Really Dead iMac Rev B

My iMac Rev B, 233 mh has been running just fine (for years ). Yesterday, my iMac suddenly turned off, as if I pulled the plug out of the wall. I had not, of course. The fan stopped, the disk stopped spinning and the screen went black. Now, it will not start up at all. Nothing.
I was using a usb modem, had the iMac plugged into an APC, verified the computer was getting electricity by plugging it into another place, etc.
Any ideas on what happened? Could this possibly be due to a very old battery? I have not had any problems losing the time, etc. so the battery did not seem to bad.
Could it be the power supply? Or what?
I did have some of my files backed up but not all. We had replaced the original disc with a 40g disk. Can I take that disc out and put it in a case and get the data off it that way? I have a huge iTunes library and really don't want to lose that!
Any help or ideas would be very welcome!

An update on my poor iMac. My SO tested the power cord and it is ok. I cleaned inside the prong holders and the power prongs (or whatever you call those things ) well and reattached the power cord. Still nothing.
My SO opened up the iMac and we removed the battery. It tested at 3.2 volts. But we decided to try a new battery anyway. Before we took out the battery, I looked up what kind we needed in Apple Care and then called around, including Apple. No one said they carried the battery, including Radio Shack.
So, when we had the battery out, we were going by Radio Shack anyway and stopped by and, lo and behold, they had one for $12.50. I had seen the battery on the net for $2.95 so we'll probably order one.
I sure had a big surprise when my SO took out the mother board. It and the fan were absolutely covered with ASH. Yes, ash. I've had the iMac in the same room as our wood stove and I guess when I cleaned out the ash some of it went into the air and got into the iMac. It was at least 1/16 inch on part of the mother board. Maybe we got a hot spot on the mother board from that. **sigh**
We're going to look to see how difficult it is to test the power supply and/or to replace one. The poor old iMac is sitting on a table sans it's mother board and looking quite sad.
Thank you to everyone who has made suggestions so far.

Similar Messages

Using a hair-dryer to resurrect a dead iMac CTR!

I visit this forum often enough to see how many people are finding it hard to get their old (but perfectly usable) iMac CTR to work again.
Well, after putting in a new battery, my good old iMac G3 400 SE slot loader was still not booting. I knew everything worked. I turned it off for a day, and then it wouldn't boot up again. All I got was a green flicker as I tried to power on.
Well, low and behold, I used a hair-dryer to warm up the inside of the system, and it booted up fine!
Hopefully this might work for some others with presumable dead iMac G3s. But the question is why??? If I put the system to sleep I get the same "playing dead" iMac and have to wake it up again with the hair dryer. Any thoughts?

Thanks for your input. Yes I did check a number of things, including all connectors fitting ok, but maybe I missed something. I did try swapping out even the logic boards and hard drives, to no avail. My guess it is something with the monitor itself, since the other components work fine, and only when the monitor is heated enough will it start.
I have no problems with the computer otherwise, but I hate to waste electricity - it just can't sleep or it will play dead. Thanks again.
I hope this might help others who might have the same problem thinking it is something wrong with the computer, when it is really the monitor. Go get those hair dryers revved!

Use dead iMac Display as monitor?

I have a dead iMac (mobo fried) and was wondering if there is any way I can extract the display panel, and use either a bought or DIY/hacked adapter to use it as a standard monitor.

