Help... my monitor is growing dimmer by the day

Question

Hi ya'll
So I have had a G3 dv se imac (550 mhg, 30gb hd, 250mb RAM) for about 5yrs and within the last month/month and a half the monitor has gradually dimmed itself to the point of, where now I can only see things with as much contrast as black on white word processing. This is a great computer...if nothing else it will suffice for homework and web research but I really need to figure out how to fix this.
Then like a total idiot...I've been looking for several weeks on Craigs list for a similar unit to replace mine in case its to far gone. So anyway, I finally find one for $100, comes with 2 printers, two routers, and a CD burner. It only has a 10gb hd, so I get on and order a great 100gb internal hd for $50...thinking even that is a great deal. I get the computer home, my brother installs the hd, office, adobe CS2...I get on it finally for the first time and, omg, the monitor appears to be at the same place that my totally dark other computer was about a month ago. I didn't realize it, or I guess didn't even expect to realize it, so I didn't look for it very carefully before now but crap dude! And I suppose to someone that doesn't know about it, it would go completely unnoticed for quite a while, especially with nothing to compare it too...but I know, in a matter of no time at all, it will be to dark to even use.
Does anybody have any ideas?...for both of them? I know I can get an external monitor and just use these as hd's but I don't want to do that, that's a waste and will cost more money. How much do you think it would cost to take them in and have them fixed at a repair shop? I've heard something about needing to update firmware... there's certainly been a bunch of posts about that anyhow. Frankly, I don't know much about that at all! I have also read a post that talked about resetting the PRAM? I don't know, it sounded really complicated! Maybe I'm in over my head!?!? Please help...I need something that works...I'm about a week and a half from the end of the quarter and I need something to use to finish my graphic design final. I'm in a wheel chair...otherwise, I'd just go to the lab at the college.
Thanks, Kelly
iMac G3 400mhz, 384 MB SDRAM, Mac OS 10.3.9   Mac OS X (10.3.9)   Installed 100Gb internal hard drive, using Photoshop CS2

Answer 1

Hi
If the second iMac never had OS X installed then the firmware would be the first thing to look at. A dark screen is one of the symptoms. There's a good article here (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75430) Only thing is, you need to update the firmware from OS 9 and even then, you'll probably need an external monitor to see what's happening (Talk about a Catch 22). It's quite an easy process though.
As for resetting the PRAM, that'e easy too; but you practically need 3 hands to do it. You need to start the computer while holding down commandoption+pr. The easiest way is to get the keyboard as close to the power button as possible, hold down command, option and r with your left hand and hold down p with your right while powering on. After you hear the startup chime twice let go of the keys and let it start up.
Failing both those, the easiest thing may be to find a 2nd hand monitor and use that.
Hope this will be of some help
--ShJ
G4 MDD 1.25GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.3)