Well,

My G4 MDD just died... no big explosion, no smoke, no smell, just quit working. I suspect it could be something as simple as an internal fuse, but the power supply looks like it might be harder to get out than I might have thought before I opened up the case.

Any of you have any experience taking one of these out? I'll be looking in the usual places tonight to see if I can find out what it might take, but I'd sure like to try to do it myself, no Applecare, etc... I tried another power cord, but everything else works... it's definitely power related

Any info anyone can pass on would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Chris K

Does it do anything at all?

If it's dead as a doornail it could be the Front Panel Board.

http://www.allmac.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=3827

http://forums.macresource.com/read/1/195825

PDFs for replacing both here.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=26259

It's definitely dead as a doornail at the moment. I've just pressed the PMU button, but I'm not holding my breath... It just quit while I was writing an e-mail, just stopped working.

Usually, when a piece of electronic equipment dies, it's much more dramatic

Sounds like it could be either. I can figure out how to jump the power switch so maybe I'll give that a try when re-setting the PMU doesn't work.

Great videos, very helpful, I can do this!!!

Thanks Kelly. I'll take a stab at it in the morning for a little while.

Chris K

Chris, Power supply's are pretty much plug and play on both PC and Mac. A few screws and connectors and your back in business. No splicing, dicing or software issues.

Yeah, after $250 for the power supply! I'll definitely jump the power switch on the front before I cash out for that... Edit:Oh no I won't, too many places to fry the power supply

I did read a thread where the front power switch was the issue, not the power supply.

Don't these machines have fuses somewhere???

Yeah, all that fancy plastic on the back had me bamboozled for a few minutes, but when I put on stronger glasses, no problem, I can wreck it with the best of 'em!!!

Kelly, probably that switch, usually power supplies are much more dramatic...

Thanks,

CK

I just swamped a PW on an HP for $35 so $250 is a rip!

Well, then, any ideas where the cheap ones might live?

CK

Here is a site that sells power supplies. You would have to know exactly what your Mac needs re wattage.

http://www.powersupplydepot.com/listitems....t=36&main=1

More expensive but for your MDD:

http://www.dttservice.com/appledesktops/po...mdd.html#mddpws

Here is a way to test your power supply if you have a volt meter (and guts).

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58561

One thing you would have to consider if you go the ebay way to find one, is that they may be selling one of the 'noisy' power supplies that were replaced by Apple. Then again maybe it doesn't matter if you can get it to work again.

Assuming the part is 661-2816 in the Mirrored Door G4:

A little cheaper ($209 new):

http://www.dvwarehouse.com/products/10028....CFRlmWAodXEhepw

These guys will repair your P/S ($129) or sell you a refurb ($189):

http://www.galaxyhp.com/PMG4/pwr_pmg4xs.html

Allmac ($199 and they don't say new or used):

http://www.allmac.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=1506

I haven't order from any of these except Allmac! If you really dig and/or are willing to do eBay you could do better maybe!

We had 2 of the Dual-Proc Mirrored door models in the school district and I've had to change out the P/S on both and both just failed with a whimper and not a bang!

Well, gnug, Kris,

I took the power supply connector off the logic board to test to see if anything was coming through, even though Apple wants you to test it with the logic board in place, but I should be getting something, and I'm gettin' zip bad, bad power supply more than likely. I have a digital volt meter, I'm armed and dangerous!

Apple Part # on the supply itself (made by Samsung) is 614-0224

I powered up the 9600 only to find that I had updated to 9.2.2, which, of course won't run, and I have no idea where my OS 9 install discs are... I probably loaned tthem out or they are here somewhere, buried... I'm going to pull another drive out that came from the 9600, but I think I'd better get busy getting this fixed!

So later on today when I get back, I'll follow up on these links and see what I can find out about getting that part replaced.

Thanks for all the help.

Best,

Chris k

So thanks to links from Kelly, info from gnug, and info from Krissel,(not a very shocking experience with my volt meter) my MDD power supply is off to Galaxy in CA for a rebuild.

I also now have a new 250 GB drive and a Firewire/USB 2 case to keep everything backed up quite a bit more often than I have in the past

Moral of the story: Back-up, back-up again... I am very lucky I had as much as I did backed up to the iBook, or I would be in real trouble.

