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PLEASE HELP My IMac G5 wont start up!

D

Denri

macrumors newbie
Original poster
My IMac G5 wont start up and i checked and the power supply and logic board are both working fine. First it would just go to a blue screen when i started it up, so i put in my restore disc and went to disc utility and wiped the hard drive then tried to reinstall OS X but the installation got to 75% and then the computer just restarted and now when i try to turn it on it just stays black and i cant boot off the disc. PLEASE HELP
 
Denri said:
My IMac G5 wont start up and i checked and the power supply and logic board are both working fine. First it would just go to a blue screen when i started it up, so i put in my restore disc and went to disc utility and wiped the hard drive then tried to reinstall OS X but the installation got to 75% and then the computer just restarted and now when i try to turn it on it just stays black and i cant boot off the disc. PLEASE HELP
Click to expand...

When you say black, do you mean like zero activity? No screen characters whatsoever?
 
Are you sure you installed using the correct install disc (e.g. a disc supplied with a macbook will not work on a MacPro to say nothing of a G5 iMac)? If you are using a generic install disc, one that was bought in a separate box, then you are OK.

Are you sure you are trying to boot off the install disc and not your bad install? Try...
1) Shut down computer (press and hold power for about a minute, this forces a shutdown)
2) Turn on computer while holding down the C key (this will force the computer to boot off the install disc (assuming it is inserted into your CD/DVD slot).


You can also try zapping your P-ram to see if that will unstick your computer.

Also try to booting into safe mode

If you are unable to boot off of the install disk, then chances are you are experiencing a hardware problem (e.g. bad ram, logic board etc.). Your can try removing the ram in your computer and replace it with a stick from a friends computer (thereby determining if your ram stick(s) are bad).
 
My iMac G5 (17", 2.0 Ghz, ALS) just died recently with similar symptoms.

First it started crashing alot. Then it started crashing just after booting. I decided to reinstall but when I booted from the Leopard disk the installation got partway through and then hung every time. I booted from its original Tiger disk and the OS installed but the iMac would only boot to a blue screen afterwards.

I took it apart and had a nose around and found a dead capacitor on the logic board (presumably part of the GPU since booting to a blue screen usually means a GPU problem).

Price to fix it: €900.
Price to replace it: €1000.

Guess which one I'm gonna do?

So anyway, have a poke around inside and look for 'sploding capacitors, they look a bit like popped popcorn kernels. Unfortunately, if you can't see any that doesn't necessarily mean that they're all good, but if you do find one or more at least you will know the cause of your problems.
 
ximon said:
My iMac G5 (17", 2.0 Ghz, ALS) just died recently with similar symptoms.

First it started crashing alot. Then it started crashing just after booting. I decided to reinstall but when I booted from the Leopard disk the installation got partway through and then hung every time. I booted from its original Tiger disk and the OS installed but the iMac would only boot to a blue screen afterwards.

I took it apart and had a nose around and found a dead capacitor on the logic board (presumably part of the GPU since booting to a blue screen usually means a GPU problem).

Price to fix it: €900.
Price to replace it: €1000.

Guess which one I'm gonna do?

So anyway, have a poke around inside and look for 'sploding capacitors, they look a bit like popped popcorn kernels. Unfortunately, if you can't see any that doesn't necessarily mean that they're all good, but if you do find one or more at least you will know the cause of your problems.
Click to expand...

http://www.apple.com/support/imac/repairextensionprogram/

Maybe this'll be relevant to you?
 
O_O threads like this make me worry for my iMac ALS!

So far it's been working fine (except for the DVD drive not wanting to properly record some DVD-Rs)... *knock* *knock* *knock* 😱
 
eXan said:
So far it's been working fine (except for the DVD drive not wanting to properly record some DVD-Rs)... *knock* *knock* *knock* 😱
Click to expand...

Yeah, mine stopped burning DVDs about a year ago. It would do everything else, just not DVD burning.

Luckily you can replace the optical drive in these iMacs relatively easily, before mine died I was considering doing just that, I could have got a new drive for about €75.

Seems like these problems might be common then, I thought I was just cursed! 😀

Does yours make enough fan noise to render iChat useless too?
 
ximon said:
Yeah, mine stopped burning DVDs about a year ago. It would do everything else, just not DVD burning.

Luckily you can replace the optical drive in these iMacs relatively easily, before mine died I was considering doing just that, I could have got a new drive for about €75.

Seems like these problems might be common then, I thought I was just cursed! 😀

Does yours make enough fan noise to render iChat useless too?
Click to expand...

It doesn't burn properly only DVD-Rs though, DVD-RWs are fine lol. I use MacBook to burn them now anyway. 🙂

I don't audio chat on iMac, but during voice recordings it does record the moving air noise. If I need to audio (or video) chat I use MacBook because it has iSight 🙂
 
imac 17"

yeah i have a 17" IMac G5
my problem was exactly like ximon's except now it just doesnt show anything when i turn it on and i used the proper disc.
 
You probably have a hardware issue of some sort. Reinstalling is very often a bad idea when the Mac has such an obviously catastrophic problem. Passing the hardware test is not very meaningful. You could try swapping out RAM if you've added any.
 
Denri said:
yeah i have a 17" IMac G5
my problem was exactly like ximon's except now it just doesnt show anything when i turn it on and i used the proper disc.
Click to expand...

There were 5 models of 17" iMac G5. Which one do you have?
 
i looked around in my imac and i couldnt find any dead capacitors.
and my imac is a 17"/2.0/512/super/56k/BT/AP
 
Denri said:
i looked around in my imac and i couldnt find any dead capacitors.
and my imac is a 17"/2.0/512/super/56k/BT/AP
Click to expand...

Ouch, that's the same as mine. I'm afraid it certainly seems like you have a dead logic board, ergo a dead iMac. An authorised service centre will be able to confirm this for you.
 
damn, are you sure its the logic board? because i did the check thing where you take off the back and turn on the computer and if the light turns on it means the logic board is working
 
Those little lights are about as much use as the Apple Hardware Test - both reported that all was well with my iMac in spite of my capacitor popcorn.
 
The real question is.....

What are you going to do with your old machine then?

From what I can understand from the previous posts, there is a relatively simple, although time consuming and very tedious, fix for your computer.

Just replace the blown capacitors. (By the way, I only recently joined MacRumors, but that does not mean I am in any way a "newbie" when it comes to repairs and such. So please refrain from replies to this post with such useless rabble as "He doesn't know what he is talking about...Blah blah blah..🙂)

I would be willing to fix it for you, or even buy it from you and thereby subsidize the price for your purchasing of a new machine.

Let me know.:apple:
 
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