Software or hardware, or what?

[ThatGirl]

Hi,
I'm not sure what the problem is, but here are the symptoms:

My dad is using an iMac G4 desktop. For some reason, every once in awhile, especially upon Restart, the screen shows all blue except for a small blinking square in the middle, with the network symbol in it. I know what it means when there is a blinking question mark, but what does it mean when there is a blinking network symbol?

In trying to get it to restart, and unable to get the CD tray to open, I removed all of the peripherals. That didn't work. I plugged them back in, but turned off the printer. When I turned the printer back on, the Imac started up. But, that doesn't always work.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[JeDiBoYTJ]

hmm... Go into your System Preferences -> Network and make sure that its not set up for "Network Startup"... It seems like it is looking for a Network to boot from, but can't find anything...

 

[pncc]

Hi,
I'm not sure what the problem is, but here are the symptoms:

My dad is using an iMac G4 desktop. For some reason, every once in awhile, especially upon Restart, the screen shows all blue except for a small blinking square in the middle, with the network symbol in it. I know what it means when there is a blinking question mark, but what does it mean when there is a blinking network symbol?

In trying to get it to restart, and unable to get the CD tray to open, I removed all of the peripherals. That didn't work. I plugged them back in, but turned off the printer. When I turned the printer back on, the Imac started up. But, that doesn't always work.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

JeDiBoYTJ is on the right track but looking in the wrong place.

The network icon at startup is indeed the NetBoot icon. The mac is looking for a netBoot server to boot from over the network. Go to System prefs and Startup disk and choose your internal drive. as the boot drive.