K Shaffer wrote:
This topic has been well-played here; the replies
given to several inquiries have been researched.
I'm not an expert, only having owned, repaired &
donated to charities, some 140 Macintoshes.
And I've not been heavily into dissecting my four
iMac G4 computers with 17" LCD displays. But
I do know the computer with a failed logicboard
will not support the display; the graphics or video
processor is integrated, and the panel has only
a few of the necessary support circuits with it
above the chrome arm in the panel's case.
There are a few ways of integrating a different
fully self-contained display into the dead iMac
case and perhaps use the existing LCD or an
other LCD and put additional circuitry into the
base of the iMac G4 instead of the dead LB.
And the earlier reply was essentially spot-on.
Other discussions on this topic are most likely
to be found in the proper forum for iMac G4,
Apple - Support - Discussions - iMac G4 flat panel:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=137
Later G5 & Intel-based iMac cases could be
used, empty, to support an entire complete
display of similar size; and the circuits likely
would fit if the case had room enough, empty.
An apology would be in order, if you came in
to a retail establishment and talked to a tech
with a determined to fail attitude like that.
Good luck & happy computing!
{edited to add correct iMac G4 forum link}
My attitude was like that because i know what I am talking about. I now it is not a display. That is what bugged me. he talked to me like I had no idea what I am talking about. he also did not provide an answer like you that was well thought out and seemingly well researched, he said "I guess." I will, and have accepted, that this is not really possible. It was not his answer, it was his attitude towards the question. and just a BTW, I am talking about the intel imac. The white one, not the g4.

G5 iMac rev B shuts down unexpectedly

I know there are other threads on this, but I thought I would start one for G5 iMac rev B models.
Mine is about 17 months old now (no, I don't have Apple Care!) and has worked very reliably - until yesterday. It shut itself down at some point during the night of Sat/Sun, and again about 5 minutes after I restarted it on Sunday morning.
What I've done so far:
1 after the second shut down, I restarted in single-user mode and repaired the disk using fsck -fy. No repairs were reported.
2 I also repaired permissions, although I believe this is irrelevant to the issue.
What I haven't done yet:
3 reset the PRAM
4 reset the SMU
So far (touch wood), the computer has not shut itself down again. If it does, I'll do steps 3 and 4 above and post back. It's now had exactly 24 hours uptime, by the way.
I'm in 10.4.8 (the profile can't be updated, so it's stuck at 10.4.7). Are there any other rev B users who have started to experience these shut downs? Is there any connection to being in 10.4.8, or is that pure coincidence?

To other Rev B owners with failed power supply units...
Unfortunately, I was not successful in convincing Apple to cover this part for my son's May 2005 Rev B. The repair was done, out of pocket, for about 200.00, by an Authorized Apple Service Center. I did get a written reply from Customer Relations today to my letter expressing my position and concerns vis a vis others who may be in the same situation. The official response was terse and essentially reiterated Apple's hard line position.
My guess is that quite a few more Rev B's will have to fail in order for this item to be covered by what would essentially be a revision to the Rev A's Extended Repair Program. The word "current" clearly appears in the original program description on line, as well as in their letter to me.
In other words, Apple might change course in the future and include certain Rev B models, one would assume, if the failure rates are high enough. At this point in time, it didn't really concern them that 100% of the iMac G5 Rev B's PSU's in our family failed.
Nevertheless, I understand the company's position. Although my hopes for reimbursement from Apple are dashed on this particular issue, it will not affect my future product purchasing decisions, except that I will definitely get Applecare coverage and insure myself for three years of worry free use.
It would be interesting to hear if anyone with a Rev B has actually gotten Apple to pay for this repair, outside of an existing Applecare Plan or expired one year standard warranty coverage. I ran into a brick wall, but others may have hopefully gotten through. If so, please share the details of your experience.

How to get data from hard drive in dead iMac?

I have an old slot-loading iMac (350Mhz G3 blueberry) that just died, probably a dead power supply or something. Won't turn on at all. I don't care about restoring it, I just want to take the hard drive out and grab data from it. I've found instructions for removing the HD ... but any tips on the best/cheapest way to hook it up to get data from it? It's EIDE I believe from what I've read so far. Thanks for any help.

