Dead iMac

[Supreme_Cmdr]

So I was walking home from Uni today and what did I see on the side of the road but an Indigo iMac. So being the hoarder that I am I lugged the little fellow home to see if it would work.
From googling it looks like it is an Indigo iMac 350Mhz, 64MB RAM, 24x CD etc.

So I after looking it over and trying to see if anything visible was broken, I applied some power. To cut a long story short, nothing happened?

So have I lugged another junker computer home for nothing or do iMacs need something special plugged in to make them boot. I would really like to get it working without spending much/any cash on it. Can anyone offer some tips on how to ressurect this beast?

lots of warm, sticky +rep for people with HELPFUL suggestions.

[daonoir]

its a mac you cant fix them thats half the issue with them all the parts if you need any you'll find hard to get. I would put it back out on the curb now like the bitch it is. but if your one of thoes people who find it realy hard to do that. Start form the start make sure all the plugs inside are in place make sure the power supply is good if thats all good forget it unless you realy know what your doing static damage can kill a comp and youll never know where the prblem is unless you have the equiptment.

have fun i would be :D

PS dont open the screen you can kill yourself unless you discharge the power first.

[-=[BB]=-]

Did it power up at all?
I had one exactly the same, which I tried to install OS X on, but for that model you need to update the firmware first or it will stop the screen from working.

If it powers up (makes sounds and all but no picture) that could be the problem.

[druid]

If all else fails, remove the hardware that might be of use and then convert it to a fishtank.

[-=[BB]=-]

If all else fails, you can use the RAM & Hard drive in a pc.
Or you could give it to me :p I will trade for a powerbook 520 and a power mac 6100 DOS. :D

EDIT: they both work btw.

[cyberwired]

smash it with a sledge hammer and post pics (good quality)
do this and I will rep you and give you zcash

pm me if I dont notice the thread if u do this

[Supreme_Cmdr]

cyberwired: There will be no smashing of computers that may possibly be sort of ok at some point in the future, maybe. I am not looking after a stack of 9 SGI Indy's for nothing.

Ok back to the point, it turns out I am fucking slow today and blind and possibly special. A black power cable was hooked into the iMac and another was hooked into the power they just weren't the same cable. :clap:

So I powered it on and the screen lights up and it makes nice Mac noises. But then that nasty clunky, scrapey noise starts comming from the HD. Bugger. No OS for me. I am pretty sure from that noise that the HD is gone, like so many other cheap IDE pieces of shit.

What to do, well I am going to "borrow" a USB keyboard and mouse from work. Hey I am the sys admin, at least at the moment, I am allowed to "borrow" things :fu: . Anyway I have a copy of OS9 and OSX Panther sitting around here so I might see if I can boot from those and see whether it is just the OS that is fucked or the HD.

Questions:
How to I get to the firmware on one of these things? Apparently they have OpenBoot like Sun gear so I should be able to get some good info from there.

Does anyone have one of these and do you run OSX or OS9? I am hoping I can jam OSX on there as OS9 isn't real interesting. Last resort I can put Linux/BSD on it.

[cyberwired]

my first try would be see if you can ghost hdd to hdd

no idea what happens with it being mac though

and we smashed up an NEC laptop with a golf putter the other day, will post pics when I remember

[-=[BB]=-]

Questions:
How to I get to the firmware on one of these things? Apparently they have OpenBoot like Sun gear so I should be able to get some good info from there.

Does anyone have one of these and do you run OSX or OS9? I am hoping I can jam OSX on there as OS9 isn't real interesting. Last resort I can put Linux/BSD on it.

Ok well I have exactly the same model, I have OSX running on it (10.2 from memory)
If you are going to run OSX you might want to bump the ram up to at least 256mb. From what I can remember to get into the firmware in OS9 you push the Apple key and the power button on the keyboard. If you do put OSX on there, put OS9 on first and update the firmware (get the updater from the apple site) read this about the firmware update (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75430)

[Supreme_Cmdr]

Cool, I'll make sure I do that firmware update.

I am sure I have some spare ram around here that I can put into it, OSX likes the RAM so I'll see if I can max it out. Some people I know might be getting a friendly call :D .

After leaving the computer on for a couple of minutes it comes up with a finder icon, a little folder with the finder face thing in it. Then it just sits there doing nothing for a while, then the face flashes to a ? then back. The fact that the Finder icon comes up must mean it is starting to load the OS but it can't find something after that? Not sure about the boot sequence for OS9 so I can't really tell. It looks like I will have to wait until tomorrow night before I can do anything with my new toy.

-=[BB]=- : I would be interested to know exactly what version of OSX you have on yours, I have a legit copy of Panther here and other versions are just a bittorrent away, though for some reason I prefer to pay for Apple software if I can. And how useable it is with the version you have? It looks like it is pretty crippled with only a G3 and 8Mb or video ram. Lots of the features in Panther relied heavily on Altivec and heaps of RAM.

[DCenT3]

if its dead..its dead. Dont try some stupid wake the dead bullcrap one me, it doesnt work. :p

[-=[BB]=-]

After leaving the computer on for a couple of minutes it comes up with a finder icon, a little folder with the finder face thing in it. Then it just sits there doing nothing for a while, then the face flashes to a ? then back. The fact that the Finder icon comes up must mean it is starting to load the OS but it can't find something after that? Not sure about the boot sequence for OS9 so I can't really tell. It looks like I will have to wait until tomorrow night before I can do anything with my new toy.

