G5 Randomly turns itself off.

B

bouncinshoes

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I have a pre-isight G5 PowerPC 1.8ghz 160gb HD

I recently upgraded the ram from 1 GB to 2GB. I did it myself and it went fine, I didn't touch anything else in the computer and was very careful. The ram registers in the computer and everything. I bought the ram from an authorized mac dealer.

After this, I upgraded to the newest leopard. It was a leopard I bought from an authorized mac dealer as well. Everything went fine. all programs run normally.

however, three times now it has randomly turned itself off without any warning, like someone pulled the powerplug out of the wall. It won't turn back on immediately, I have to wait a few minutes then it comes back on as normal. There is nothing specific I was doing at the time, just browsing the web and burning some dvds (not sure if that would effect it). It even did it once while in sleep mode. It has never done this before.

Is it a RAM problem? I was told that my computer was able to easily handle leopard, but could it be the problem? Thanks!!
 
This might be of interest to you:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2390

My iMac G5 (2nd generation with the ambient light sensor) was affected by the same problem. Apparently, they suffer from faulty capacitors which cause this problem. Even if your iMac G5 is not covered in the range of serial numbers, they will replace the logic board and PSU at no charge so long as it's within 3 years of initial purchase (although there have been instances where they've honored it past this limit, but rare). This also does NOT require AppleCare as I only had the 1 year warranty on mine.

Make sure when you do take it to the Apple Store, take along a printout of that Apple link and of this Popular Mechanics article. Also, pay close attention to this MacinTouch page showing reader reports of iMac G5 failures. You might want to print out a few of those reports as well.

BTW, I've taken mine in twice early this year....first time in January, second time in March. So far, everything seems to be running fine (thank God). Make sure you get to see the inside before you take it home and make sure there are more of the capacitors with the "K" shaped tops than the "X" or "+" shaped tops. The "X" or "+" shaped tops have always been the ones to fail in my experience with this problem (not just on the Macs, but on other systems as well). More on the capacitor plague that's caused this problem here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

Good luck.
 
Sorry to inform you but its a power supply or logic board going out like nixgeek said. I had my PS replaced and my logic board failed this morning. Sucks but then you can have fun convincing the wife for a new one. I was successful.

24" 3.06 Ghz coming Tuesday
 
Just to update, the replacement program for the iMac G5s has expired as of mid-December 2008. Still, you might want to try and take it in anyway. Depending on the situation and who you speak to, they might go ahead and replace the parts for free anyway or possibly just charge you for the cost of labor.
 
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