* if you have a flexible extension for your screwdriver, these can stay in place. Remove the PCI card guide (plastic bracket that holds full length cards in place) To take out the fan, do the following first:ģ. Also, it’s been 13 years so the thermal paste on the North bridge chip is definitely due for a replacement.īefore you yank the board out though, check that blower fan first as it’s much easier to get to. While it’s not a quick task to pull these things apart, dust buildup on these heatsinks and the blower fan can cause overheating and related issues, even if the rest of your machine is sparkly clean and properly maintained. With some photoshop flipperydoo and your imagination, here’s how that channel cools the North bridge heatsinks: Here is that channel on the chassis behind the board: With no space to get a fan aimed directly on to the heatsinks, Apple went with a blower fan that sucks air through a channel from the front of the machine, past the heatsinks and out the back past the hard drive(s). And passive cooling is not enough to keep the temperatures in check as these temperatures can shoot up quick depending on system load. Those massive heatsinks are there to cool a single chip the North bridge.Īs you can tell by the amount of copper and aluminum Apple devoted to this chip, it runs hot. If you thought all the cool stuff was on the front of the board, you’d be wrong my nerdy friend! Here is a photo of the other side of the board (click for full resolution):

This fan cools the back side of the logic board. Sure it doesn’t look like much but it’s function is very important, as I mentioned before. Take a peek behind your optical drive(s) and you’ll see it. Without this single fan your G5 can overheat and even die.

There is a fan behind the hard drive fan as well, part of the media bay fan assembly (in some models), and it does not get the credit it deserves. – 1 fan for the hard drives (media bay fan)Ħ fans total, right? Wrong. – 1 fan in the PCI bay (speaker assembly) – 2 exhaust fans (rear exhaust fan assembly) – 2 intake fans (front inlet fan assembly) Let’s take a look at the Late 2005 Quad in this example. How many fans does a Power Mac G5 have? Depending on the configuration this answer varies but you can be almost sure the answer is always one short.

Power mac g5 case mods