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The PowerMac G5 is a desktop computer first produced in 2003 by the Apple Corporation. This guide will review the repair process of an Apple PowerMac G5 model number A1047 EMC 2061 from 2004. It was discontinued in 2006 as part of the Intel switch first to developers then consumers.

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Light flashes 3 times.

I just bought a powermac for 20 dollars. The HDD was missing and so is the disk drive. I do not have a spare disk drive so I am going to have mac os 10 pre installed. Without the HDD in, when I first powered it, the fans spinned up, and then stopped. I white light on the power button flashed three times. What I want to know is that normal if I don't have the HDD in? I really don't want to hear that the logic board is bad. So please help.

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If your system was stripped bare (as you imply) it will be difficult to know if you have something that can be saved. Here's an Apple TN on the main logic board LED's maybe they can tell you if your logic board is OK Main Logic Bd Diagnostic LED's {corrected}

I suspect you'll need to put in a new optical player to install the OS, at least one HD, & memory to really know if you have something or not.

Understand this is a PowerPC system not an Intel system so your OS and applications will be very limited (no longer supported). You may want to re-think spending too much time and money resurrecting it.

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Hello Kristofer, By now you have discovered that Dan accidentally referenced the iMac diagnostic. Here is the one from Apple for your unit. As Dan points out you will be somewhat limited on useable software but should be able to use the computer for most purposes. Browsers will be the biggest problem--I downloaded and use Firefox 3.6 as it still works for everything I need on this backup computer. As Dan says with everything stripped I would be wary of a bad logic board/cpu or power supply. Does it still have the video card? Good luck.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1547

Power Mac G5

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Thanks for catching my error! It's corrected now

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This is an old thread, but for anyone with the same question: It can run on 2GB RAM, at least for testing. Any old SATA hard drive would work as a test, too. Once it is up, a good browser is TenFourFox, built by compiling the Firefox code for PowerPC, with a few nice tweaks added. It is free. Find a local maker space or hacker space. They should be able to help you figure out if it is any good. Pull out the battery and discard. A weak battery is worse than none. Once it is up, you can replace it.

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