I'll let you know how Galaxy's rebuild works out.

And Happy Birthday to Sokudo, Al, and Diana, I have been a little pre-occupied!

Chris K

Let us know how the process is working! I have fixed a power supply occasionally (fuses and fusible links mainly) but a company that does it all the time should know where the dead parts are buried! I can remember fooling around with a DEC PDP-11 power supply that had caps the size of tomato paste cans and I managed to vaporize the tip of my screwdriver; lots of fun!

gnug,

Since you asked, an update:

I sent out the power supply to Galaxyhp for diagnosis and repair. The power supply was bad, and it has been repaired and is being shipped back now. Total turn-around looks to be around 16 days since it first died. That could have been chopped by a few days as I couldn't get the time to tear it down until last week.

Total cost with shipping both ways and the repair looks to be about $162. The cheapest other option I could find (from you and Kelly) would have cost just a bit more, as it would have been an exchange, and there would have been shipping both ways as well.

So when it gets back here, I'll install it and see if it smokes, and post again.

David, who handles the customer interface at Galaxyhp seems to feel that the power supplies on these machines are their "Achilles Heel" by the way, without any recourse to make them any beefier on the rebuild. He suggests that repeated drive sleep, which I have done in the past, may be one of the main culprits here in that every time the drives start up, they pu† strain on the power supply...

So much for energy efficiency!

Best,

Chris K

Hi Chris,
Gee, sorry I didnt see your post earlier, but dont you live near Small Dog Electronics?
http://www.smalldog.com/
When my power supply and logic board died, I called them and they were going to send me the parts, and guide me thru the process.
But they asked me if I had AppleCare, which I still did, so they told me to take it to my local Mac store and it would be fixed for free. They would fix it for free too, but it meant a drive up to Vermont which I would have loved to do, but we had just returned from Vermont from a huge family wedding/reunion
From my experiance, Small Dog is great!
Jane

Chris - Thanks for the followup; it's good to hear they agree on the "Achilles Heel" as I only had a statisical sample of 2 units!

Hi Jane,


They are about 100 miles north of me, and they are indeed a great outfit, but since the MDD wasn't under Applecare (I won't make the same mistake the iBook ), the part would have been more expensive, I believe, through them. I bought my daughter's Dalmation i-Mac from them years ago, and I usually check them out before I buy stuff, but the Galaxyhp solution seems the cheapest way out here, as long as they repaired it correctly!

Chris K

And the winner is:

ME!!!

Yea!!! I'm back in business on the MDD!!!

After a nerve-wracking re-assembly, even though I'm pretty good at this stuff, this post is coming to TS from my formerly-so-trusty MDD... It's amazing to me how much of my life lives in a 3.5" 80 GB hardrive.

Now the hilarious part is that I've set the new 250 MB Seagate drive that will go in the Firewire case down somewhere in the studio in the process of all this and I can't find it...

But, it appears that Galaxy HP did a fine job on fixing it for me, and while fairly expensive to do, cheaper than other routes I looked at.

There is one strange anomaly on the upper menu bar... there is now a battery icon with an x through it... how do I get rid of that?

Thanks to gnug, kelly and krissel for all the great links and info!

TTFN,

Chris K

Good deal Chris.

Can you OPTION-Drag that item out.

Check your Energy Saver Preferences.

Been there, done that, won't move, no place in energy preferences to turn it off!

I'm just still tickled pink to be up an running, that little battery icon notwithstanding!

EDIT:GOT IT!!! Command+Option-Drag, gone!!!

Chris K

I love it when it all comes together for someone! Thanks for the thanks!

yessireegnug,

And, at this very moment, I am cloning my hardrive via SuperDuper to the new Firewire drive. And, on-route is another 250 GB Barracuda to clone to in the MDD.

I will never not be backed up again!

Chris K

A poor farmer whose only worldly possession is a mare wakes up one morning to discover that the mare has gone. He runs to his parents' house and breaks the terrible news. When he's finished, they ask, "Are you sure it's bad news?"

