iMac, chime, but no boot!

[cluthz]

So here's the thing.
My 20 inch iMac (g5) won't boot.
The chime plays, screen lights up but goes dark again and nothing more happens.
I can hear that the dvd rom is powered (the little eject thingy plays as always) and the HD spins up.

So far I've reset SMU and PRAM (yes it does the rebooting and plays chime again).

I cleaned the machine and applied new thermal paste a few months ago and have a new 1.5TB disk in it. I did check machine with "yes > dev/null" in console for over an hour and temps was a lot better than before I replaced thermal paste, so I'm pretty confident that it wasn't the issue.

I did have a five years insurance on it, but that went out just two months ago..

Can a dead PRAM battery make the machine act like this?

 

[Orange™]

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11631325

Logic board is fried, might as well be the death chime you hear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTlSZeLfS90 (I like the car crash the best!)

 

[cluthz]

Updates.

Replaced PRAM battery, dismantled whole computer and put it together again.
The machine boots, but video only flashes solid colors, first white, black, red, green and blue. Each color stays for about 5-6 sec.

I can access the computer remotely, so it's booting fine, but produces no usable video

 

[666sheep]

Try with external display if you got proper adapter. If it will be the same - graphics card is toast.

 

[flopticalcube]

I did have a five years insurance on it, but that went out just two months ago..

Isn't that always the way?...

 

[aliensporebomb]

Yow

My sister-in-law went thru three motherboards in those iMac G5 machines before she got wise and swapped it out for a 24" iMac a few years back. Sorry to hear it but it's likely the video card.

 

[cluthz]

Try with external display if you got proper adapter. If it will be the same - graphics card is toast.

Unfortunately I don't have an adapter lying around, but I'd call around some friends and see if someone has.

My sister-in-law went thru three motherboards in those iMac G5 machines before she got wise and swapped it out for a 24" iMac a few years back. Sorry to hear it but it's likely the video card.

I'm guessing it's that too
I'm not using the machine too much nowadays, but it's still in use. It holds lot's of music and I use it for burning mp3 cds and such to use in the car and iphoto and some browsing. I can still access it remotely tho, so getting out my data isn't a problem luckily.

I'm planning to replace it with a newer one, but money is a bit tight at the moment so I'd really hope it would last for another year.

 

[cluthz]

Update:

Oki, seems like the screen is the culprit. I got an mini-vga adapter now and the machine works with external screen. Seems like I'll be using it with an external screen for awhile, placing the machine under the desk. I guess I can live with it like this until I have money to buy a i7 iMac.


Is there a hack that can turn the internal screen off? I think I remember there was one. Or can I just unplug it inside?