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HELP! Dual G4 dies mysteriously, now it won't boot

Mike Teezie said:
update:

I installed a brand new HD. Nothing.

I still cant boot from CD. So I can't run the hardware check disc anyway.

Could it be the RAM? I can try to make it up to office depot to buy another stick of 512.

EDIT: Update #2 - I went to office depot, picked up some new RAM. Installed it. Still nothing. Still can't boot from CD. Upon turing the machine on, it the CD sounds like its spinning furiously in the drive, and then it slows, then gets extremely quiet, but I think I can still hear it spinning in the drive.

SO - I've tried new RAM, a new HD, and the thing still won't boot into OS X, or boot from the CD. I'm getting hysterical at this point, because I know I can't afford to replace the Logic Board....
Click to expand...

I bet $199 for the PowerMac AppleCare sounds kinda cheap now doesn't it! It has to be the logic board. Look around on eBay and see if you can find one. Otherwise you PowerMac just turned into a $1299 paper weight. Its very unfortunate...hope you get it fixed!
 
Mike Teezie said:
Ugh, I don't even know which Logic Board I'd have to buy.
Click to expand...

It would have to be one for a Mirror Door PowerMac G4 with Dual processor slots. I will say that this will not be cheap. Your probably talking around $700 or $800 for the logic board. The only advantage to getting one yourself is you putting it in so you don't have to pay a certified service center to do it for you.

It kinda sucks, but I would just take it to an Apple Authorized Service Center and have them just look at it. They will have diagnostic equipment to test it and see what the problem is. Also, it you live near an Apple Retail Store that would be even better! Then you can decide whether or not its worth fixing what ever the problem may be.
 
Mike Teezie said:
This is so strange.

I reset the PRAM and Firmware, then the computer won't even get to the grey screen, it just sits there for a few seconds, then the fans all start humming wildly.

I pull out a stick of ram, and my normal problem occurs.

Is there anyway I could hook another Mac up to mine, and try to run Disk repair from that computer?
Click to expand...

If you can get your machine to boot into firewire target dist mode - yes you can test the disk. Unfortunately, I don't think your disk is the problem.

BTW - did you try replacing the IDE cable? It's unlikely, but I've seen stranger things happen.
 
Locating the Hard Disk

Sometimes you get that error "no smoking" sign when the hard disk can't be located by the bios. Have you tried holding down option at startup? This will launch a boot option that should have your HD and the operating system its running on, if you see that select it and hit the arrow button that faces to the right. If nothing happens, if the screen doesn't change to blue and/or you don't get the icon of your HD then yeah it sounds like a logic board problem.

Also holding option at startup would bring up your Boot CD is you have it in the drive.
 
Do you know anyone with a fire wire hard drive? Or a fire wire case? You can put your old hard drive in it and see if she boots through fire wire. This is the only real solution being that your hard drive and cd rom will not boot. These are IDE interfaces and fire wire gets you around that. Seems like your IDE controller went out on you. In which case you will need to replace your motherboard. You could try a PCI ATA card if you could get your hands on one for a mac. But even if these solutions work it doesn't guarantee that your motherboard will be stable anymore. If you choose to replace your motherboard be sure to check your power supply as well. With age they get unstable and cause the MB to fail. You will not need a "dule processor" motherboard. They are all the same. It's the sawtooth processor card that differs. You can always keep your eyes on EBay for one or talk to Apple. Also check out www.shrevesystems.comCall them, sometimes they get a few from who knows where but they'll hook you up.

A.J.
 
the Natetrix said:
Sometimes you get that error "no smoking" sign when the hard disk can't be located by the bios. Have you tried holding down option at startup? This will launch a boot option that should have your HD and the operating system its running on, if you see that select it and hit the arrow button that faces to the right. If nothing happens, if the screen doesn't change to blue and/or you don't get the icon of your HD then yeah it sounds like a logic board problem.

Also holding option at startup would bring up your Boot CD is you have it in the drive.
Click to expand...

Ok, I did this, and a CD icon showed up, and a hard drive icon showed up.

The CD icon is highlighted, but I can't get it to do anything from there? Is there a certain key I need to press to try to get it to boot from either icon?
 
Mike Teezie said:
Ok, I did this, and a CD icon showed up, and a hard drive icon showed up.

The CD icon is highlighted, but I can't get it to do anything from there? Is there a certain key I need to press to try to get it to boot from either icon?
Click to expand...