Hey Richard.....Thanks for the reply to my question about my wife's dead iMac.....
Her iMac had been acting up lately, mostly to do with her Outlook Express freezing up in OS9. I dunno if OS9 was freezing or if the application was failing. Regardless, I would have to quit OS9, restart Outlook which at the same time restarted OS9. All would be fine for a while, a day or two and then the scene would repeat itself. But I think that issue is separate from the iMac being "dead". Often we have power outages in the area, more than we should. I had the iMac plugged into a battery backup, some APS product I think it is. I believe it is only good for less than an hour as we have other devices drawing on it too. Most of our power outages are of short duration, just enough to be aggravating, sometimes having to reset clocks, etc...And a couple times, I would have to reset the time and date on the iMac so this told me that the PRAM battery was below minimum voltage. But the iMac would ALWAYS restart, even with the low battery. But the most recent outage, about one hour duration, did in the iMac, somehow or other. I do believe the battery backup basically fully discharged. So I removed the battery, could not find a new battery locally so I drove to the big city and paid the local Apple service dealer a visit. I got ripped big time price wise, embarrassed to say. So I get home, put the battery in the holder, depressed the CMU reset, the powerbutton illuminated as did a green LED by the memory modules for less than three seconds and then quit. I also heard the HD trying to spin up and a high voltage THUMP which I assume is the CRT trying to ignite. If I unplugged the iMac, removed the battery, plug in the power again and hit the power button, the iMac would repeat the same short on period and then quit. So it did not seem to make any difference if there was a battery in place. I read somewhere to pull the battery, pull the AC cord, hold down the power button to dump any current (?) and let the unit sit for 24hrs. After that length of time, I was supposed to replace the battery, depress the CMU reset, wait ten seconds and then feed it AC. Well, when I pressed the power button, I heard life for maybe five seconds, maybe a second longer, then a beep and then it shut down. I pulled the AC cord, pulled the battery, re-inserted the battery, depressed the CMU reset, waited a few seconds, plugged in the AC cord, depressed the power button and I am back at the under three seconds of "power-up" and then nothing, dead, no beep, nothing. I think maybe it is a waste of time trying to mess with this unit, looking for a newer iMac on eBay, the snowball series with the 17" LCD, might be time better spent. Hate throwing stuff away, that's why I am up to my ears in junk, maybe u know that scenario. The wife likes my 19" ACER LCD screen, hooked up to this old dual 800mhz, though she dislikes the noise and the tower. But we both agree the large LCD screen is much easier on our aging eyes than the old iMac CRT. Anyway, I appreciate your help, always GREAT to correspond with an Apple fan.....John Bauer

Satellite 5100 - Question about dead pixels. Is it really dead pixel problem?

Hi,
I've got Satellite 5100-603. There have been some dead pixels on display. I don't know is it really dead pixel problem or not because the black area seems to be behind the screen. When i move left and right sides, the black area moves left and right sides too (as if the black area is behind the screen pixels)! And i can tell that all pixels are working OK when i look from the right and left sides of the display (because the pixels that seems to be dead, changes at different looking angles).
Are there really dead pixels or is it some other problem?
Is there anything that i can do about it?
For info, i am using my laptop for 2,5 years and there is no warranty of course...
Thanks for any help..

Hi
to answer your question I will try to make a simple description the layout of the TFT display.
I'll go from the front to the back.
In the front is a tough plexi-glass like layer to protect the screen from harm and the user from glass in case the TFT should break. It is also prepared in a way that will soften the reflections from behind (that does not go for the newer SuperBright screens).
Behind that is the 2 layers (at least 1 of glass, probably both) that hold the actual matrix of the pixels.
Behind theese 2 are a very complex set of layers that take care of the backlight. It consists of various numbers of films that should spread the light from the singel FL-tube evenly across the complete screen. Not a easy task if you ask me!
Sometimes, physical stress or dirt can make 'blotches' appear on the screen and they are in fact either dirt on the backmost layer or marks on the same. If there is dirt or marks on it, that will 'shadow' the light that comes out from it and show dark spots on the screen. They are quite different from defective pixels.
The defective pixels do not change with the angle of view for example.
I think you cannot do anything about this except changing screen. The construction is very complex and sensetive.
BR Tom

I wish to remove my hard drive from a dead iMac, and have it place into an external case. Any good sources for the person to do the work?

I have a dead iMac (mother board), intel duo.I wish to remove the hard drive and made into an external hard drive (hopefully being able to read the contents). Any recommendations as to whom I should go to to do the work?

