Inherited a G5 at work, but...

[PeterB]

... it seemingly won't boot. Fans come on, but no chime or video. I did a PMU reset and reseated the RAM, anything else obvious to try?

[SKYLANE]

Would battery on motherboard come into play here at all? I have no idea about that one, just reaching...

BTW, do you know what the status was before inheriting the machine? Was it working??

[mattkime]

seems like you inherited a problem!

[Racer X]

PRAM battery shouldn't effect a G4/5 from booting. It might take longer for it to search for a drive to boot from, that's all.

[PeterB]

Yes, my understanding is that it was working...

I am seeing now that the front panel LED is flashing three times... I'm guessing that's a RAM problem? Peculiar though because it was apparently working fine before this...

Edit: and matt is correct, except it's more like I've inherited a headache. ... on the other hand, the price (= free) was right! (

[DRR]

If you have different RAM to try, that would be a first step.

I will warn you though, no chime is a bad sign.

You get what you pay for!

[WHiiP]

I would also replace the PRAM Battery before moving on.

[Jack D.]

PeterB wrote:
Yes, my understanding is that it was working...

I am seeing now that the front panel LED is flashing three times... I'm guessing that's a RAM problem? Peculiar though because it was apparently working fine before this...

Edit: and matt is correct, except it's more like I've inherited a headache. ... on the other hand, the price (= free) was right! (

Here's the Apple support link to the on board diagnostic LED's and the power button flashes http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2652?viewlocale=en_US

edit: Here's another link to the "hair dryer" solution and the possibility that it's the Lead-Free solder issue https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2808350?start=0&tstart=0

[iaJim]

Could the ram have come loose in the transportation of the computer?

[PeterB]

Tried re-seating the RAM already, and my understanding is that it was the same RAM that was in there when it was working, so the only thing that comes to mind is that the RAM might have gone bad...? I know that can happen... the three flashes (according to the chart that Jack D. gave) says that this is incompatible RAM. On the other hand, it sounds like the hair dryer thing will work even in cases where it gives three flashes... I'll try that if nothing else works, thanks for the links. Oh, and replacing the PRAM battery is also not a bad idea and no problem to do.