Capacitor replacement on iMac G5

[Forrest]

My wife's iMac G5 started running warmer than normal (75C to 80C) and the fan started getting noisy. So I opened it up for the 3rd cleaning and noticed all the bulging capacitors! I knew about the Apple recall, but when I checked the caps 18 months ago they still were normal looking. The machine hasn't shut down by itself yet, so I know I have a little time to decide what to do.

I could easily replace one or two caps, but the thought of replacing 29 capacitors doesn't appeal to me. Has anyone done this themselves, or used a repair service? I see there's $120 repair service on ebay with an 100% (327) rating and they've been around a few years. Comments welcome.

 

[Mars478]

My G5 iMac has this same problem. It rarely shuts down by it self (But it has) but more often than not it wakes itself up from sleep. My CPU is running @ 146 F

 

[trag]

Check with Mike Richardson on this board. I believe his outfit offers a capacitor replacement service and it might be more affordable than the Ebay company you found.

 

[Christopher]

I though he said something cropped up and that wasn't offered any more.

If I were you guys, I'd still give a shot and see if Apple will bother with it.

 

[Flash!]

Any good old fashioned TV repair person could do it - you don't necessarily need someone who knows computers, you just need someone handy with a soldering iron and a good collection of capacitors laying around. Given that they are going to charge you for labour... make it easy and remove the circuitboard in question from your iMac

 

[Mike Richardson]

My current recommendation is to contact Apple and elevate the issue to a supervisor. The supervisor will almost certainly give you a free repair.

Capacitor replacement is no longer offered from Adopt a Mac.

 

[Mars478]

My current recommendation is to contact Apple and elevate the issue to a supervisor. The supervisor will almost certainly give you a free repair.
Capacitor replacement is no longer offered from Adopt a Mac.

When mine shows symptoms I will try to get it replaced by apple.

 

[Mike Richardson]

My current recommendation is to contact Apple and elevate the issue to a supervisor. The supervisor will almost certainly give you a free repair.
Capacitor replacement is no longer offered from Adopt a Mac.

When mine shows symptoms I will try to get it replaced by apple.

You should check for the leaking caps now. If you tell the supervisor you actually saw the leaking capacitors, she will give you a lecture about not opening the iMac, but this will help to ensure your repair. Once Apple runs out of motherboards worldwide, that's it - there will be no more free repairs. The good thing is that they will ship motherboards in from other stores to facilitate your repair. I had two eMacs repaired - they had the 1.25 GHz board in stock, but had to ship the 1.42 GHz board in from another state.

Serial numbers don't matter, either. All that matters is that there's visibly leaking capacitors.

 

[Forrest]

Apple doesn't replace motherboards because of leaking capacitors anymore. The machine in question is now 4.5 years old and did not have Applecare. According to http://www.apple.com/support/imac/repairextensionprogram/

The iMac G5 Repair Extension Program for Video and Power Issues applied to first generation iMac G5 computers that had video or power-related issues as a result of a specific component failure.

As of December 15, 2008, this program is now closed.

 

[Mike Richardson]

Apple doesn't replace motherboards because of leaking capacitors anymore. The machine in question is now 4.5 years old and did not have Applecare. According to http://www.apple.com/support/imac/repairextensionprogram/
The iMac G5 Repair Extension Program for Video and Power Issues applied to first generation iMac G5 computers that had video or power-related issues as a result of a specific component failure.

As of December 15, 2008, this program is now closed.

False. All you need to do in most cases is call Apple and elevate the call to a supervisor. Apple still has old motherboards sitting around that need to be used up anyway. As recently as two months ago I have seen these type of calls work.

 

[sp00nix]

I did a cap replacement on a 1.8ghz G5 iMac, but it only lasted another 6 months and the smoke got out. I think the PSU might have been bad, causing the caps to go in the first place. I still have it, but never got around to testing it.

 

[trag]

Capacitor replacement is no longer offered from Adopt a Mac.

Bummer. Many folks do not want to take up soldering.