iMac G3 issues - screen shuts off

[joecool85]

I'm having some problems with two different iMac G3s, both are 233mhz w/160mb RAM. I got them for free when my Dad's school got rid of them. I installed a fresh copy of 10.2.8 and now one of them shuts the screen of about 30 minutes after using it, the other maybe an hour. So they do work for a while, but not for a lot of time. Also, when I tried running Software Update to get some security patches it immediately freezes, that goes for both machines. They both have the most current firmware (1.2 is the most current for that gen iMac according to apple).

Any ideas? My fiance would like to use one of these for her classroom as a typing machine. I tried 9.2.2 on the machine that lasts for an hour and it seemed to run much better, but I only ran it for 1-2 hours so I'm not sure if it would freeze later on or not. I didn't keep 9.2.2 because I was having issues finding programs that would install without having a "library error."

 

[joecool85]

No help at all guys? Since both machines do almost exactly the same thing I would suspect this is not an isolated incedent.

 

[eRondeau]

Sounds like a hardware problem to me, probably heat related. Just for fun, turn one off until it cools down, then use a household fan to force cool air into the vents to see if it runs longer. You could have an old-fashioned tube TV repair technician take a look at it, maybe he could find a bad capacitor or something, but then you'd have to seriously thing about how much $$$ you want to spend to keep it working.

 

[SuperCompu2]

I agree with the fan thing, sounds like a heat related issue.

Could also be a hard drive thing, but who knows. The power supplies are especially finicky on these G3s, and failure is common. The good thing is, as you know, people toss these all the time, so finding replacement parts or even whole units shouldnt be that hard.

 

[ReanimationLP]

Clean out the fan in the bottom by sliding out the main board.

If it still shuts off, your analog board, flyback transformer, or power supply is going. At that point its not worth fixing, just pull the parts, and find another one.

 

[joecool85]

Clean out the fan in the bottom by sliding out the main board.

If it still shuts off, your analog board, flyback transformer, or power supply is going. At that point its not worth fixing, just pull the parts, and find another one.

That's a good idea, I'll try that. If they are both busted it's not the end of the world, I'll just need to source another iMac G3. Looks like I may have found one (or three) anyway, we'll see.

 

[madmax_2069]

it can be the same issue as this,

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25564

My Beige G3 AIO had the same issue in 10.2.8 where the screen would just go out and it would not come back on, i also tested with a Radeon 7000 PCI card used on a secondary display and it showed that when the internal screen (which uses a Rage Pro GPU) went blank the computer locked up but the Radeon 7000 would still be operational if the computer locked up (the Radeon 7000 would still show a screen), and a few times after the screen would go black the computer would remain operational but as soon as you moved the mouse over to the internal screen the computer would freeze.

after i ran those 2 terminal commands and rebooted everything was fine and never did it again. i would recommend you running those 2 terminal commands cause i think it would cure your issue

 

[joecool85]

Thanks Madmax! It works perfect now! It's been running for 3 hours no problem, I never got more than 45 minutes out of it before.