[X4U] How much can it cost

[Ronald Steinke]

On 30 May, 2008, at 6:29 AM, Paul Moortgat wrote:

> My G5/2.5 suddenly turned into a vacuum cleaner yesterday evening  
> and got frozen.  I restarted and all worked well.
> This morning I woke the G5 and had a black screen, and when I  
> restarted I got a black screen again.
> Then I restarted with opt-comm-shift-del to use my external backup  
> wich worked.  Then I could insert my DW disk and restarted holding  
> the "C".
> I repaired my internal disk, restarted and then did the latest  
> upgrade to 10.5.3.  All seemed to work.  After 10 minutes I got that  
> vacuum cleaner sound again.
> After that I no longer can use the internal HD, nor the external.

Not desiring to throw a full bucket of ice water on your unsuspecting  
shoulders, but......

A local tech has suddenly found himself with a number of G5 liquid- 
cooled towers in the shop for diagnosis and repair. The first had to  
be taken down to the processors to find that an o-ring had failed and  
leaked the coolant onto the processor chip and killed it.

The second arrived about a week and a half later and was found to have  
the same problem, just on the other processor. One leaked on the left  
side, this one leaked on the right side.

Yesterday, a third tower arrived showing the same beginning symptoms:  
ie: high speed fan operation continuous from startup. It, too, has a  
leaking o-ring and has killed its processor too. Each of the owners  
reported that the fans had come on at high speed about two or three  
days before their tower stopped working completely. All of these are  
the 2.7GHz dual processor models.

Now, I am beginning to worry about my G5 Dual 2.0GHz Processor tower.  
It is almost out of warranty and I didn't buy the extended coverage  
from day one. I don't have any high speed fan noise yet, but I am  
listening very carefully while sitting here at the desk.

I have pulled this model tower apart to upgrade parts, and never saw  
any indication of o-ring leakage until the tech showed me what he had  
found of the deceased machines. If you are having high speed fan  
operation, you should check out the o-ring seals on the processor  
chips for possible leaks before you run your tower much longer.

Just what I have learned from my local tech. Hope it doesn't cause too  
much worry, but gives you a chance to head off any major repair costs.

Ron