Screen losing brightness / spontaneous shutdowns

2 Problems:
1.) My iMac G3 400 / slot-loader / OS 9.1 has had recent startup problems; i.e., occasionally shuts down spontaneously shortly after initial startup, or sometimes after several minutes, or longer use.
2.) The monitor has become darker. I brightened it a bit via the Monitor Control Panel, but it is still too dark.
Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
iMac G3 SE 400 mhz Mac OS 9.1.x 384 RAM 16 GB HD DSL Modem

I'm no expert, but experienced the same issue. I believe that the iMac is not retaining enough charge for the monitor (26,000 volts for minimum brightness), which is why a) it's so dim, and 2) other parts (hard drive, etc.) pull so much power during startup that it kills the machine.
This is what I did to rescue my iMac while I look for another machine (you should try all software methods [permissions, pram, system disk, etc.] before you do this):
1. UNPLUG.
2. open the memory door. Reach in and disconnect the CD drive (you may need to take out the memory cards for better access). It's a little snug in there -- you may need to get out some needle-nose pliers. The plug is the SMALLER (and outmost) of the two black boxes leading into the cd drive. The other one is soldered onto the cd drive itself, and -- ahem -- shouldn't be yanked out.
3. re-insert your memory cards if needed
4. Plug back in.
5. Try powering up. (zapping PRAM might be a good idea at this time, too)
6. Let it sit with its "?" (hey, where's the system?) icon for a while -- I believe this builds a charge large enough to :
7. Unplug, reconnect the CD drive, and power up.
If you have sucess, NEVER shut down (sleep was okay for me) unless you want to go through this process again. It seems the capacitor isn't holding charge on power down, or that the trickle charge isn't trickling well. It could also be that the charge is TOO large, but I doubt that.
Anyway, that is what worked for me. I'm typing from said iMac right now, and looking for a new one right now before it gets really scary...
iMac G3 500Mhz Mac OS X (10.3.9)

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Since most Apple resellers will forward your portable computer to Apple,
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Proof of your coverage should be in the main Support computers, but
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Periodically the computer screen darkens and requests shutdown
this problem inturrupts almost everything and it started happening ever since i installed snow leopard
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Message was edited by: FlipChris

Screen losing brightness / spontaneous shutdowns

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