AASP Locator

I had a 'dead' iMac repaired and it needed a new HDD & graphics card, the repairer installed OSX 10.6.8 and i now need to install other software but I am being asked for 'User' password so I may do this, I've no idea what this will be. Help please.

I had a 'dead' iMac repaired and it needed a new HDD and graphics card, the repairer installed OSX 10.6.8 and i now need to install other software but I am being asked for 'User' password so I may do this, I have no idea what this will be. can anybody help please?
<Personal Information Edited by Host>

On looking at the secure.log on the iMac with OSX10.6.8, I see these entries at each attempt to scp into the iMac:
Dec 29 11:06:20 molika sshd[7248]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Failed to determine Kerberos principal name.
Dec 29 11:06:26 molika sshd[7246]: Accepted keyboard-interactive/pam for prowat from 137.110.243.132 port 35571 ssh2
Dec 29 11:06:26 molika com.apple.SecurityServer[26]: Session 0x236a14 created
Dec 29 11:06:26 molika com.apple.SecurityServer[26]: Session 0x236a14 attributes 0x20
Dec 29 11:06:27 molika com.apple.SecurityServer[26]: Session 0x236a14 dead
Dec 29 11:06:27 molika com.apple.SecurityServer[26]: Killing auth hosts
Dec 29 11:06:27 molika com.apple.SecurityServer[26]: Session 0x236a14 destroyed
I don't know what to make of this.
Peter R

IPod is really dead...

I've had my iPod for almost two years and its been working swell, I let a friend of mine borrow it, she ended up dropping it on cement, but I was able to get a replacement screen for cheap and it looked almost new (still had that "tiny" bump") It also dropped once from around 6 feet height after this, but it survived, [since the floor was carpet] and later, it dropped again, a piece next to the hard drive cable that had "KL" on it ---part of the main mother-board thing, fell, and w/out it, it would not charge on my JBL speakers, only when I connected it to my PC. I finally decided to add the piece, (it then was able to be charged on the speakers) but when I dismounted it, the iPod [60GB 5G white] was hot and the hard drive made "digital processing" noises, after it cooled down, it would not turn on, AT ALL. No "low battery" no, "sad Mac" or of the sort, it will not turn on at all [even by pressing MENU et the center button, it will not] I left it alone for 3 days, and still, I could not turn it on. I checked the inside, the battery still had some juice, no chips were burnt, no cable were burnt or black. --The iPod looked exactly the same. It is just DEAD. It doesn't do anything anymore, even if I connect it to the PC. So its really dead, truly dead, not "low batt." dead, not "sad mac" dead, not "do not disconnect" dead, its hard drive dead. -_- Is there anything I can do now for it? To save it, or replace it, or etc....

You can bury it, you can take it to the Apple Store and get 10% off a new one for giving it to them. If you get a new one, tie it to yourself.

How do you fix a really slow iMac?

Ho dow you fix a really slow iMac?

More details please! Slow doing what: Web browsing"? Opening files? Starting up? Help us help you.
Apple has these suggestions for posting:
How to write a good question
To help other members answer your question, give as many details as you can.
Include your product name and specs such as processor speed, memory, and storage capacity. Please do not include your Serial Number, IMEI, MEID, or other personal information.
Provide the version numbers of your operating system and relevant applications, for example "iOS 6.0.3" or "iPhoto 9.1.2".
Describe the problem, and include any details about what seems to cause it.
List any troubleshooting steps you've already tried, or temporary fixes you've discovered.

Semi Dead iMac

I just inherited a semi dead iMac. When booted it displays the OS 9 icon and never goes any further. The previous owner says he was running 10.3.X
I ran Disk Warrior. It completed and the system was rebooted. The drive spun up but the screen remained black. The white LED lit up. I rebooted and held the mouse down to eject the DW disk. The drawer wouldn't open but I was able to manually eject the disk.
I rebooted and attempted to reset the PRAM. I only got one chime. I powered down and unplugged the power cord for one minute. Plugged power in and attempted to reset PRAM with no luck.
I reset the PMU and powered up. The drive spun up, the screen stayed black and the white LED remained dark.
Anyone got any ideas?
TIA,
Mike
G4 400, iBook, G5 iMac, Pismo PB, 1G iPod Mac OS X (10.3.9) F87, Crappy Toshiba Laptop, Trek Y66, Ludwig Vistalites, Birth. Drums. Death.
G4 400, iBook, G5 iMac, Pismo PB, 1G iPod Mac OS X (10.3.9) F87, Crappy Toshiba Laptop, Trek Y66, Ludwig Vistalites, Birth. Drums. Death.

