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Post by rampancy on Jun 2, 2006 14:57:02 GMT
So, I woke my Mac up from sleep to play another round of NWN, and all of a sudden it just shuts off abruptly.
I tried powering it on but as soon as I press the power button the light briefly comes on before it goes out. The system doesn't power on, but I do notice that the fans turn briefly before the go flat.
The most irritating thing about this is that it's all somewhat random. Somedays, it'll do this...other days it'll boot just fine. I've already tried the PMU reset switch, and replaceing the PRAM battery. Nothing worked. I've already taken it in for servicing (though not before I took out all of the extra fans and replacement fans I put in there...heh...) and hopefully they'll find what the problem is.
But does anyone here have any idea what could be the cause? I'm thinking it's a faulty PSU...this couldn't have had anything to do with my cooling fan additions and replacements, could it?
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Post by marcelog4 on Jun 2, 2006 16:04:54 GMT
Can you tell us what kind of periferials are conected to your MDD, like third party USB, PCI cards..ect?...What kind of Coooling system you use to replace the original?...your MDD is a FW400, FW800, dual..etc?..
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Post by aquamac on Jun 2, 2006 18:05:32 GMT
Somethings to check on an MDD, I dont know which MDD you have but when they get a bit older the processor board starts to sag & can loose contact with the heat sink, if you have ever had the sink off before then check the contact with the logic board and the thermal grease also. I would have suggested the battery but it seems you have this one covered. Check for any loose connections & fraying wires also any of the cables where the door hinges down. If you are reasonably competent, I would strip down the whole lot & remove the logic board, inspecting everything as you go & then checking as you reinstall. At the end of the day, unfortunately, it could be the processor, logic board or power supply. If you have taken it in for servicing, be sure to let us know what the diagnosis is, Good Luck! Steve.  |
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Post by rampancy on Jun 3, 2006 2:26:27 GMT
Can you tell us what kind of periferials are conected to your MDD, like third party USB, PCI cards..ect?...What kind of Coooling system you use to replace the original?...your MDD is a FW400, FW800, dual..etc?.. Cooling System: I replaced the OEM 120 mm Papst with a much more capable and quieter Panaflo fan; I did the same with the OEM optical drive fan, replacing the Delta with a Sunon. I also put in twin 60 x 20 mm fans at the front and at the back. PCI: I've got a Motorola 802.11g PCI card and a 6-port USB 2.0 PCI card. USB: A Comodow USB sound adapter and a Logitech USB microphone (hooked up to the card) and an Epson Stylus Pro 740, Saitek Cyborg 3D, MacAlly IceCam, MacAlly iShock II, and my UPS's USB interface all hooked up to a 7-port USB 2.0 hub (hooked up to my second on-board USB 1.1 port). Oh, and my original system is a June 2003 MDD FW 400 model. Now, you'd think that maybe this glut of excess hardware might be related to the cause, but this was a problem I also observed not only after I put it all in, but before as well. Also, in reponse to aquamac the idea of stripping down my whole machine is quite scary...and no, I haven't ever taken the heatsink off. The wiring, at least superficially, seems to look okay... Thanks so far for the help! |
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Post by aquamac on Jun 3, 2006 5:47:48 GMT
I don't think your problem has been caused by extra added hardware as I have 2 x MDD's myself, both with loads extra onboard. My FW800 has:
GeForce 7800 GT
Watercooling -Aquagate
Front 80mm Fan
Twin Exaust Fans
Twin 80mm Fans on Aquagate
2 X 6port USB 2 Cards
PCI Slot fan
2X Pioneer DVD Burners
Std 120mm Fan
Std optical fan
The whole system is running at Dual 1.59MHZ
It never puts a foot wrong, also my FW400 System is tricked out in a similar way with no problems. The problem may well turn out to be your Power Supply, however it may be just a faulty unit anyway.
The first MDD I ever had blew a processor, the results from this was that when you pushed the power button there was no fan spin up, the power button light came on whilst the button was pressed but went back out as soon as you released it. This was a machine that I bought from Fleabay, turned out there was a crack in the processor core when I investigated further, probably happened in transit, however that went back to the owner & got sorted.
I would suspect in this order,
Battery
PMU
PSU
Shorted wiring/cable/card or memory not quite seated properly,
Logicboard,
Processor
Some of these (Battery & PMU) I know you have already looked at.
Will be interested to hear what Apple Techs have to say.
Steve.
PS,
You may want to remove any added memory if there is any as a stick of dodgy ram can cause all sorts of problems!
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Post by rampancy on Jun 6, 2006 17:52:35 GMT
...It never puts a foot wrong, also my FW400 System is tricked out in a similar way with no problems. The problem may well turn out to be your Power Supply, however it may be just a faulty unit anyway. The first MDD I ever had blew a processor, the results from this was that when you pushed the power button there was no fan spin up, the power button light came on whilst the button was pressed but went back out as soon as you released it. Wow, that's very unnerving, as my problem is exactly identical to what you describe. I wonder how you were able to determing that it was a CPU issue. I kind of feel better that it might be a mobo/CPU-related problem as it means that it really does have nothing to do with my tinkering... In retrospect, I probably should have taken out the excess RAM, but I seem to have bad luck when it comes to putting in or taking out memory - something always seems to go wrong... |
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Post by rampancy on Jun 7, 2006 17:11:16 GMT
An update: Well, I'm at a loss, guys.
The repair centre phoned in and said that they didn't find any problems with my machine - naturally they said that maybe it was something I added to it.
The problem is that it's not a repeatable problem that I can effectively isolate to just a few components. If I took out all of my fan mods, or both my PCI cards, or all of my extra HDDs and then saw a noticeable effect then I could say for certain what the issue was - I wouldn't need to have brought it in in the first place. But it's a highly random phenomenon for which I have no clear explanation.
Sigh. Maybe I just have to wait until my machine dies before I bring it in again.
EDIT: Could it possibly be a RAM related issue?
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Post by aquamac on Jun 7, 2006 21:42:36 GMT
Hmm,
I would have thought they could have found the problem. Could be something as simple as the processor is just not seating quite properly. I had this once when I had not pushed the processor quite fully home. That might be worth a go, but you need to take off the heatsink first.
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