Maybe some of you Big mac advocates can help him out

I bought an iMac G5 1.8 Gh 20 " in January 2005 and it has behaved
flawlessly up until yesterday. I live on St. John, US Virgin Islands,
and I didn't buy the extended warranty when I bought the computer
because the only authorized repair site on St. Thomas (there are none on
St. John) does not have the greatest reputation. By the time I
decided/remembered that I had better buy it, I was a couple of weeks out
of warranty.

Yesterday, it turned itself off by itself. When I tried to reboot it,
it made it to the log in screen, and then shut itself down. I waited
about 10 minutes, thinking that it had somehow become over heated, which
had never happened before, even on much hotter days, and the temperature
was pretty average for here at the time, and tried to boot it off a
Panther 10.3.8 partition on an external FW drive. (The internal is
running 10.4.6) Same deal. Waited an hour, and booted it off the
Hardware Diagnostic disk. Amazingly it lasted about 14 minutes, enough
time to complete the fast check, and then turned itself off. It passed
everything. This was at least four times longer before power down than
any other attempt.

I took the back off of it. When I started it up both fans where
running. I was kind of hoping that it was clogged with dust, but it was
clean as a whistle. Removing the back didn't seem to extend the time
until power down. The G5 compartment didn't not feel extremely hot to
the touch.

When it turns itself off, it just emits a loud click that may come out
of the speaker, and that's it. It will always reboot afterward, but
normally will shut itself down within two minutes. On the occasions
that it has powered up longer, it has functioned without a glitch until
power down.

I reset the PRAM and tried to reset the PMU which Apple apparently
refers to as the SMU now. I tried to do this by unplugging it for a few
minutes, then holding down the power button for 30 seconds after I plug
it back in. Is this correct?

I went on the Apple web site, and saw that there is a "iMac G5 Repair
Extension Program for Video and Power Issues." My machine lies within
the serial number spread. I called Apple SOS up this morning, but the
support person said that the symptoms don't sound like they qualify.
Apple describes the symptoms as one of the following:

Scrambled or distorted video

No video

No power

I guess, I am asking for help in two areas. Is anyone else familiar
with this problem or had it? How to repair it? Suggestions?
Relationship to Repair Extension . What does Apple repair in the
extension?

I am panicked knowing what Apple con charge for repairs. Even a machine
this new might not be worth the price tag.

Please help.

Thanks in advance

Paul Fuchs
comp.sys.mac.system


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