Intel iMac no video signal

I have a two-year-old Intel iMac. This morning I get to work and boot up but there is no video signal, just a black screen. I finally determined that it was booting ok, I can seen the hard drive on the network and access files off it, but I can't get the video working. Tried unplugging for awhile to reset the SMC but no help and resetting the PRAM. Tried booting off the DVD, no help. When I push the power button, it goes to sleep, but I can't wake it, the light keeps pulsing. I tried taking out the ram modules but it wouldn't show video on either one (I haven't touched them for about a year). There may have been some electrical problems over the weekend with storms.
Any ideas besides taking it into the shop?
Thanks for any help.

Yes I did the proper procedure for resetting the SMU, several times. Finally took it into the shop and something in the graphics card is shot, which of course means a new logic board. At least a little cheaper than the over $900 I've seen quoted in other posts, only $652. Can't spring for a new computer yet, so going that route and hope it lasts a few more years.
Like others, I hope such problems don't signal a decline in Apple quality, at least in terms of the iMacs. I worked with 8-10 macs in a department for 15 years going from System 6 to Tiger and rarely had problems with the hardware failing. Now my personal iMac G5 had a logic board replaced just shy of the Apple Care running out, and this work iMac intel (at a new job where I'm the only Mac user) needing the same after just over two years. Unfortunately, they didn't get it with Apple Care.

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Macworld Daily News
Thursday - February 09, 2006
Apple investigates Intel iMac Front Row problems
By Macworld staff
Apple has confirmed it is aware of, and investigating, reports of video problems in the new Intel iMacs.
Recent reports claimed that some users had experienced random horizontal lines and other video playback problems when playing video in Front Row.
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"Sure, I'd be more understanding had it been an issue that required a very special set of conditions to trigger"
Apparently it does as this issue is not affecting all users.
"As I was told, affected owners would not be proactively notified"
Where you you prefer them to use their limited resources, trying to figure out who MAY be affected and sending them some sort of detailed action plan, or spending the resources determining the cause of the issue and developing a solution that can be distributed to the ones who need it not only now, but those that may discover the issue next week?
I can understand that you are frustrated, and don't blame you for feeling that way, but this is an all new piece of technology and bugs are going to come up that were missed in testing. No company can afford to test at a 100% level. To do so would drive the costs so high as to make it impossible to sell the product, especially to the market the iMac is aimed at. Apple has a pretty darned good track record of resolving issues quickly when they appear. Until they do you only have a few choices. Use the workaround until the solution appears, waste time complaining about it, or sell the iMac and purchase a different product. That's really about all you can do!
It was good of you to spend your valuable time, and yes it is valuable, trying to help the engineers or service reps solve the issue. That they spent that much time with you should show their commitment to solving this issue.
Be patient, give them a chance, they have not had long to try and figure this out.

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Since the FW 400 and 800 connectors are both driven from this same bus chip, I have to do camcorder captures to the internal drive, then copy them to FW800 raid once the camera is unplugged.
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System Profiler:
ATI Radeon X1600:
Chipset Model: ATY,RadeonX1600
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 128 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x71c5
Revision ID: 0x0000
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.068
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Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
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Yeah, I realize S-video is limiting, but I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible. The TV is mounted to the wall and there are not currently any DVI or HDMI cables coming out of it. There's an S-video input from my receiver that I'd prefer to use since it's readily accessible already. In the end my goal is to use Netflix "Watch Now" on the TV, so I'm not too worried about video quality.
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Message was edited by: AndyNH

If you haven't tried yet, install SMCFanControl (and some other utility to show you the temperature readings for the different sensors inside your iMac) and push up your fan speeds with SMCFanControl to drive down the temperatures. See if you get no (or fewer) horizontal lines when your machine - particularly the graphics chip parts - is cooler, and more when it is hotter.
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Intel imac display glitch and involuntary restart

