Sick eMac

[screensaver400]

My grandmother has an old eMac 800 (ATI graphics, CD-ROM) that is giving us trouble. I've never seen the symptom she describes, as it never happens when I'm around. But apparently the computer freezes, and an inch or so of the screen at the top gets darker, but still visible. She turns it off at the surge protector, then trys to use it again.

It was running 10.2.8, and figured it was some strange software issue, since the machine had worked fine since purchase. I archive and installed Tiger, hoping that would fix the problem. I used it, updated it, and tested it for an hour and it all worked fine.

As soon as I left, the issue happened to her again. I told her just to keep rebooting it, and I'd come over later.

A few days later, it stopped working completely. Now she can't get it to boot. The power light turns on, but nothing comes on the screen.

I'm thinking the issue only happened after its been on a while, since I always cold booted it when I arrived. I left it on for her to use, and thats when it stopped working.

Any idea what could be wrong?

 

[CanadaRAM]

Fails after being on for a while (regardless what software is in use) = heat related failure = hardware

Completly WAG:

Either the analog board or the logic board.

Very roughly $250 - $500 to repair.

 

[skubish]

does the hard drive spin up?

If it does it could be:
1. video card failure
2. logic board failure
3. display failure

 

[screensaver400]

When I installed Tiger, I hadn't concluded that it failed after being on a while. I thought it was some random failure that just didn't happen while I was there... She later told me about it failing only after being on a while.

Like I say, I haven't seen it, and she'll go nuts if I ask her if the hard drive spins up. The fans come on, though, and the correct boot chime plays. The screen just stays dark.

 

[Laser47]

Sorry to hear about that,
You can check to see if its a disply failure by connecting a external monitor to it.
Try to reset the PMU and PRAM.
Did you install ram? lots of macs have wierd problems after installing ram.
When you turn it on does the light just turn on and nothing else? Or does the computer turn on but just no diaplay.

 

[Laser47]

Theres a troubleshooting page on the apple website
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300537
Also there was a problem with emacs a while ago where there would be a popping sound and then the diaplay would not work.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=95169&SaveKCWindowURL=http%3A%2F%2Fkbase.info.apple.com%2Fcgi-bin%2FWebObjects%2Fkbase.woa%2Fwa%2FSaveKCToHomePage&searchMode=Expert&kbhost=kbase.info.apple.com&showButton=false&randomValue=100&showSurvey=false&sessionID=anonymous|154688675

 

[screensaver400]

Did you install ram? lots of macs have wierd problems after installing ram.
When you turn it on does the light just turn on and nothing else? Or does the computer turn on but just no diaplay.

I was going to install more ram... I actually tried to before I installed Tiger. I had a bad stick, though, so I pulled it and left everything in there as it was.

The light comes on, the correct chime plays (not beeps like with bad ram), and the fans spin up. I'm guessing it turns on, but with no display.

 

[Laser47]

Try hooking up an external monitor to the emac and see if it works, did the emacs come with the vga pigtail, if not you might want to buy one.
Also i dont know if this will help but when the computer turns on press the power button and press enter, see if the computer turns off (to see if it booted). I did that once when a monitor wasint working on my pc.

 

[screensaver400]

It ended up being a loose Airport card that had come free that caused the problems. Surprising, but it seemed to fix it.