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iMac G3 wont turn on.

benvw99

benvw99

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 29, 2014
41
0
Selby, SD
I have an iMac G3 Graphite which wont turn on. Here are my details.

iMac G3
1GB RAM
Processor unknown.
Disc drive unknown (most likely a DVD drive).
Color : Graphite Special Edition.

That is all i know about it. I would like to know more and even boot it up, but sadly it wont even turn on for more than a second.

So heres what happens. I plug the iMac into the wall, and press the power button. The machine sounds like its powering on normally, but it will usually die within a second of pressing the power button. If I try to power it on again, nothing will happen. Not even for a split-second.

The only way I will get it to turn on again is to unplug it, flip it onto its back, open it up and press the small round reset button on the board. Then I will plug it back in and try to boot it again, but it simply repeats the paragraph above.

I honestly have no clue as to whats wrong with it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Ben
 
The problem on the PAV board could be the power supply, or the video HV part.
Either one would need replacement of the PAV board.

- Unless you want to tell us that you have previous experience repairing computer circuit boards.
(There's not much out there that can show you exactly what components are on the logic board/PAV board, so troubleshooting and replacement of defective components would be a fine task for you.. :D

note: the last iMac G3 slot-loader that I tried to replace the PAV, the plastic shroud covering that area simply broke into brittle pieces because of age.
 
Well since I don't want to pay for a new pav board, I decided to take its good parts for my blueberry imac.

I removed the DVD drive from the graphite and put it in the blueberry. It actually works, and I installed 10.4 via the newly installed DVD drive! Now to max out the ram.
 
You can swap the logicboard as well. All slot-loading G3 iMacs use the same logicboard design.
 
Is it possible to replace the logic board with one that has a more powerful processor?

I researched and nearly gutted the graphite, and found that it has the 450 MHz processor.

Is there any companies that sell processor upgrades to make my imac still semi-usable in today's world?
 
You can replace the logicboard with one that has a 700Mhz G3 processor. At one time, there was a company that would replace the G3 with a 450Mhz G4, but that was costly and is not longer possible.
 
The 700Mhz boards are a bit pricey. You can sometimes find them on eBay. The more common 600Mhz are also an upgrade. But even with a 700Mhz board, your iMac will still be sadly underpowered for most things.
 
Intell said:
The 700Mhz boards are a bit pricey. You can sometimes find them on eBay. The more common 600Mhz are also an upgrade. But even with a 700Mhz board, your iMac will still be sadly underpowered for most things.
Click to expand...

Are you serious? 700MHz is the most advanced iMac G3 and you're saying it is underpowered? That can't be right from the looks of it. I mean, people used it when it came out in 2001 with OS X, and 700MHz being the highest means that it was well doing the job back then. I've never tried a 700MHz iMac G3 but is it really underpowered, cause I wouldn't think so...
 
MacsChampion said:
Are you serious? 700MHz is the most advanced iMac G3 and you're saying it is underpowered? That can't be right from the looks of it. I mean, people used it when it came out in 2001 with OS X, and 700MHz being the highest means that it was well doing the job back then. I've never tried a 700MHz iMac G3 but is it really underpowered, cause I wouldn't think so...
Click to expand...

It's a G3. Any G3 board in the modern day is vastly underpowered. Even at the time, G4's were clocked slightly slower but still more powerful. Their overall power was also greatly hampered by a small L2 cache and a completely lack of an L3 cache.
 
Intell said:
It's a G3. Any G3 board in the modern day is vastly underpowered. Even at the time, G4's were clocked slightly slower but still more powerful. Their overall power was also greatly hampered by a small L2 cache and a completely lack of an L3 cache.
Click to expand...

What your talking about is a G3 board in today's 2014 standards, but I mean that the G3 board is able to run certain versions of OS X with ease. For example, a 700MHz iMac G3 is easily capable of running Tiger, and that OS is still somewhat usable today. See what I mean?
 
MacsChampion said:
What your talking about is a G3 board in today's 2014 standards, but I mean that the G3 board is able to run certain versions of OS X with ease. For example, a 700MHz iMac G3 is easily capable of running Tiger, and that OS is still somewhat usable today. See what I mean?
Click to expand...

You're still comparing it only to other G3's. Compare it to contemporary PowerPC processors and you'll see that the CPU and the specs of the logicboard are lesser than that of other PowerPC systems made at the time. It's the curse of the iMac. Apple has made them lesser than their pro grade machines since their introduction. It wasn't until the aluminum iMacs that they started gaining some ground. Calling Tiger somewhat usable in the modern age is highly subjective and holds no merit for a large portion of the computer using population.
 
Intell said:
You're still comparing it only to other G3's. Compare it to contemporary PowerPC processors and you'll see that the CPU and the specs of the logicboard are lesser than that of other PowerPC systems made at the time. It's the curse of the iMac. Apple has made them lesser than their pro grade machines since their introduction. It wasn't until the aluminum iMacs that they started gaining some ground. Calling Tiger somewhat usable in the modern age is highly subjective and holds no merit for a large portion of the computer using population.
Click to expand...

iMac was aimed at the consumer market, so I wouldn't blame Apple for that. It was a beautiful, colourful all-in-one which the Power Mac lacked. In fact I find the iMac G3 still attractive today, I mean it's so different than other computers. :D

Regarding Tiger usability, I have to say that many Tiger users on G4s find the OS still good and usable. Also look at this interesting video that looks at if Tiger is obsolete yet or not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDhK2-jU0SY
 
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