Just want to know if anyone else has experienced this specific problem, there are plenty of complaints about intel imac displays but I can't be bothered to sift through them all trying to find a match for my problem.
A couple of months ago I was watching a video in quicktime and noticed that my screen was glitching and flashing fragmented diagonal lines - like a commodore 64 loading type thing. Then the spinning-ball came up and a force quit didn't do anything so I had to force shut down. I started up and it occured again. Then the screen went blank/black, but still lit up, and restarted without me doing anything. It also got stuck during start up the second time this occured. I panicked and ran out to buy a 500GB external drive, backed up all of my work and then re-installed mac osx from disk, archive and install job. This seemed to sort it and for the following two months it seemed OK. No sign of any problems.
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It happened again tonight (the screen thing, not the motu). And the ball came up and I couldn't do anything. Force shut down, restart - screen glitching again. Then I had 2 unexpected restarts, one getting stuck in startup. Then a successful startup but accompanied by the glitchy graphics, mainly red/pink pixellated diagonal lines flickering in and out. I ran a disk first aid - no problems. Did a disk permission repair. Shut down and ran a hardware test, the first few minutes of the test the screen was still at it but then stopped glitching, hardware test found no errors (it was an extended test too). Now I'm back on it and it's all OK.
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When it occured 2 months ago I had the original ram that came with the imac. Now I have 2x1GB sticks of crucial ram.

That's it! Well, that's what I have. Unfortunately, I don't know about the cause, but I don't ever recall having it prior to an update going back about a year ago. I recall an update, and that update being immediately followed by some sort of Apple Graphics something-or-other. I feel pretty certain that's when I first noticed this. I just had my LCD replaced for another reason, but I think you'll agree, it's not an LCD issue. In my case, browser activity, scrolling up or down in a page, seems to be the most common trigger. I've also seen "pieces" of the torn page, on the screen when minimizing the browser to the dock (usually Firefox, but I think I've seen it with Opera and Safari too). Is there a way to find update packages installed somewhere? I'd know it if I saw it, and I'd definitely try removing that suspect package/update.
Message was edited by: geekboy2000 - corrected OS

Intel iMac wireless issues

I've had a 20" Intel iMac for over a year now and have never had very good success maintaining a connection to my network wirelessly. I have tried everything, but nothing fixes it permanently. It would just drop the network sporadically, especially if it hadn't been accessed in a day.
My DHCP is set up to lease IP's forever so that's not the problem.
I also have an Intel MacBook that I bought last summer. I've never had problems staying connected to the network with that (though it takes 30-40 seconds to reconnect from hibernation).
The odd thing is that even when the iMac was connected to the network the MacBook could never see it. Couldn't share itunes, couldn't connect to the shared drive, etc. It was almost as though the iMac was invisible to the network. Trust me, I've got no firewall, everything that can be shared is shared, it's as open as it can get (behind my secured router of course). Nothing.
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I finally got so frustrated (I had gotten the box out to send the apple tv back) that I grabbed a long network cable, plugged it into my router and ran it out the room, down the hall and plugged it into the iMac and disabled the airport card.
I brought up Safari, no problem. Tried iTunes and voila, there was the apple tv. Turned on the apple tv and bingo, there's my library.
I even went to my MacBook and there's the iMac on the network. Brought up iTunes and there's the shared library.
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I guess I will leave it plugged into ethernet and try to hide the cable under the trim or something. I'm frustrated by this whole experience but I'm glad I found a way to get apple tv working.
Both my iMac and Macbook have all the latest software updates.

I've had a 20" Intel iMac for over a year now and have never had very good success maintaining a connection to my network wirelessly. I have tried everything, but nothing fixes it permanently. It would just drop the network sporadically, especially if it hadn't been accessed in a day.
My DHCP is set up to lease IP's forever so that's not the problem.
I also have an Intel MacBook that I bought last summer. I've never had problems staying connected to the network with that (though it takes 30-40 seconds to reconnect from hibernation).
The odd thing is that even when the iMac was connected to the network the MacBook could never see it. Couldn't share itunes, couldn't connect to the shared drive, etc. It was almost as though the iMac was invisible to the network. Trust me, I've got no firewall, everything that can be shared is shared, it's as open as it can get (behind my secured router of course). Nothing.
Now, I've added an Apple TV to the mix. I had no problems getting it onto the network and the first time it found iTunes on the iMac and connected, synched, etc. I could stream video from it. All was good. For 1 day.
Then, day 2, nothing, can't find the iMac at all. Just says to make sure iTunes is open. It is, doesn't show the Apple TV in the devices either. I tried switching channels on the router, moving the apple tv around, stopping and restarting everything. Nothing. Wouldn't find it.
I finally got so frustrated (I had gotten the box out to send the apple tv back) that I grabbed a long network cable, plugged it into my router and ran it out the room, down the hall and plugged it into the iMac and disabled the airport card.
I brought up Safari, no problem. Tried iTunes and voila, there was the apple tv. Turned on the apple tv and bingo, there's my library.
I even went to my MacBook and there's the iMac on the network. Brought up iTunes and there's the shared library.
So, suffice it to say, there is a serious problem (and I've seen this posted over and over again) with the Airport cards in combination with the new Intel iMacs that does not seem to impact the Macbooks for some reason, at least not mine.
I guess I will leave it plugged into ethernet and try to hide the cable under the trim or something. I'm frustrated by this whole experience but I'm glad I found a way to get apple tv working.
Both my iMac and Macbook have all the latest software updates.