You should be able to highlight either one of the icons, like it will indent when selected as if you pressed the icon like a button. Selecting one makes it the boot drive. But you need to press the --> button on the right side of the screen. (Sorry for the crappy graphic, its an arrow pointint to the right) its NOT the arrow that looks like a looping arrow. After selecting the boot drive and fowarding the boot up by pressing the right arrow it should load up.
 
there are two possible things you can do. The first is turning your mac into a firewire drive. To do this press and hold the T key right after starting up your mac. Within a few seconds a fire wire symble will appear. Then plug your mac via firewire into a healthy mac and you can get the files you need. The second possibilty is that your mother board needs to be reset. To do this open up your mac and there should be a red button or any button on the motherboard. press it and hold it and it might get u up and running
 
A few options

Here are some options. I had a similar problem with my dual G4 tower. By the way, did you update any software recently? I am convinced the iTunes/iCal update back in November trashed mine....

1. ZAP PRAM. You have done this is seems.
2. Reset Firmware. Boot into firmware mode, and type reset- nvram <RETURN> reset-all <RETURN>
3. Shut off and open case and press CUDA reset button on logic board.
4. Boot into SINGLE USER MODE (Apple S)
See what is says. You may see a bunch of unix textstuff scrolling. How far does it get? Do you see anything that says Carbon Lazy Values = some number!!?
If you see this, then DW, TTP, etc. cannot fix it.
On most systems, an external FW drive with bootable partition WILL boot the machine. Internal CD or drive will not. Not sure WHY, but it was the case for me. You can take it to an Apple Store or somewhere to see if you can boot it off an external drive. I was able to do this, backupfiles, nuke the drive and reinstall.
 
I'm having serious trouble with my PowerBook 15" Titanium purchased in April 2003... I tried to install Panther, told me I had to reboot to install, so I let it do it's thing. It restarts fine and a folder pops up with what I thought to be installed Panther OS files... I go into Prefs and switch startup disks to check it out and now I can't boot from ANYTHING... No hardware disc, not my Jaguar disc, anything (and I did hold down C.)

I installed from an image my friend made me, mounted (shame on me) I've tried to reset PRAM etc but it's as if my keyboard isn't sending a signal. I press the APPLE key and sometiems I get sent to a password field, yet I was unsuccessful there because I typed my user password in and nothing. I go into Open Firmware and I try to use the command lines for reseting all, pram etc and it also asks me for a PASSWORD... What is this password crap and why do I have one on there? I haven't come across one person who has had this problem when trying to reset PRAM/NVRAM...

Do you think I'd be able to boot from say, a bootable Panther disc that my friend could make for me?
 
Does that meant that you were able to reset PRAM (3 restarts) and a firmware reset?
How were you able to install panther on the new hard drive that you installed (or you just plugged it in)?
As someone mentioned, did you check every stick of RAM? (Plug one in at a time.)
Also, did you unplug the CD rom drive cable and try to restart?
To check whether the hard drive is bad, try pluggin it in to someone else's mac and boot off it.

Try the really really really small "interupt button". That might do something. (Its smaller than the restart button.)
Or try a new power supply.

If you have done all that, then the problem might be out of your reach. (But regarding the logic board, I think that nothing shows up on screen if it breaks.)
 
THANK YOU

i have to tell you that i found this thread while looking for a last attempt at resurrecting my DEAD mac & i followed the links to the apple docs & reset the PRAM & lo & behold after a few groggy minutes my sweet lil 'ol mac desktop FINALLY showed up. you guys helped me so much as it crashed right in the middle of a web job i desperately needed to get done. i thought i was going to have to tell the client we were going to have to start from scratch. that will teach me to backup now won't it? :D :D :D :D

cheers to you all!
 
stargrrrl said:
i have to tell you that i found this thread while looking for a last attempt at resurrecting my DEAD mac & i followed the links to the apple docs & reset the PRAM & lo & behold after a few groggy minutes my sweet lil 'ol mac desktop FINALLY showed up. you guys helped me so much as it crashed right in the middle of a web job i desperately needed to get done. i thought i was going to have to tell the client we were going to have to start from scratch. that will teach me to backup now won't it? :D :D :D :D

cheers to you all!
Click to expand...

I'm going to be trying some of these tips, too, in an attempt to resurrect my DEAD 450 mhz G4. Apparently it passed away yesterday afternoon and is now giving me the '? folder' icon at startup. My CD Drive hasn't been working for a month or two, so booting for the system disk hasn't been an option. I'll see what happens this evening after using some of these tricks.
 
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