Mac Pro offline

[TonyK]

The ATI 2900 seems to be flakey and Apple is ordering a new one for me. Because I am not inclined to sign a waiver on them formatting my drives we decided I could replace the card myself. If that does not fix the problem then they get the system and I take my chances.

Good news is I do backups and have a good set and am working again on the G5 PowerMac.

Take care,

[marokero]

Let us know how it works out Tony. Good thing you do backups (Time Machine?), so if it's not the GPU, then you don't have to worry about formatting the system drive. Good luck!

[TonyK]

Hey,

Unfortunately Apple has a new policy of wiping drives to factory when a system is brought in for repair. A friend out of Atlanta had it happen to her Macbook Air. She WAS not happy because she could not get backups because of the hardware issue.

Found Apple Hardware Test today and ran it on the Mac Pro. Based on the results I am more convinced it is the graphics card that is not well. :)

The G5 has Leopard now and that was a good decision on my part.

[marokero]

I still have Tiger on my wife's PM G5, and this week its battery died (consequently Tiger didn't boot anymore). I've had the PM G5 since 2003, so it was about that time. I found a replacement at a local Radio Shack for $21 (what a ripoff, their own website lists it for $16), but I knew there would be a better deal elsewhere. Paid $7 (shipping included) from Amazon, and the G5 is working again.

That's a strange policy Apple adopted. Why can't they insert their own HD to do the testing without wiping customer's HDs? I'm trying to "ordain" my wife in the proper ways of better storage safety. She had been saving all her stuff on the desktop, so when the G5 apparently "died" last week, she had no access to any of her photos or files. It's been rectified now

[TonyK]

From a security stand point, she was right to put things in to folders. And it is possible to connect as and supply the credentials needed to access the files. This way sensitive data can be kept secure (provided it is password protected) if the system should ever be stolen.

I'm thinking I'll need to replace the battery soon on this PM G5 because of age. Figured it would be a simple matter of getting the battery. :)