Mac Repair in O.C.

Hello, I have a 7 year old G4 (mirror door, IBM) and when I try to edit on FCP or even start it up for that matter, I get these 1 inch thick vertical pixelated bars on the screen. Pretty sure it is not the monitor as I am running 2 (dual screen), think it is the video card.

Where is the recommended place for repair in Orange County? I know Promax has been bought and moved. Don't know if they are the same... Any suggestions for good service places?

Thank you,
~Ryan (moose)

G4 is so old that you can probably buy a new MacMini for the price of the repair and get better performance.
I really can't see spending money on a G4 repair.

Have you tried opening up the G4 and pushing the little internal rest button?

Hate to think of it as old, but I know. No, I haven't tried the reset. Where is that at?
Thank you.
~Ry

I have 5 Mac here. One is a now retired Dual 800 G4. I remember running into some entirely odd problems. Power it down. Unplug and wait some minutes. Open it up there's a very little black button on the mother board. It may not be in the same place where the my G4 had it but's it's a master reset zap pram in hardware button. It may rest everything including the clock. Press that down. Close it back up and power it up.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot - but for giggles, no recommended repair facilities? If the reset doesn't work, I may try swapping out the video card... - not trying to spend a bunch of money if I don't absolutely have to. Thanks for your help.

Is the mini that good? over a G5?

You said G4, not G5. Basically anything in the current lineup (macbook, mini, etc) would skunk either one.

When the MacBook came out, I had a G5 tower and my $999 MacBook would give it a run for its money. This was 4-5 years ago. You could probably get that MacBook used now for $200, which would be equal to or less than a repair charge.

In short, buy anything in the Intel lineup, starting in about 2006.

If you have to spend more than $100 for repair, and you may have to, it wouldn't be worth it IMHO.
Actually MacMini is good and I've used FCP on it. Motion and Color would probably be unusable but FCP7 is fine.
Having an Intel Mac will open a world of doors for you to things like ProRes. If you've been using a G4, you'll find a MacMini much better actually.

My Macs are
MacPro 8 Core 2008
MacBook Pro 15" 2008
MacMini 2009
MacMini 2007
PowerMac G5 Dual (2005 I think)
PowerMac G4 Dual 800 2000 (retired).
So I really have a good range of comparison. You will find the current MacMini very powerful compared to G4 Mirror. Certainly more than G5 (which I also have).

With Thunderbolt I'm looking at both MBP and MacPro 2011 (not either/or but both).

Unfortunately I'm in NYC. The place to go here is Tekserve. They are Apple authorized repair . . . unlike Apple stores which send many things back to a repair center. Tekserve is much like an east cost version of Promax.

thx craig