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1.6, 1.8, or 2 GHz G5 processor

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A couple of capacitor questions...

So I recently got a G5 iMac that suffers from the bad caps. Apple says they'll fix it for a cool $700... which I'm not interested in doing. If you refer to the pictures below, you'll see that only 1 cap on the board has gone bad thus far.

Currently, my symptoms are constantly running fans, and the inability to sleep. If I hit the sleep button, the machine instead switches off without any kind of warning- not a good thing. So I'm willing to bet that the cap on the board is related to the fans, and I guess that there's probably a bad capacitor in the power supply as well.

So, here's my questions:

1) Once one cap goes, how long is it before the other capacitors start dying? And is there any way to prolong their life?

2) Has anyone repaired the caps before? I've got a friend who's really good with a solder iron, so I might be able to twist his arm into helping me out. How difficult did you find it to replace them?

Thanks!

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If one cap is gone replace them all. These parts have a limited lifespan and if one went, the others will follow. You can purchase them at digikey, recommended.

The soldering is not really easy, it's all lead free which requires quite high temperatures but incidently i'm just sitting here in front of an iMac G5 which i succesfully repaired this way. Go for it :-)

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Do you have a link to the the caps I should order there? I know some sites offer prepackaged kits, but I imagine they are more expensive than ordering the individual parts.

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Link is provided in my post (digikey).

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Right, I wondered if you had a link in the site itself as to which caps you got.

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No, there are two or three different flavous of caps in these machines. You will have to dig them out of their vast assortment. Look carefully for the physical dimensions of the caps (which are stated) since there isn't a lot of space in an iMac.

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Please refer to this question: Replacing the capacitors on a iMac G5

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+

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+ Ralph

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I know that question exists, but I had the other question as well, hence the new question. :)

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Josh, as to how long, I've seen these babies with half of the capacitors showing signs of corrosion before the machine fails. Replacing just the bad one may work for years. Do voltage tests on the rest and see if you can spot any really weak ones and replace them also. You could very easily get off with only doing two or three. As to prolonging life the only thing I know that works is to never turn it off, just let her nap.

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These days there are several sources on Ebay which furnish complete kits for specifically repairing this model of iMac. They are presorted, and you don't have to worry about the ratings, voltages and physical size being correct. At around $20+shipping, this is by far the easiest method to acquire these caps. I have resurrected 3 iMac G5s with Ebay cap kits. Note that capacitors can fail without showing visible signs such as leakage and bulging.

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Question: One of the sellers on eBay says that if you have any bad caps on the mobo, that will blow a new, good supply. Is that true?

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Really. Does the seller have any documentation outside of his own to back this up?

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Nope; absolutely no evidence. I can't see why that would make sense at all. But my electrical knowledge isn't incredible, so I figured I'd ask here.

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Best to open up the power supply and take a look at the capacitors there, I'd say the power supply is more likely to fail than the motherboard and a bad supply will put out ripple the mother board will try and smooth, so yes, conversely, the mother board probably helps the power supply out.

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Look here: www.badcaps.net for capacitor kits. They also do repairs if you're not keen on doing it yourself.

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http://jimwarholic.com this site sell the best high quality capacitor kit for any model of the g5. I just replace the 16 caps on my imac g5 isight, and it's working like new.!!

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guess you didn't check the link I left

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Josh Calvetti crwdns2934231:0crwdne2934231:0
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