Performance issue with brand new intel iMac extreme

I am at a loss to explain a problem I've been having and I thought I might put it out to you guys.
In September I purchased a macbook Pro (2.4 ghz, 4 GB RAM) to use in video editing with Final Cut Pro, and for the most part I've been thrilled. I use 1TB LaCie external drives connected via FW800, and perform Multiclip editing with 4-5 video streams at a time and only on occasion have dropped frames during the editing process.
In December I determined that I needed to have an additional system, and thought a 2.8Ghz Intel iMac extreme would be an excellent choice, since for the same price I could get a little more power in the processor, more hard drive space and a bigger screen to work on. When we picked up the new system in the store (The Grove Apple Store in LA), we had them upgrade the memory to 4GB.
Since day one we have had performance issues, including problems playing streaming and DVD video, severe delays mounting and unmounting drives (firewire and USB) and application images, and freezing while doing even simple tasks like printing or checking email. These problems occur even while there are no external drives are connected. I have none of these issues with the Macbook Pro, which has virtually an identical set of programs installed, and both running the same version of Leopard.
I already took the original iMac back to the store, and they exchanged it, but did not have 4GB sets of RAM in stock so they took the RAM from the original machine and put it in the new one. They said if I continued to have problems then it was most likely the RAM and I should come back when they got more in stock. I DID have the same problems with the new machine, and took it back to the Apple Store and they swapped the memory. It seemed to improve the issue, but now I'm seeing the same severe performance issues again.
All tech support can do is tell me to do a PRAM reset, which seems to improve things very temporarily (but that may be my imagination) or have me restart, which at least has the ability to make the printing of documents capable.
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I have xbench on both the MBP and the iMac and can provide test numbers if they'll help, as well as any other info.
Thank you so much for reading my novella of a post and also for any insight you have!
Best,
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Hi!
I got the same problem with my MacBook when it still was new in may 2006. It was supposed to be one of the faster Laptops around but it was soooo slow it drove me nuts. I can only advise to have a look if there is something hugging up your RAM and run some tests using these programs on your machine:
Xbench:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10081
MenuMeters:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10451
If they show any unusual results you might have your problem...
As to my problem with the MacBook: I did a complete re-install (writing the harddisk over with zeroes) and suddenly everything was just fine. (But be sure to back all your files before that, I learned this one the hard way.) I know it is just a standard answer, but it worked out for me this time...
Hope this helps in some ways.
Cheers,
Rene

Video signaling problem caused by 1.9, 2.0 BIOS (pointing out a BIOS problem)

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Wish I had seen this thread 2 weeks ago, but you did save me from buying a new graphics card. That was the last step (before chucking this mobo completely) in my attempts to fix the same problem. It didn't bother me too much, except I also couldn't get any DVD player (tried 3) to work. Would boot sometimes and at others gave a blue screen video error.
Flashing to bios 1.7 was the only thing that fixed it. Tried different memory, updating software, various combinations of drives, etc. For the record I tried bios 1.8, 1.9, 2.0, and 2.1. Not sure what about those updates causes problems but there definitely is something wrong.
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Can anyone give me advice on the following:-
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When I look at the HP installer log, it appears that the installer tried several times without success to install plugins into the PPD folder (HD->Library->Printers->PPD).
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Same happened with my photosnart. Here is part of the email from HP
Thank you for contacting HP Total Care.
I understand from your email that you are not able to print to your
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I believe you are correct when you mention the glitch between the new
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I have checked the Apple website and noted the pre-installed printer
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http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303057#hpdrivers
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date of resolution. Your printer was manufactured in 2000, and the most
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Intel iMac no video signal

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