If you have the disks, I'd try installing a fresh copy of OS X. Or running Apple Hardware Test.
Have you tried booting in verbose mode (cmd-v). You might get more a more specific error that way.

What to do with an old iMac Rev A

Hello,
I have an old (original) iMac Rev A with a fried logic board (that's just not worth it for me to fix... moved on to G4 and now G5), and I remember years ago there were kits to turn Mac Classics into fishbowls and terrariums (I even saw one turned into a litter box! LOL!). Has anyone seen a kit or easy to do ideas on what I can do with my "Bhondi Buddy"?
It was such a great computer in it's time I'd like to see it in the house serving another purpouse.
G5 Dual 2, G4 Dual 1.4 GHZ, iBook Graphite SE Mac OS X (10.4)

Jeff -
Check out this site for aquarium and
other ideas. Beware! This looks like an endeavor that
one could get carried away with.
Schadow
Thanks for the quick reply...
It does look very involved.
I remember there were Mac Classic "kits" to turn it into other things...I don't want to have to get this far into it...but thanks for the reply.

Won't start from Start up Disk- Dead iMac - help!!

Hi,
My iMac at work died today, first it crashed and then the hard disk began to spin and then the fan cut in and it sounded like a jumbo taking off. I used the power switch to turn off, waited a minute turned it back on and it then hung at the blue screen. Did this again two or three times but it still hung, sometimes in different places but always after the apple screen and the spinning thing. I then loaded the system disk and started it up, it loaded the install software screen and then crashes. I started the machine in "Safe Mode", it started properly but then crashed as soon as I tried to anything. I even loaded the startup cd in safe mode but it did the same.
The machine is very basic first generation iMac, no bluetooth, 160gb hd, 17inch 1.6gig 256 meg ram. Using Panther fully updated using Software Update. Nothing special.
Apple Care just wanted £35.00 from me before they would even tell me if I could take it direct to my local Apple Store - I say local but it would be a 100 mile round trip so I thought it best to check first.
Help, I can't even start from start up disk!!!!

Hugo, I had the same thing happen twice. The first thing I did is run the hardware diagnostics to determine if the disk had totally crapped out. This test passed on both occurrences. I then tried to repair the disk by booting from the install disk (hold down the 'c' key while booting) and using the disk utility. The first time I had the problem this fixed it. Last night it happened for the second time, this time repairing the disk failed. I had to erase the disk, reinstall the OS and upgrades and load user files from backup. One tip, don't call AppleCare unless you really want to be annoyed. I had some useless tech explain to me how the hard drive was analogous to a library, the librarian goes home at night with all the books properly in place and some kids come in and move all the books around. When the librarian comes in the next day she cannot do anything because the location of the books do not match the locations identified in her book catalog. So I asked, who these 'kids' are that messed up my disk. He said this just happens. Well this has just happened to this computer twice in a month and its old 9 months old. I have 3 PCs running that have never had this problem, one is 8 years old. One more thing AppleCare categorizes this problem as a software issue, not hardware, so it is not covered, even though it's Apple's software that failed ! You either have to fix it yourself or pay someone to do it for you. Sorry for the digression (as you can tell I'm a little frustrated with Apple), when I was just about done loading user files from backup, the iMac died, will not power backup, nothing, just dead. This is after I just spent 4 hours erasing the disk and reinstalling software and files. Guess I do have a hardware problem now.
Good luck

Five dead iMacs, all in a row... help?

