17" iMac Boots but Screen is Black

[Kamikaze]

Hello,

I am hoping to gain some insight on my issue with a newely aquired 17" iMac A1173.
I purchased this from of craigslist from a guy feel is a good person who said the Apple Store indicated the HD was bad, that said here is what I am experiencing.

I brought it home and fired it up and the unit booted right up to the login screen. I rebooted and made it to the login screen again. I then shut it down and disassembled per iFixit.com. I replaced the stock 160gb HD with an Intel 330 SSD (as I have done with our first gen 24" iMac).
I put it back to gether only to get a boot chime, white light and a black screen. I removed some of the ram (installed 3gb) and rebooted with a single 2gb stick in it and viola everything is good to go. So I reassembled the iMac and now no matter what I do the screen stays black.
I have reset the pram,vram to no avail. I can here the unit booted off of the CD while holding the "c" down but that is it.

So, Is it just fate that it booted with a screen and I have a faulty inverter, graphics card (logic board) or a bad LCD???

I would greatly appreciate any and all help with this....my 10yr old daughter's happiness depends on it...LOL not really but she'd love to havea working iMac.

P.S. Another peice of info is that when I put the power on the green iSight light is on and the white light in the lower right stays on solid. Also, when I shine a light on the screen I don't see anything, no faint images just pure black.

Thank you

 

[seble]

If the white light stays solid when you boot up, someone more experienced/qualified will have to confirm this but I think that means its not getting past the POST (Power on self test) not sure why that would be though, it wont be a graphics fault but could be a logic board fault

 

[ickystay]

When you removed your screen to replace your HD, did you remember to hook up that little 4 wire cable? That's for the inverter. You can check by just removing the plastic face thing. The plug is just to the right of the coin battery.

If the inverter is the problem, you should be able to see stuff going on on the screen with a flashlight (preferably in a darkish room).

Oh yea, see what it does hooked up to an external monitor. That should be informative.

 

[Kamikaze]

Ichystay,

I do have the data and inverter cables attached. I cannot however see anything on the LCD in a dark room with the flash light.
I do not have the adapter to test it by hooking it up to an external monitor. :-(
I called the local Mac Fixit shop and they thought it was weird that the iSight light is on. I will take it in to them for diagnostics Monday. I was hoping to figure this out and fix it my self but I am lacking some of the tools and a big chunk of knowledge.

Thanks for the reply

 

[ickystay]

I hope they can get it sorted out.

I have one of these that I am setting up to run without a screen. The original screen developed lines, then the owner got pissed and punched it out. It works fine with an external monitor.

 

[Kamikaze]

Anyone else have any ideas?