"Of course it's bad news!" he replies, stomping angrily away.

Ten days later, his mare returns, bringing with her a magnificent stallion. The farmer runs to his parents and tells them the wonderful news.

"Are you sure it's good news?" they ask.

"Of course it's good news," he declares, leaving in a huff.

Days go by, and the farmer decides to try to break the stallion. He bridles the beast, climbs on its back and is promptly thrown to the ground and trampled. The village doctor informs him that he will be a cripple for life. When he can do so, he makes his way to his parents and tells them the dreadful news.

"Are you sure it's bad news?" they ask.

He doesn't answer, but he mutters to himself all the way home. Two weeks later, a detachment of the emperor's army arrives to draft all the able-bodied men of the village. Of course, they pass over the crippled farmer. He hobbles to his parents' house to share his joy.

"Are you sure it's good news?" they ask.

The story has no end, of course, but the point is clear:

gnug, I just found this link:

MDD Power Supply Exchange

If the exchange price is for real, then this would definitely be the way to go, even with shipping both ways it shouldn't cost more than $140

Since we may both need these again...

And while I was posting; indeed Sandbox, here the story never ends! I'm getting the 9600 back up in running condition again for back-up... sometime soon... But it is good news to have the MDD back up and running, bad news that again sometime in the future a power supply will again be needed...

Chris K

I don't know anything about this Brooklyn outfit; it might be nice to hear something about them before one orders or whatever. What we have done in the office in this sort of situation is buy one replacement and, after we've made sure it works, look it over and test it and the bad one to see if we can figure out what goes bad. We have changed out several hundred motherboards with IBM's name on them and we have learned which capacitors are going bad on them.

Great, maybe I should have sent it to you... the repair from Galaxy didn't last very long The MDD is dead as a door nail again this evening.

I've e-mailed them, and now I'm thinking about buying an old Digital Audio for a back-up... ARGGHH!!!!

Chris K

Chris I hate to say i......... are you sure it's bad news?

There could be something causing the PS to fail, could it be time to bail?

When you go to Everymac.com and look at the specs for MDD's, there's a series of links at the top of the page... one is for MDD power supplies... ... I wonder why...

So when went out this morning to see if maybe I could reset the PMU, touched the power switch just for fun, it booted up I've left it sleeping for now, we'll see what happens, I suspect that I have a double-whammy going on and I will need to replace the power switch now as well, but at least it's powering up!!! Power supplies are generally not intermittent, they either work or they don't. In any case, I'm getting out the contact cleaner to clean those connections just for ha-has...

Very strange, a ghost in the machine!!!

I don't have the $$$ to buy a new Intel machine... I'm still paying for the iBook.

Chris K

I suppose you've checked the PRAM battery? I hesitate to ask but sometimes I forget!

Nope, I have not... but at least I'm still booting up... I'm going to order a front panel switch and see if that solves the problem, since that has been a culprit in these situations... and replace the PRAM battery as it's almost 3 years old anyway.

gnug, here's another link I found, by far the cheapest price on a new power supply for the MDD: MDD Power Supply

Chris K

So, the saga continues, hopefully this time it's going to keep working!!!

So, there appears to be a triple-whammy at work here....

First, the power supply, then the front-panel switch, and also a dead PRAM battery.

Replacing the PRAM battery did not solve the intermittent power problem, but it seems that the front panel switch died shortly after the power supply was replaced... great timing! So, I replaced it today, and so far, so good!

Anyway, I'm burning it in hoping for the best!

Thanks to everyone, especially gnug and Kelly for the great links to parts... AllMac is definitely the cheapest for some of these parts... I saw these front-panel switches for as much as $75 in other places.

And what a cheesy little switch, Apple

Chris K

I think it likely you've just run into one of those rare cases when things go wrong in three's or two's or whatever. I was listening to Car Talk on NPR this morning an a guy was talking about his old "beater" pickup truck he uses to scrape the snow off his long driveway and it had no head lights, no exhaust system, and a leak in the power steering. Things wear out!

Yeah, I listened to that one myself this A.M.! Whilst groping around inside the MDD.

Well, that's true, things do wear out, but one would hope that a computer like this would last more than 2/12 years before stuff like this starts...

