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From: Mike Rosenberg on 19 Jan 2010 18:05
elmo <woof(a)woof.com> wrote:

> Thanks to everyone for your kind replies. I am fairly confident that
> this is not an intel iMac.

It is _definitely_ not an Intel iMac. The headers of your posts here
include:

User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.2 (PPC Mac OS X)

PPC = PowerPC

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From: elmo on 19 Jan 2010 18:23
In article <1jckvii.81i8bs1bcfe9gN%mikePOST(a)TOGROUPmacconsult.com>,
mikePOST(a)TOGROUPmacconsult.com (Mike Rosenberg) wrote:

> elmo <woof(a)woof.com> wrote:
>
> > Thanks to everyone for your kind replies. I am fairly confident that
> > this is not an intel iMac.
>
> It is _definitely_ not an Intel iMac. The headers of your posts here
> include:
>
> User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.2 (PPC Mac OS X)
>
> PPC = PowerPC

I'm posting from an old eMac, not the iMac in question.
From: Jolly Roger on 19 Jan 2010 23:44
In article <hj579101qld(a)news6.newsguy.com>,
J.J. O'Shea <try.not.to(a)but.see.sig> wrote:

> On Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:04:05 -0500, Jolly Roger wrote
> (in article <jollyroger-472557.12040519012010(a)news.individual.net>):
>
> > In article <hj4elk2b99(a)news3.newsguy.com>,
> > J.J. O'Shea <try.not.to(a)but.see.sig> wrote:
> >
> >> On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:10:05 -0500, Kevin McMurtrie wrote
> >> (in article <4b55309d$0$1957$742ec2ed(a)news.sonic.net>):
> >>
> >>> In article <woof-B3FDFD.18243218012010(a)earthlink.us.supernews.com>,
> >>> elmo <woof(a)woof.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> My wife was given an iMac running 10.5x, and it ran fine for a while,
> >>>> but now, it won't boot. Specifically, it boots to the point that the
> >>>> screen shows blue, with a cursor stuck at the top left corner. There is
> >>>> also a cursor that we can move with the mouse on the screen. It will
> >>>> boot into safe mode, but I can't boot from there. I've run fsck and
> >>>> everything seems well, but to no avail thereafter. We do not have the
> >>>> original disks. Google has not been helpful so far. Any ideas?
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks
> >>>
> >>> How old is it? The G5 iMacs and other products of that time suffered
> >>> from low-quality and counterfeit components. The most common problem is
> >>> failed electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard and inside the power
> >>> supply. If you have the tools, skill, and time to fix it yourself, go
> >>> for it. I wouldn't recommend paying for repairs on a G5 or older.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Pretty much all G5s which had the Capacitor Plague have already been
> >> fixed,
> >> so this is unlikely.
> >
> > I'm sorry, but that's just incorrect! There are lots of iMac G5s out
> > there that are just starting to show signs of failure due to bad
> > capacitors.
>
> Hmmm... the heyday of the Capacitor Plague was 2005-8, roughly 18 months
> after machines with the bad caps were built. My eMac 1.25, for example, was
> built in April 2004 and had caps blow in October 2005. Apple replaced the
> motherboard and it has worked since then. IIRC the last machines made with
> the bad caps was built in 2005, so any bad caps should have shown by 2007 or
> 2008 at the latest.

It's a fallacy that all of the affected capacitors would have failed
within a strict three years. How fast the faulty electrolytic fluid
deteriorates isn't only a factor of how much time went by, but is
influence also by how many hours the capacitor actually had current
applied to it, which naturally varies depending on how the computer was
used by the person who owns it!

Also, don't make the mistake of assuming Apple included all affected
models or serial number ranges in their repair program. Some serial
number ranges that had bad capacitors were not included, some people
simply never knew about such a repair program, and lots of people never
brought their machines in to be repaired.

There are still iMacs and eMacs out there with these bad capacitors -
even this many years later. I have a couple here as living proof. I've
looked at the bad caps from them, and they are definitely the
counterfeit caps - mostly Rubicon fakes.

> It's possible that there are bad caps involved, but if so then those caps are
> unrelated to the ones which caused the Capacitor Plague 'cause those ain't on
> the market any more.

It doesn't matter that they aren't on the market. The iMacs affected
were all manufactured at the same time, and therefore have the bad caps.

> >> I do not, repeat, NOT recommend that anyone attempt to
> >> replace bad caps on the motherboard of a modern computer unless they know
> >> what they are doing and have _lots_ of experience at component-level
> >> repair.
> >
> > Then again, there are gracious individuals who are experienced and will
> > do it for you cheaply (around $85 for an iMac motherboard).
>
> Better them than me, I know that _I_ am not about to play silly buggers with
> a modern motherboard.

It's actually not all that complicated or hard. It's just very time
consuming and tedious unless you are highly skilled and practiced at it.
I actually started replacing them on one of these units, but removing
them from a seven-layer PCB is very tedious and time consuming for me,
because it's not something I do every day. So I ended up paying $85 to
have it done instead, as a convenience. The guy I used can knock out a
board in an hour or so. It would have taken me a couple weeks, minimum!

> >> Officially the free motherboard swap for machines affected by the
> >> Capacitor Plague is over; unofficially, if you bring one of those
> >> machines in to your local Apple Store or authorised Apple service
> >> provider, you'll get the swap, though it might take a while for
> >> them to get the replacement board.
> >
> > Maybe, maybe not.
>
> The iMac repair program was officially closed in December 2008. I know that
> for at least six months after that people whose machines had the correct
> symptoms were treated as if it was still on. Unfortunately for them in most
> cases they didn't have the particular problem.

An Apple store employee told me today he didn't think the program had
actually ended, and suggested I bring my iMac in to have it looked at.
I've got an appointment set for later this week. We'll see what happens.

While the program covers affected iMac G5 computers for up to three
years from the original date of purchase, Apple is reported to have
stated they would continue to evaluate the repair data and provide
further repair extensions as needed.

> >> And I have OS X Server running on an eMac here, a machine older than a G5,
> >> and still going strong. Well, as strong as an eMac ever was, anyway.
> >
> > An aunt of mine has an eMac that is exhibiting symptoms of bad
> > capacitors. If it were an iMac G5, we'd probably repair the caps; but
> > for an eMac it's really hard to justify the expense.
>
> Which model eMac? If it's a 1 GHz machine, it's not the Capacitor Plague. If
> it's a 1.25 Ghz machine, it could be but it's very unlikely.

Again, it's not the age of the machine, but how many hours of actual use.

This eMac is a 1.25 GHz model whose serial number starts with "G842".

> A 1.42 GHz
> machine could have the problem if she didn't use it very much over the last
> 5-6 years...

Exactly.

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JR
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