iM 4,1-14,4 iMac 27" 11,1 will not fully boot grml...

[Dr Lou]

OK, embarking on an attempt to upgrade a 27" iMac 11,1 with a WX4130...

Have built and tested the grml USB stick, and had verified that it has been able to boot this machine and deliver an IP address. As preparation for flashing the new card, etc., I'd collected ROMs I was gonna try flashing, I've been able to SSH in to the machine, etc., both with and without the video card installed. So far so good!

However, unluckily, my already flaky (original) video card gave up the ghost. It had been limping along in Safe Mode; some screen stripes - obvious faults - but it had been at least working. A couple of days ago, it heated up tremendously and, now, no output to screen at all. OK, presuming dead video card...

Now, though the machine seems to boot OK - I get startup chime, etc. - grml seems to not completely boot. IE, I never see the machine on the net (I use nmap) and, obviously, cannot SSH in to it. Obviously, I have no way to see the progress of boot, so cannot diagnose the problem. (Is there any other way to see the output on boot?)

Is there a fuse on motherboard, or some other component one of you can point to, which might have gotten fried? Wouldn't it be great if it had just burned one fuse or capacitor or...?

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I got the same issue on my iMac 11,1 (late 2009 27"). iMac powered up and chimed, but no IP address displayed on the router management page.
I had to do the flashing on another HP USDT mainboard which has an MXM slot.

 

[Dr Lou]

Tis for your reply - but without a schematic(!!) for the motherboard, and a lot of patience, looks like I'd have to sway out the motherboard.
Was just hoping someone might know of a common component - a cap or fuse, likely? - which I could focus in on and hope to replace...

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Tis for your reply - but without a schematic(!!) for the motherboard, and a lot of patience, looks like I'd have to sway out the motherboard.
Was just hoping someone might know of a common component - a cap or fuse, likely? - which I could focus in on and hope to replace...

Sorry my description was not clear enough.
HP USDT mainboard is the mainboard pulled out from the HP EliteDesk 800 G1 USDT computer. It has an MXM slot but I had to remove it from the small case to install the MXM-B GPU.

Ebay has plenty of those on sales.

HP EliteDesk 800 G1 USDT i5 Quad-Core 8GB RAM 500GB HDD NO OS w/Adapter | eBay

This HP EliteDesk 800 G1 USDT desktop is perfect for office or casual computing. With a powerful Intel Core i5 (4th Gen) 4570S processor and 8GB RAM, it can handle multiple tasks with ease. The integrated/on-board Intel HD Graphics 4600 GPU ensures that the desktop's performance is smooth and...

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I only suggest a solution, which may not fit in your case. MXM slot can be found on HP USDT computers, HP AIO computers, some specific mainboards, and some old workstation laptops.