Oh well, back to the drawing board, it's now shut itself off three times since I posted this morning. :

I just reset the PMU, maybe that'll help. At least now when you hit the power switch it comes on again, which it wouldn't before...

gnug, have you ever seen power supplies act erratically? I work with a lot of electronic gear and that's not been my experience...

Might be time to take it to a repair shop, or throw it overboard...

Chris K

I got the PM and decided to answer you here. Some ideas:

1) You said that you reset the Power Management Unit; but did you reset the NVRAM:

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

As a diagnostic procedure you could also leave it turned on in Open Firmware mode and see whether it shuts down there as well; if it didn't it could be some sort of Operating System glitch.

2) You could also try updating your Open Firmware:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120068

This might replace some corrupt information in the Open Firmware!

3) It could be a thermal shutdown problem either in the power supply or the motherboard. I think you can run that thing with the side open and if you do that and run a household fan full speed into the open box would it make any difference in the time before it shuts down? If it were to make a difference you might want to sell that power supply back to the people that you bought it from; it's unlikely to be the motherboard because you've had it all along.

Remember my problem with this back in August?
Apple paid for the whole repair, including the parts, the power supply and the logic board.
Jane

Ok, I just did that, we'll see...

I am thinking at this point that the power supply may be at fault, again... When I put in the new front panel switch, it started right up, and then began to shut itself off again randomly. The difference is that before I put in the new switch, I didn't get a power deflection (you know, how the lights dim a bit when you plug it in... I have a desk lamp on the same circuit... as soon as you plug in a computer you see a voltage deflection). As soon as I plugged in the MDD with the new switch in it, I got that for the first time since I had plugged it in after the power supply was repaired.

Now this afternoon, about 45 minutes ago, it died again, and this time, no power deflection plugging it in until I came out just now and started it up again. The first time I started, it went through the boot process, and then immediately shut down. I booted again, and now I'm up and running until it shuts itself off again. I think there is something not soldered correctly in the power supply repair, honest to God...

Jane, I wish I'd bought Applecare...

Chris K

Hi Chris, I didnt need Applecare for this, because it was a known problem. Somebody here at TS gave me the link, so I looked up the serial number, and it was one of the machines listed in the range of numbers. Someone(perhaps here?) said not to open the machine, as then the warantee would not be good.
So I took it in to our little local Mac store, and they replaced the power supply, I mentioned the logic board. But they thought it didnt need that, and the new power supply failed while they were testing it, so ordered both, and replaced them both. Free. The little store was reimbursed in full by Apple.
Jane

Jane, do you still have the link somwhere?

Thanks,

Chris K

This is one of them, there were a couple of non-Apple links with more specfic information. Some people discussed the 'sounds and smells' that their Macs made when they failed. Mine stunk like a burning transformer when I had come back from a bike ride.
http://www.apple.com/uk/support/imac/power...epairextension/
Jane

Well, one more time for the MDD!

I finally got the power supply back from GalaxyHP, I've installed it, and now I'm powered up and running... I'll burn it in and see what happens. I'm even writing this post from it... Got it back last Thursday or Friday, but I couldn't bring myself to install it until today

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, looking up some Voodoo spells, some Shaman incantations, doing a little dance, hoping that all it's little electrons behave themselves... and keep doing their happy little electron dances for a good long while this time!

So, join me in raising my glass to the MDD Almighty, maybe this time, the MDD Gods will smile upon me and my machine will stay risen from the dead!

Chris K

Chris,

While I have not contributed to this thread, I have been following it.

for sharing your ordeal and success. No doubt we all learned from it.

And of course, congratulations for a job well done!

Chris - I guess I didn't realize this was still going on; you have amazing clarity of purpose and true grit!

Hope it holds out for you!

Good deal Chris. Knock on wood.

Thanks everyone for the good wishes!!!

So far, 24 hours, still working, such a nice machine when it works!!!!

Not ready to re-install the bigger drive I've been using in the DA yet, or put the Superdrive back in yet, but if it keeps working for a few more days, I will probably relent!

No comment on the 2nd power supply repair, just yet



Chris K