Hi,
Over the years I have had a dozen iMacs from the revA up. Now I have a collection of five of them that are dead. I would like to cannibalize them to see if I could get a couple back up. My question:
What three parts are the MOST likely failures? All present with no startup, no nada. And all were running MacOS 9. For example, is the internal battery the same part number on all?
I'm going to use one of the remaining 233 as the "good parts" bin for now. All
Thanks

Miguel V...
I would say the flyback is the most common expected failure in a iMac (CRT). My guess is about 90-95%. This involves the Analog Board in the Tray Loaders, PAV board in the Slot loaders. Power supplies and other related items seem to be more rare but possible.
The Mac(s) that use a 3.6v 1/2 AA Lithum, standard tip & base battery, is a common industry standard. My preference has been the Saft LS 14250C mainly because of quality construction and 1.2 Amp/hour capacity. Others are probably ok but I can get them at a wholesale price 3 to 1 of the Radio Shack or Apple price.
Apple does list their own part numbers of which was given when some specs was drawn up at the time of manufacture. Those are just for ordering purposes and may contain other brands of acceptable quality.
...Ron

Hard drive died on iMac and getting replacement. I have all photos backed up on my iPad 3, which was synced directly to the dead iMac's iTunes. How can I move them back to my laptop and eventually to the repaired iMac?

I'd like to restore photos from my iPad3 to the iMac once I have a new drive. I had uploaded them directly from the iMac onto the IPad via iTunes. That iTunes was wiped out in the drive failure. In the meantime I wanted to move the photos to my MacBook Pro, but iTunes tells me they belong to another iTunes (mine also but was on the iMac) and syncing will erase the content on the iPad. Moved all photos (4000+) to an album in iPhoto on the iPad, but iPhoto on the MacBook doesn't see the album- It only see photos directly taken on the iPad. I seem to be caught in an owenership issue between my photos, my computers, and permissions due to the dirve failure.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
Todd

Photos synced to an iDevice are different from ones taken by the device's camera.
Difference between camera roll, photo stream, and photo library - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3846502
You will need to use a third party utility to try to recover them as it is assumed that if you transferred them from your computer you alredy have the original files on the computer and a backup of the computer itself (do not rely upon your iPad as a backup). Furthermore, the photos transferred to your iPad have reduced quality so they are not as good as the originals.
Here's my old list of utilities (this list was really done for music rescue so make sure they do photos too):
Note: The information below hasn't been updated since early 2013.
Some of the information below has subsequently appeared in a document by turingtest2: Recovering your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3991
Your i-device was not designed for unique storage of your media. It is not a backup device and media transfer was planned with you maintaining a master copy of your media on a computer which is itself properly backed up against loss. Syncing is one way, computer to device, updating the device content to the content on the computer, not updating or restoring content on a computer. The exception is iTunes Store purchases which can be transferred to a computer.
iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iOS device or iPod to a computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848 - only purchases from iTunes Store
For transferring other items from an i-device to a computer you will have to use third party commercial software. Examples (check the web for others; this is not an exhaustive listing, nor do I have any idea if they are any good):
- Expod (free) - http://www.headlightsoft.com/expod/ - Mac, universal for 104.+ (newer machines try de-Tune)
- deTune (free) - http://www.headlightsoft.com/detune/ - Mac, 10.5+
- Senuti - http://www.fadingred.com/senuti/
- Phoneview - http://www.ecamm.com/mac/phoneview/
- MusicRescue - http://www.kennettnet.co.uk/products/musicrescue/
- Sharepod (free) - http://download.cnet.com/SharePod/3000-2141_4-10794489.html?tag=mncol;2 - Windows
- Snowfox/iMedia - http://www.mac-videoconverter.com/imedia-transfer-mac.html - Mac & PC
- iexplorer (free) - http://www.macroplant.com/iexplorer/ - Mac&PC
- Yamipod (free) - http://www.yamipod.com/main/modules/downloads/ - PC, Linux, Mac [Still updated for use on newer devices? No edits to site since 2010.]
- 2010 Post by Zevoneer: iPod media recovery options - https://discussions.apple.com/message/11624224 - this is an older post and many of the links are also for old posts, so bear this in mind when reading them.

Really Dead iMac Rev B

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