BreatheCarolina
Registered
Alright, I've exhausted every means I know of to get this working.
I recently acquired an older PPC G5 tower (PowerMac7,2 with the 1.6GHz single core processor). Originally it came with a bad power supply and no graphics card, I replaced the power supply easily and got a new graphics card (matching the exact specs of the original that shipped with the G5, NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 Ultra) and also replaced the PRAM battery with a brand new one.
When the power cord is connected the G5 clicks twice like it should and, without any peripherals connected (mouse, keyboard, monitor), powers on correctly and gives the Mac OSX startup chime. Plugging a keyboard and mouse into works fine and I'm able to boot it into target disk mode without issue.
The problem arises as soon as the LCD display is connected via DVI. If the display is connected prior to powering on the G5 the fans spin up and the power LED above the power button lights up but no start up chime, no beeps, and no flashing LED. The power LED stays solid white even after force quitting the G5. Resetting the PMU, res-eating the PRAM battery, removing RAM, hard drive, & graphics card have no effect.
The only way to get it to power on correctly after this happens is to unplug the power cable, pull the PRAM battery, remove the graphics card, RAM, and hard drive and let it sit for 24ish hours. After which it will power on fine as long as the display is not connected.
Also, if I attach the display after it boots successfully it will work until the computer is restarted, then the same behavior occurs. Although I believe it is worth mentioning that the G5 will power on fine with the graphics card installed just not connected to a display.
I'm assuming its a motherboard issue atm but I'm open to suggestions and/or alternatives. I really want to use the G5 as a 10.4 Server but, obviously, running in Target Disk Mode is not optimal even though its currently the only way to get anything onto the hard drive.
Thanks in advance for your help and advice!
I recently acquired an older PPC G5 tower (PowerMac7,2 with the 1.6GHz single core processor). Originally it came with a bad power supply and no graphics card, I replaced the power supply easily and got a new graphics card (matching the exact specs of the original that shipped with the G5, NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 Ultra) and also replaced the PRAM battery with a brand new one.
When the power cord is connected the G5 clicks twice like it should and, without any peripherals connected (mouse, keyboard, monitor), powers on correctly and gives the Mac OSX startup chime. Plugging a keyboard and mouse into works fine and I'm able to boot it into target disk mode without issue.
The problem arises as soon as the LCD display is connected via DVI. If the display is connected prior to powering on the G5 the fans spin up and the power LED above the power button lights up but no start up chime, no beeps, and no flashing LED. The power LED stays solid white even after force quitting the G5. Resetting the PMU, res-eating the PRAM battery, removing RAM, hard drive, & graphics card have no effect.
The only way to get it to power on correctly after this happens is to unplug the power cable, pull the PRAM battery, remove the graphics card, RAM, and hard drive and let it sit for 24ish hours. After which it will power on fine as long as the display is not connected.
Also, if I attach the display after it boots successfully it will work until the computer is restarted, then the same behavior occurs. Although I believe it is worth mentioning that the G5 will power on fine with the graphics card installed just not connected to a display.
I'm assuming its a motherboard issue atm but I'm open to suggestions and/or alternatives. I really want to use the G5 as a 10.4 Server but, obviously, running in Target Disk Mode is not optimal even though its currently the only way to get anything onto the hard drive.
Thanks in advance for your help and advice!