhorse goes.

About the PCI card predicament. You might be aware that I'm also running a Intel 8 core 3.2 Mac Pro with VEP running all my VI's.

I love that Mac so much! I really like working on it because of it's seemingly endless power.
I'm starting to think that I could be a candidate for PT Native. I finish most sessions with both Accel cards almost empty (because my other machine is running all the VI's) and I don't track bands.
I only ever record one track at a time and most sessions have around 30 or so audio tracks or less.
I have Ableton Live and Record and Reason 5 on the other machine and I also have a Motu 828 MK11 so I have plugged my guitar into the Mac Pro via that and recorded at a very low buffer settings and can't feel any latency.
I'm just scared to part with the TDM system.......because it's been so rock solid and the singers never feel any latency.
But if I have to fork out for a chassis..........it may be time to jump.

One thing though, I would buy another Intel the same as the one I have and STILL run VEP on a separate machine. I really enjoy working this way and the endless cpu power is like a drug.
Just thinking out loud.

[Oliver M]

Phil,

I remember seeing similar issues with my G5 way back. It turned out to be a flaky USB device in the chain. Removing it fixed it.

However, from reading your signature, the Dual 2.7 is liquid cooled I believe.


Oliver

[DigiTechSupt]

If you open the Console and look at the System Log while you shut down the computer - what does it show? Often there will be clues there as to what may be going wrong...

[KMcK]

Dual 2.7's are most definitely liquid cooled. I'd be very wary if I were you, some of the symptoms you're describing sound like what happens when that cooling system fails. It some cases when that system "dies" it leaks coolant all over the motherboard destroying most of the computer in the process so you want to be very careful.

I'd take the machine into an Apple repair place if I were you and have them check it out. It might not be the cooling system, but if it is you may also be teetering very close to a disaster.