I have an old graphite iMac that was running OS 8.6. I decided to try to install Panther on it. I booted the install cd and ran the installer. The installer told me that a firmware upgrade was needed and to reboot after the upgrade. Well, I ejected the CD and rebooted the iMac. Now the screen is black. The hard drive appears to boot then after about 2 minutes shuts down. I have tried plugging an external monitor into the VGA output, and the external monitor does receive a signal... but its just a white screen. I don't know what else to do! I've never had a problem with it before ;(
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iMac G3 400Mhz Black Screen at Startup
- Thread starter jaw04005
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The firmware update that you require, unfortunately, can only be run under OS 9. It's a bit daft, but it's a common problem with G3 iMacs. Boot it up in 9, download the firmware update, run it, then reinstall Panther. It should run just fine after that.
If you boot from the OS9 disk, the display should come back. Or, you could install OS9 on the hard drive from another machine, then put it into the iMac.