[Mac Write]

Not a good couple of weeks for me.

2 weeks ago Tuesday. I come home from being out, click my mouse to wake my computer, and well nothing, reboot to a "?." I then use my Mac OS 9.1 CD and well it can't see any HD's at all, shutdown and powerup, same thing, use disk utility can't see the drive.

reboot Zap PRAM back into Mac OS X.

Today. Monitor starts flickering and making staticky sounds, it then goes blank and the hazard lights come on (Power and energy light blinking).

I then turned off my monitor to have a nap, then 20 minutes later, I am hearing 2 beeps. they repeat about 10-15 seconds apart.

ok so I put my computer to sleep so I can sleep.

I wake up click my mouse to wake the computer. well an old style kernal panic appears (I am running Jagaur 10.2.1).

fine reboot to a disk (no question mark I think) seeing a grey screen is bad since my Radeon Mac:Edition sleeps until the starting services in Mac OS X screen. I hit restart without waiting and then black. I power off go for dinner.

come back power up holding keys to zap pram. nothing.

I look over at my mouse no power to it (IntelliMouse Optical). I look at my keyboard, no power either (ADB).

I let it startup and I am back into Mac OS X.

I then disabled QE and restart.

also at lunch after coming back I think my computer didn't wake then so I had to reboot then too.

Any ideas. I am told it may be the battery.

I have been using it for 4 years, 3 months, and 18 days. 16 hours a day + being on all week out of every fourth week since Sept 2000.

oh I almost forgot. my mom's iMac DV SE 1999 bought April 1, 2000, starting getting grinding metal, tones from the motherboard, and clicking sounds a weeka ago Friday. and is now in the shop and they couldn't reproduce the problem the HD is dying on it

[gto47]

The first things i'd check is your RAM and your Power Supply. Try swapping out some ram modules - they occasionally go bad. If not, it sounds like a power supply problem, though usually when a power supply dies, it dies altogether. My bets are on the RAM, this sounds like a classic case.

[Mac Write]

RAM? I have the 32MB orginal, and the 128MB bought with the computer (June 3, 1998 I am also told that it wasn't all the way in (that's when we replaced the HD July 2001). THen I popped in a Kingston 256MB last July.

Good news, is kingston RAM is $66 for the 256MB right now.

Power supplie hmmm. anything I can do to confirm it's the pwoer supply (without techtool)?

[gto47]

I'm a little unclear about your post now. you said before that the machine locked up during sleep, and that at one point it would not boot, and it displayed a panic on the power LEDs outside the case. If its working now, for any period of time, i would say that the possibility of it being the power supply is slim to none. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding before. The reason i said ram is that memory modules may become damaged and cause sporadic crashing (and kernel panics), and may cause the computer to be unable to boot. The flashing HD "?" at startup sounds like it could be an issue with the PRAM battery needing to be replaced, but the PRAM battery would be in no way linked to the lockups during sleep. It may be two different issues, i've heard of issues where, wit the update of jaguar, machines exhibited this problem... You might want to see if it crashes in sleep in os 9 at all, then we could separate the two issues, if in fact there are two. Also, its really simple to test if your PRAM battery is bad. Just leave the computer unplugged over night, and see if it still has the right day, year, and time when you turn it on 8 hours later. (When the computer is plugged in (in most cases) the PRAM battery is not needed, as the computer seeps a little power from the outlet to save time, monitor geometry, etc. Also, os 9 cant see os x formatted disk, unless you tell it to load os 9 functionality manually. So if you've formatted some disks within os x's disk utility and not checked that box, you might not be able to see it in os 9. You should still however see it in the os 9 disk utility. You might also want to check your jumper settings. Make sure the red stripe on the IDE (if thats what you're using) cable is facing towards the power plug on the drive.

[Mac Write]

The flashing LED's was on my monitor.

Then I got after that when I came home in the afternoon the "Out of Range" display from my monitor.

As for Mac OS 9 seing the HD's. I did the last format in July 2001 when I got it and it can see all the HD's. There all HFS+.

I don't want to even think about it being cuased by Jaguar. I don't have that kind of money to through away. (hence being stuck on a Beige G3, and at least another 24+ months at bare min on this computer).

When I called the local Apple Autherized Service center, they said it was the HD if Mac OS 9 can't see it (Ya right I don't believe the HD is dying).

So what would it be? This is my only computer BTW. I am a poor bottom feeder on Disability. So I can't afford to replace this computer for years if EVER.