My iMac won't start...just beeps. What do I do now?

My iMac won't start up anymore. When I hold down the power button for 3 seconds and then let go al it does is beeps 3 times and then pauses for about 4-5 sec. , the 3 beeps and pause, and so on. Everything was working fine. I shut down the computer and now can't geitback on. Is it ruined?

Three beeps at startup indicates bad or loose RAM.
You can look up videos on how to replace RAM on your model Mac, at YouTube, or Other World Computing.

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IMac won't start just the fan

Ok I have the dreaded black screen when I turn on my iMac but unlike most of the posts regarding this topic the HD doesn't seem to spin up. All I can hear is the fan, and no other activity.
It started with my screen freezing and the only thing I could do was to turn off the computer. This has happened a few times in the past and turning off and on always seemed to resolve it. But this time when I turned it on all I got was the fan noise. No chimes, nothing. I've tried resetting the PMU and removing the extra ram but know luck.
Most people seem to think this is a logic board fault, but then they seem to have an active computer just with no display. Any ideas greatly appreciated ?
Many Thanks
Mark
iMac G4 1.25GHz iBook G4 1.33GHz Mac OS X (10.4.6)

MarkWelcome to Apple Discussions.
Sounds like you've done your reading!
Given that your hard drive doesn't spin up I would be very suspicious. Could you confirm that your iMac shows any signs of life?
Does the caps lock light work?
Do you get the start-up chime (or beeps)?
Do you have the display adaptor to see connect your iMac to a TV and test it?
When you said 'started with the screen freezing' do you mean Kernel Panic, blank screen or the SBBOD?
I regret When I had similar symptoms a new logic board was required (at £325 plus fitting).
To answer your question on Part No.s:
Unfortunately doumentation on the iMac G4 20" is sadly lacking as they only existed for a few months (Nov 03 - Jul 04). The 20" was just a heavy version (heavy so it doesn't topple over) of the 17". I guess the larger display may require a larger PSU though.
Just done a search on AMP.co.uk and it came out with this part number: (661-3104)which is different to the 17"/15" PSU part number.
HTH
mrtotes

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I don' t know what model or OS I have...should dig out my paperwork...

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Sounds to me like you are trying to tap on the word VIDEO.
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See if any of the suggestions in this link help:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570

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IMac won't start - should I reinstall OS?

Recently my iMac won't start up - it goes to screen with folder + question mark. I've run Disk Utility, repaired hard drive, but there were no reported repairs to make.
Occassionally it will start up, and everything seems normal until suddenly the beach ball appears and everything freezes. 99% of tries it won't start up (i get the ? folder). Is it worth erasing the disk and reinstalling everything to see if a fresh start will help, or is it likely that the hardware is damaged?
Don't want to bother erasing it if there's no point... any advice greatly appreciated.
Also - anyone who's had their iMac repaired - what are the costs like?

I've just suddenly had the same problem - for no apparent reason as far as I can tell. The night before last I switched off my iMac as normal, and yesterday morning switched it back on. At first it would start, but crashed as soon as I tried to start any applications. Then it wouldn't start at all, and just got as far as the gray screen with the apple on it. After trying resetting the PRAM, switching on and holding the on button for 10 seconds, it was no different...
So, I tried doing a archive-reinstall from the original leopard DVD I bought from apple. This did a successful disk verification, but then said it couldn't install mac os due to a problem with the basesystem package. After that it wouldn't let me try another archive-install and only gave the options to install as new, or erase and install. The latter I don't want to do, and the former just gives the same basesystem error... All I get now is a flashing folder with a question mark and not even the gray screen...
I have tried using the diskutility to verify/ repair the hard drive and it says all is well...
I have heard this may all be due to dodgy RAM chips, but I have never messed with them or altered them. It just seems odd they should suddenly fail when they were working fine before.....
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Yes, I have backed up and deleted old files using target disk mode with an old macbook. It's just the larger files I didn't have enough space and disks for. I really appreciate your help on this as I've never had any mac issues before this so am not really sure what to look for.

IMac won't start - no chime=no hope

iMac won't start
Power light on front comes on,
NO chime
Some very quiet sounds for a few seconds and nothing else
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What- if any- are the options for repair - any idea of a general $$ amount
thanks

Hey Sheryl et al,
In the 1st gen and ALS G5 iMacs the first thing to check out is the capacitors on the logic board. If those look good and I mean absolutely pristine, then open up the power supply and check the ones in there.
Note: The diagnostic LEDs I consider to be a general indicator and not infallible.
The iSights are much more difficult to work on since opening them is much more problematic. The ones with the ATI X600 GPU chip have a high failure record due to that chip.
Also the iSight's power supply is another failure point.
As Richard notes a new power supply will run just over $100.
However a logic board swap will run $350 - $400 depending on model at DT&T services in CA.
Also Apple could/should theoretically do what's referred to as a "depot repair" on these machines for a flat $350. It would depend (as always) on the Apple Tech/service person you're dealing with.
A final note, I repair and donate these to deserving not for profits.
Harry Porterfield did a piece on me a few years ago.
http://www.vimeo.com/150591
Here's the URL to the TV station site:
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=5097319
Richard
Message was edited by: spudnuty