-=[BB]=- : I would be interested to know exactly what version of OSX you have on yours, I have a legit copy of Panther here and other versions are just a bittorrent away, though for some reason I prefer to pay for Apple software if I can. And how useable it is with the version you have? It looks like it is pretty crippled with only a G3 and 8Mb or video ram. Lots of the features in Panther relied heavily on Altivec and heaps of RAM.

Sounds like it cant find the system folder from the flashing folder icon. Probably a corrupt install, you could always try booting off the os9 cd (hold down the C key while you turn it on until you see it start to boot) and you might be able to fix the install (or see what other stuff was on the HD)

I have 10.2 (Jaguar) installed, it seems to run fine, mind you I never played games or anything on it, my brother got it for surfing the net and emails.
I dunno about running Panther on it, I dont have a copy so havent tried, but it should run.

[Lina]

Agreed...sounds like it needs rebooting with the op system CD. I've had this happen to me and I also had to reset the PRAM because it couldn't find the hard drive once it rebooted. Turns out the hard drive was absolutely fried but I was pretty sure that was the problem anyway considering the noise the thing made when trying to spin the disk up :D Once I got a new hard drive in it worked a treat - worth the effort!

[Lina]

its a mac you cant fix them thats half the issue with them all the parts if you need any you'll find hard to get. I would put it back out on the curb now like the bitch it is

Congratulations on writing one of the most ignorant posts I've read on zgeek! You are a winnar!! No really. :ride:

[daonoir]

when was the last time you went to find parts other then ram or hd for a mac

[-=[BB]=-]

when was the last time you went to find parts other then ram or hd for a mac

Never, I havent had a mac die on me in all my years of owning them, and you dont need to upgrade every 6 months because it should do everything you need (apart from play the latest games) straight out of the box.

[Lina]

when was the last time you went to find parts other then ram or hd for a mac

Oh yes...Mac parts are akin to hens teeth and unicorn horns. I forgot. Silly old me. :roll eyes:

[rayjayjohnson]

keep an eye on the optical drive. I had one fo the original tray-loading bondi blue models, the cd-rom was almost fucked from the day i got it. by the end, when a restore was necessary, there weren't too many options.

[Supreme_Cmdr]

Cheers for all the replies people, I now have 2 rep points.

I managed to grab a USB keyboard and mouse from work so I am all set to waste tonight trying to get this thing to work.

I have googled how to drop into the firmware on one of these things but all the instructions assume I have a mac keyboard. Which sadly I don't. Can I use a normal keyboard to get into the Firmware? Most notably I am missing the Option/Apple key....

Though as I am writing this I notice that the option key = alt so I tried that and now have firmware. Woot.

Now onto the OS9 reinstall / repair...

More detail to come.

[Supreme_Cmdr]

So after 25 mins of trying every damn key combination I could find I get into the firmware and it shows me 0 options from which to boot. The little clock sits there taunting me for a while and when it stops nothing.

So it definately means the HD install is cactus, but it wont recognise my OS9 install disc. Granted it originally came with my PowerBook but it should still be bootable? :shrug:

So people what are my options, as I see it either:
- the cdrom is broken, it sounds like it spins up and does stuff but that doesn't prove anything.
- my OS9 cds are not bootable in this Mac.
- I shound just download a PPC version of linunx and be done with it.

Hmmm, can I get a command line firmware interface. Something where I can query what hardware I have and do some diagnostics?

[Lina]

If you can't boot from the CD then I'd say your hard drive is gone. Installing linux isn't going to help you much.

[Supreme_Cmdr]

After a little more messing about, I have found out that the OS9 and OSX cds I have will only boot on PowerBooks something I wasn't real happy about. Jeez you'd think after buying $4000 worth of computer you would get a full-version of the OS.

The grating clunky noise was starting to annoy me, so I decided to perform open-heart surgery on the iMac and disconnect the HD. Maybe not that bad but these cases sure aren't like a PC. After unhooking that, no more noises and dropping into the firmware was much faster. Oh and getting into the firmware is Command-Option-O-F and if you know OpenBoot you can mess around and find most things you need.

So it looks like I will just have to put another HD in there and grab a full-version of OS9/OS, plus the extra RAM and I will have a fully working iMac.

Oh and luckily for me it is a slot loading cd drive not the nasty tray loaders.:clap:
Thanks for all the replies people, I'll have to share more of my Mac links here from now on.

[rayjayjohnson]

So after 25 mins of trying every damn key combination I could find I get into the firmware and it shows me 0 options from which to boot. The little clock sits there taunting me for a while and when it stops nothing.

So it definately means the HD install is cactus, but it wont recognise my OS9 install disc. Granted it originally came with my PowerBook but it should still be bootable? :shrug:

So people what are my options, as I see it either:
- the cdrom is broken, it sounds like it spins up and does stuff but that doesn't prove anything.
- my OS9 cds are not bootable in this Mac.
- I shound just download a PPC version of linunx and be done with it.

Hmmm, can I get a command line firmware interface. Something where I can query what hardware I have and do some diagnostics?
when my cdrom died, i manages to boot the system, set up a network with my ibook, and copy the os8.5 cd to the imac. it then ran said software and made a (slightly) functional computer again.

[jambo]

I was in a similar situation with an old iMac. In the end I...

- Installed OS 9 to a new HD using another Mac and an external caddy
- Popped said HD into iMac
- Burnt 10.4 onto a DVD put it in a DVD-Rom drive connected via the external caddy
- Ran XPostFacto

[cyberwired]

=-']Never, I havent had a mac die on me in all my years of owning them, and you dont need to upgrade every 6 months because it should do everything you need (apart from play the latest games) straight out of the box.

yeah umm pc will do the same aye
it will do everything you need when you first buy it but later on down the track it wont do the new stuff as good, same as a mac