Ran Mac OS X before firmware update! How to fix?"...?

Question

Hello everybody,
im whit a problem.
i have a iMac G3 350MHz (no VGA port add the back)
my boss asked me if i could put a HDD + DVD player in a new iMac G3 because the old 1 burned.
So i installed the HDD+ DVD player.
I turned the iMac on and it booted from the HDD and there was OX 10 installed on it.
so my boss sad to Zap the PRAM ( Apple,Option,R,P) so i did it.
now i dont get anny screen but when i push the On/Off button i hear the iMac sound when it boots, and i hear the sound when a CTF screen boots so it go's on but i still have a blackscreen .
i think this is a Firmware problem.
what i did so far,
- Reset Pram
- Reset PMU
- Switching Batary
- Switching HDD + DVD (to get it back to orginal)
- iMac in sleep mode (iMac would not sleep when i push powerbutton)
- OS 9.2 on HDD building in the iMac and booted still no screen.
- switching RAM modules
i lookt on:
http://www.gileskennedy.com/panthereatsimac
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=121823
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3036
i could not find my anwer there.
on all thos sites they are saying,
get the iMac to sleep (my imac dont wanna go to sleep) so this is not helping me.
put a External Screen (the 350MHz dont have a VGA port add the back)
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8093702&
my posted topic on Apple discussions.
so could somebody help me whit this problem?
im still hoping for the *Golden Anwer*
Greets, Michael
Ps im sorry if my english isnt Correct, but i hope you guys understand my problem.
Message was edited by: MG-edition

Answer 1

Just yesterday I managed to rescue (on the last ditch attempt) a strawberry iMac DV (400MHz) that had exactly this problem. I read through the documentation suggested on this thread and discovered that it had moved all the way through to the 'Stage 4' issue; it would automatically power down about 6-7 seconds after the welcome chime. Before reading the docs I'd zapped the PRAM and removed the battery multiple times thinking I was doing the right thing, so it was well and truly stuck.
Luckily, before it died I had updated to OS 9.1 and run the firmware update, but of course you need to reboot for the update to actually be written to the chip. I'd actually given up and put it on the recycle pile, only to find myself with a spare half hour in the afternoon. This is exactly what I did to get it back to life. Note that the battery had been out for a couple of hours prior to trying this.
1. Put on desk, upside down with all panels open, not connected to anything.
2. Remove everything (which in this machine was just RAM - battery was already out and it had no Airport card).
3. Put battery back in. Very old battery, so no idea if it had much charge.
4. Pressed internal PRAM reset button once, briefly (no more than 1 second).
5. Waited for about 20 seconds.
6. Put a 256MB card into slot J13 that I had just pilfered from an old PC. It previously had in it two 64MB cards.
7. Plugged into a monitor, then the mains and turned power on.
8. Waited for about 20 seconds.
9. Pushed in the programmers button and held it down while tapping the power button.
10. Released programmers button when the evil beep sound happened.
I was then very surprised that it not only stayed running, but actually started the firmware update! I guess I was very lucky in that I'd managed to run the firmware application in OS 9.1 before the machine got stuck, otherwise you'd need to boot into Mac OS, run the app and then reboot a second time to get it to apply the update.
Best of luck - this iMac DV is now off to a new home instead of the bin. I was pleasantly surprised with how well it copes with OS X 10.4.11.
Message was edited by: larryfi