Mac G5 & Firewire Shelf Life

Baltimore Shooter

Well-known member
This was sent to me. One more reason for archiving on XDCam instead of hard drives...

Firewire Shelf Life

I can report another case of exactly what Damian is talking about. In the lab I supervise we have experienced the same scenario. It is with G5 towers and FW800. Here is what happens.

Turn on computer it boots up completely. Connect an external hard drive(G-Drive) via FW800 that is powered off. Once you turn on the drive, which has not been used and is not hot, poof sparks and smoke with a LOUD repeated POP sound. This only happens with the G5 not the Mac Pro.

They stopped making these Towers in August 2006. I wasn't at the school when they purchased these but they are in that "Magic Year". We lost 19 towers in about 10 days. During those 10 days we even brought in an electrician to check the power in the room. They did some minor adjustments but everything seemed to be okay then they started blowing up HD's again. This was in early March 2010.

Now in another room at the school we have the same thing happening again but just to the G5 towers. I'm in NYC as well. Maybe it's something in the air...

Original post here.

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More info at the links above. Happy archiving.

Warren
 

Necktie Boy

Well-known member
Wow! Never heard of that before. I have been around Mac labs for years. I will have to ask around to see if any student or computer has been lost at the local college. The Graphics Department is all Mac, plus a few other classes.
 
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