Singing the G5 Blues

The dual G5 PowerMac arrived last week, safe and sound via FedEx. I’ve used it now to so some minor editing using iMovie HD and burned DVD’s using iDVD 5. I’m impressed with its speed. But, as I’ve often railed about in this blog, I’ve gotten nailed by Apple’s lack of quality control. The machine’s audio line out port issues somewhat repetitive “pops” (or knocks) whenever the computer is doing anything. Apple Support could hear it over the phone from speakers two feet away while the machine was burning a DVD. They’ve recommended I take it in for repair (already!) at MacAmerica near downtown Houston, and I hope to drop it off there tomorrow. I talked to Kevin who I believe is their Apple Specialist, and he thought we were talking a logic board replacement. He said he could get to it on Thursday. How long it will be there after that, I don’t know.

Didn’t anyone at Apple check out the computer’s audio ports before shipping it?

The G5 PowerMac is known for having audio problems, ironic considering that the machine is being marketed to video and audio professionals. My iMac G5 makes nary a sound it is not supposed to. My PowerMac G5 leaks audio signals like a sieve. Even without the popping I’m experiencing, the thing chirps and squeals at a low but audible level when it does anything. I’ve loaded the XCode Tools and CHUD and disabled NAP (a feature that puts the G5’s processors to sleep when they’re not being used) and that helps the chirping and squealing some but doesn’t eliminate it. Yes, this is a Rev A machine but the problem still exists for the Rev B machines as well; and that says that Apple’s Engineering department hasn’t figured it out or someone is preventing them from fixing it, probably due to cost. Not understandable since the money they’ve gotten from us alone this year would have been enough to fix the entire fleet. Not to mention that they’ve gotten their money twice out of a refurbished machine.

You can argue that this would not have happened had I gotten a new machine. I can show you plenty of discussions in the Apple Support Forums that would say otherwise. Besides, you would think even if Apple couldn’t get their act together when checking new machines, they certainly would put extra effort into performing quality checks on their refurbished computers.

I’m hoping this machine is out of commission for no more than a week, if that. The Apple Specialist I talked to thought he’d have to replace the logic board to fix this problem.

I could work around this. Hooking up a Griffin iMic to the G5 and plugging my speakers into that does eliminate the problem. But I paid 2 Grand for a new if reworked computer. I want it all to work like it’s supposed to before the warranty runs out.