The best diagnostic tool out there is Apple's own technician's utility. They do not distribute it beyond their own repair facilities. It is hard though not impossible to get anywhere else. The only rub, even if you should happen to find it p2p, is that almost all the codes lead to a replacement of the motherboard or the cpu or both. Either of these are more expensive than buying an intact entire used identical replacement machine. The other problem is that you can run this utility on the machine 50 times in a row and have it say your machine is fine only to have it throw any number of the dreaded "shoot me codes. on the 50 first run" This is because the problems seems to be related to micro cracking of the motherboard solder in particular right around the memory controller. Don't get me wrong try the other utilities mentioned above. Do all the normal memory tests Ps checks etc. Your best hope for a fixable machine is if a replaceable sensor diagnosis but only Apple's ute will find that. In all likelihood , however, your machine is going into a slow decline to an inevitable demise. The only bright spot is that this has become so endemic on this line so as to create a market niche for motherboard repair. A few companies have figured out where these boards are cracking and are offering refurb/repaired boards for much less than Apple. Check out ebay or google it and you will find them there. Good luck. I have 3 g5/s. One had its board die while under Apple Care. One is dead post Apple care. And one is slowly dying now.
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by: vallisPosted on 2009-09-29 at 16:35:28ID: 25454449
There's a good review of diagnostic and repair tools here:
http://www.peachpit.c
A popular free tool is AppleJack:
http://theappleb
How
http://macosx.com/for