Terminated, and post mordem exam. Poor MDD

[torvan]

My G4 MDD 1.25 Ghz died today.  I was playing music in iTunes (the song being played was "Another One Bites the Dust" which is painfully ironic) when suddenly all went black in the house. Power loss thanks to someone hitting the power pole a few blocks away. I would argue "damn millenianls and their distracted driving" but it could have bee the "damn seniors who obviously can't drive anymore" and "damn middle aged people and their need for speed"--in any case it happens on occasion, it is why we have oil lamps and flash lights.

When the power came back on-I booted him back up, and nothing happened. No power at all. Uh oh. So being who I am, pulled all the drives (no data loss mercifully) and RAM boards, as well as all cards. The cards were then installed into the Quicksilver and all worked (whew). The RAM was pulled and tested--and all four boards failed. (wow).

So borrowing some known-good RAM, I installed them and again, nothing happened.

So being suspicious of the power supply, I pulled it and looked inside---and the strong odor of burnt silicon hit my nose the minute I opened the power supply box. (oh no).

I had a spare known good power supply, so plugged it in. Still would not boot, so I checked the electrical connection part of the board and got no response on the meter at all. Just a red light on the meter giving me the news in a flashy way.

So now I am thinking Dead Board, and so started the removal of the system board. I had dropped a screw and it logged itself in a spot that I had to get closer to see--and that is when I noticed the odd smell--like someone had taken a lighter to plastic. I got the screw using a pair of long tweezers, finished pulling the board, and noticed under the processor that the plastic was partially warped. I noticed the side panel also had some brownish tan marking under where the processor sat.

Yeah, apparently when the power came back on, it surged just enough to overwhelm the original power supply and sent the entire load to the system board. I suspect the resulting charge rendered the RAM senseless, overheated the processor which melted a part of the system board. Why the cards did not also fry is beyond me, and I intend to offer a prayer of thanksgiving to the Mac Gods who obviously shined on me, saving the cards and hard drives.

My wonderful MDD was pronounced dead and financially irreparable at 22:17 (10:17 P.M.). Some internal parts were donated to the Quicksilver, others are now in the Spare Parts box in the closet, the case was taken away by a friend who wanted to make a Hackintosh from it.

I am now on the hunt to find another one to take its place, after observing a proper moment of silence.

[devils_advisor]

Amen

[mrhappy]

Sorry for your loss Torvan... The MDD is now in Mac Heaven networking with all of it's long lost relatives!

[IIO]

the RAM from a dual 1.25 failed in a quicksilver? hmm... why i am not surprised.

[OS923]

I have surge protection in my entire house.

[macStuff]

maybe u should get yourself a MINI this time

[torvan]

maybe u should get yourself a MINI this time

I have a late 2014 one, and stupid me does not check my eBay bids on a G4 Mini (and MDD) as often as I should and keep getting overbid by $1.

Guess that means I am really not "jonesing" for one.

[torvan]

the RAM from a dual 1.25 failed in a quicksilver? hmm... why i am not surprised.

No, the RAM I checked in another MDD of a friend. Should have made that clearer, but I was in grief.

[OS923]

On Friday I used my Palm E2 in a thick mist. The battery was still 100%. 10 minutes later I wanted to use it again, but it was 'dead'. At home I couldn't reset or recharge it. You would have said: completely dead. 2 days later, at 3:30 I was lying in my bed staring at the ceiling, when suddenly the screen of the E2 lit up for a few seconds. Then I could recharge it. I tested it: it worked 5 hours and 45 minutes on battery.

Apparently, it had discharged completely in the mist.

Fortunately I hadn't done a post-mortem examination.