Photographer suffering multiple G5 crashes

[ricks]

Hey all,

I have a photographer friend who has several G5 towers that are all suffering same problem. With any usage he gets fan ramp up and crashed computer. They all have separately installed operating systems, 10.5.8. They all run CS2. ANd all of them are suffering the same issue, either as soon as work has begun or soon thereafter, the fans go full blast and the computer locks up.

Other than trying Open Firmware resets, you have any thoughts?

Thanks

Rick

[Damien]

Does Activity Monitor show any culprits?

[M.Brane]

That, and check the Console logs for any clues.

[MMOnline]

I was one of the poor fools who bought a 1st gen G5 iMac. It ran smoothly and quietly for the first year and a half. but over time it built up dust inside the cooling apparatus, the fan, and the heat sink. Booting up was fine. getting around in Finder was fine, but as soon as I opened Photoshop, Fireworks, Flash Pro, Dreamweaver or worse yet, Toast to burn a DVD, the fan raped up like a jet engine. It got so loud by the age of two years it could be heard downstairs.
The heat got so bad it killed my optical drive (I know now why they don't have them in the new iMacs), and eventually my hard drive.
One day I took a can of air and got my trusty Torx set out. I pulled the back off and "tore that mother down", so I could blast everything out of it.
I was astonished. A dust bunny the size of a small hamster was lodged in the main intake to the fan. It took nearly half an hour to "dig it out" and then blow the remains out wit the canned air.
I used the entire can blowing everything out and off of the processor/heat sink. I put everything back together. It ran a little quieter, but as I realized six months later, the damage had already been done.
About two weeks after I replaced the Optical Drive and HD - a pretty penny to buy a Superdrive, and a 500Gb - I also put 2Gb of RAM in it - the processor "burned up".
I don't mean it quit working, I mean it literally "burned up". A thick waft of black smoke and that awful asbestos smell filled my room one afternoon when I got home from work and booted it up.
I yanked the power cord out of the wall and took it all apart again only to see that EVERYTHING inside was covered in soot and the cooling fan hat melted to the heat sink.

WHY did I bother to relate this lengthy tale of woe?

The moral of the story is "Heat is the enemy" and dust is the main source of heat. G5s run hot. That was the biggest reason for the switch to Intel processors in 2004.

Those old PPCs' fans are always on, and as they gather blockage, the have to run faster to provide the same amount of cooling. As dust build in the heat sink, the cooling is even less and the fans speed up even more. Eventually ANY app that taps the processor will "bring on the jets".

As a web/graphic designer, I spent most of my time on my iMac in Photoshop or Dreamweaver. Both using a lot of processor took a big toll on the machine.

If you're friend can "tear into" the machine and blow everything out, it may help, but the damage may already be too far done to avoid cooking the G5 on the board.

[unclemac]

A sad tale MM...but not too shocking.


Only other thing I can think of is to run in safe mode to be sure it is not 3rd party software.

Can he make it lock up with something that isn't CS 2? There are some free tools that can help like SystemLoad.

[ricks]

Thanks for the input. I sent him some suggestions, resets and the like. And asked him to send me his logs and profiler. He has not replied yet with any results. Thanks for your patience and continued inputs. As I get answers, I will post back.

I am going fishing for a week or so. So this will drag out a bit no matter what.


Thanks again.

Rick