20" imac won't start up-flashes between blank grey screen and black screen

20" imac
2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Was running system 10.5.8 just fine. Worked great.
But then I wanted to give the imac to a relative. And so, I tried to boot from the original grey mac install dvd to wipe the hardrive and set the imac back to factory specs.
But it wouldn't boot off the dvd. All It would do at restart was to flash slowly back and forth between blank grey screen and black screen. So, I tried the Leopard update dvd. Same results. So I zapped the pram and tried again. Same results.
If I just pushed the start button tho.. the imac would start right up and run fine. However, I didn't want to give it to someone else with all our information on it.
I finally restarted it and held the "T" key to turn it into a giant firewire drive, hooked it up to our other 20" imac, and used the disk utility from the second imac to erase the drive of the first imac. Then I inserted the grey install dvd into the second imac and selected the drive of the first imac and ran the install process.
Now, the first imac won't start up at all. Just a continual grey screen for a bit, than a couple of buzz sounds in the machine and then the black screen... than back again.
It ran great before I erased the drive and re-installed OS 10.5
What's wrong? How do I get the machine to either boot off the install cd?

So, I've figured out a little more on the first machine. It's a 20" 2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo running 10.5.8.
It ran great. But, I wanted to erase the hard drive and reinstall the OS system before giving it to a relative.
I found that although the optical drive would read and write to normal cds and dvds, the machine would NOT boot from the grey start-up disks I had on hand. ( I have two imacs, and I tried both sets of dvds without success.)
I zapped the PRAM, and used disk utilities via firewire connection from my other 20" imac to check the hardrive and make repairs. Disk Utilities couldn't find any problems. So, using disk utilities from the other imac, I erased the first imac's harddrive and then used the install dvds on the second imac to install the original OS to the hard drive of the first imac.
(looking on the hard drive of the first imac, I can see all the contents)
However, the first machine will not start up. It just switches from grey....to black..... then grey..... and then black again.... over and over
Why won't it boot from the newly installed OS on it's own hard drive?
And Why won't it boot from the original install dvds?
How can I get it to start up again?

24" iMac won't start when iPod is connected

My 24" iMac won't start up/restart if my iPod is already connected to it. If I restart with the iPod connected, I just get a gray screen (with no apple logo) forever. Has anyone else experienced this problem? If so, any solution? I have Windows installed with boot camp, don't know if that's the problem, but I tried reseting the p-ram, but to no avail...
Intel iMac 24", 7600 GT, 500GB, 2GB. Titanium Powerbook 667 MHz G4, loaded. Mac OS X (10.4.7) 30 GB iPod Video

My suggestion would be disconnect the iPod. That's just me though.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93953
I'm guessing Boot Camp is the culprit. Whatever emulated BIOS it's using doesn't like the iPod as a startup disk.

IMac won't start up passed the grey screen

Last friday my iMac (late 2006, 24", 2.33 duo core Intel, OS 10.6.8) gave me the spinning beach ball.
Restarting resulted in: first the apple screen with the progress indicator, followed by grey screen..
That was it. It hangs at the grey screen.
I've been busy this weekend testing all kinds of ideas to get my imac to fully start up again.
I checked the RAM, it's fine.
I flushed NVRAM, wild guess, but nothing changed.
Starting up in safe mode doesn't work.
Starting up in recovery mode doesn't work.
On the upside, I was able to start my imac up in Target mode. Using the host computer and Disk Utlity I can see there's nothing wrong with the HD. All the data is still there!, so later today I'll make a copy of the complete HD, hoping/thinking that I won't copy whatever is wrong.
I had Disk Utility repair all the permissions.
I've used the host computer to reinstall the OS on my imac.
But on start up my beloved iMac still won't get passed the grey screen.
I'm thinking something goes wrong before my Mac even gets to the HD. Maybe it's the firmware, but I'm not really sure that firmware matters in this case. And I wouldn't know how to reinstall the latest version of firmware because my imac won't start up from it's disk drive
I'm thinking maybe something could be wrong with the graphic card's RAM, though on start up I can see the apple logo just fine.
I'm not able to start up from CD, I've tried that because I wanted to reinstall my OS (before I figured out how to do that in Target Mode) by putting the OS disk in my imac's own disk drive. Staring up with the C key still gets me the grey screen. Staring up with Option key shows no other option but the HD.
So is there anybody out there who has an idea that could help me further along?
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Frank

Hi Jan,
If you have another firewire Mac you can check if the HD of your Mac is OK by connecting them with a firewire cable and use target-mode. That way I found out my HD was just fine.
It also offers you the chance to run a diagnostic program to check if anything else is fine. I used TechTool to do that. But everything checked out fine.
In the end I decided the problem is probably hardware. Some electronic part that broke. Very frustrating that some small transistor or so is keeping me from using my otherwise fine iMac.
I contacted a repairshop that also works for the local Mac retailer. They told me my iMac was concidered 'classic' and therefor it wasn't economically not worth the trouble trying to repair it.
I gave up, took two weeks to mourn the loss of my beloved iMac, and bought a Mac mini.
FrankV
Judging by your name I'm guessing I could've anwered this in Dutch.

My iMac won't start...just beeps. What do I do now?

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