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Intel iMac Will Not Startup

rickvanr

rickvanr

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 10, 2002
3,259
13
Brockville
Hello all

Did a quick search on Apple, and here but didn't turn up much of anything useful.

I've got a friend with an iMac that won't boot up. Pressing the power button doesn't seem to do much of anything. I've tried unplugging the power cord, and re-plugging it, but alas, I got the fan to rev up for a second and then blahh, nothing again.

It's a 20" model with the black bezel. Not entirely sure of the system specs, I only got a couple minutes with it last night. Do these machines have any common problems like this?

Thanks
Rick
 
Is everything else working in that outlet? Have you tried another power cable?

It sounds like a power supply issue if you can't get it to spin up longer than that.
 
Eidorian said:
Is everything else working in that outlet? Have you tried another power cable?

It sounds like a power supply issue if you can't get it to spin up longer than that.
Click to expand...

I guess I could try plugging it into a different outlet. I'll try that first.

Haven't tried another power cable, but I doubt she'd have one.

I was thinking power supply too, I was just hoping it wasn't. I don't think it's not powering up long enough to even run kb commands, or try a start up disk.

Thanks
 
You should also try booting with only one RAM chip in at a time. Sometimes computers will not respond at all with bad memory.
 
Eidorian said:
I've had this happen before as well. Somehow the RAM will loosen itself and it needs to be reinserted.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that idea. One I never really thought of myself. I'll give that a go. Otherwise, I'll be seeing a genius on Sunday

Thanks
 
Hmmmm, I'm having a similar problem. I have tried resetting the PRAM and the SMC with no luck. Here's what happens; when the power button is pressed I can hear the HD spin up but that's it, nothing else happens. The screen never comes alive at all and there is no further sound/activity except for the flashing white light in the lower right bezel although I think the HD is still spinning since I can feel a slight vibration in the machine and hear a slight whirr/buzz. I have tried starting in target mode and wanted to try to boot from the install CD but it won't load the CD. Just to be clear I don't believe the PRAM reset was actually successful since I never got far enough into the boot sequence to hear the chimes, same thing with trying target mode - seems like the boot sequence never even initiates. It's a 1st Gen Intel iMac. I'm thinking the HD has failed, anybody with comments or advice?

Thanks
 
flyguy451 said:
Hmmmm, I'm having a similar problem. I have tried resetting the PRAM and the SMC with no luck. Here's what happens; when the power button is pressed I can hear the HD spin up but that's it, nothing else happens. The screen never comes alive at all and there is no further sound/activity except for the flashing white light in the lower right bezel although I think the HD is still spinning since I can feel a slight vibration in the machine and hear a slight whirr/buzz. I have tried starting in target mode and wanted to try to boot from the install CD but it won't load the CD. Just to be clear I don't believe the PRAM reset was actually successful since I never got far enough into the boot sequence to hear the chimes, same thing with trying target mode - seems like the boot sequence never even initiates. It's a 1st Gen Intel iMac. I'm thinking the HD has failed, anybody with comments or advice?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Personally, I don't think it's the hard drive. Cause the white screen and chime are not on the hard drive (somewhere in the EFI or something, I don't know). Cause when you want to boot windows you get the same screen AKA it didn't load anything from the harddrive yet. Also, when you buy a clean drive, install it in your mac and start it, the white screen appears and you have to start from the install disc. So the white screen and chime should be there, hard drive or not.

p.s. My hard drive failed as well, but I could get through the white screen and chime, then it had to access the hard drive, but the iMac couldn't.
 
Well, progress report; even though my Applecare expired 3 weeks ago I entered a request for support on the Apple website. The technician I spoke to was reluctant at first but (due to my pleasant phone demeanor?) eventually reviewed my email and confirmed that I had done everything I could do and suggested that I take the machine to my local Apple retailer for assistance (no Applestore anywhere nearby). I took it in today and will call tomorrow for the bad news - best guess is that it's the logic board - :(.

Will update when I get the news.
 
Extremely late update

Machine was repaired in the summer.

Posted this thread after problems came back, Apple replaced the power supply cable. The cable that goes from the PSU to the logic board, cd, hd, etc, etc.. free of charge.

Worked great for a week or so, then the problem came back

Took it in again, Apple replaced for free again the logic board, PSU and ribbon and it's been working great ever since. They repaired it the second and third time for free, and apologized for misdiagnosing the problem the first time.

They can misdiagnose all they want, when I get a $1000 repair done for free. I'm just smitten with Apple support lately. My 4.5 year old G5 sprung a leak a couple weeks ago, and now they're giving me a $7k 8-core Mac Pro for free dollars, and this is after they tried fixing it, which was something like $2-3k of parts as well. They've lost so much money because of me in the past couple months it's silly
 
hmmm... that sounds like you got lucky normally apple fights customers about repair costs
and getting a free mac pro in exchange for a g5... when did this start happening?
oh well have fun
 
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