[tycheung]

This is concerning an iMac DV SE (graphite), just had a new logic board put in as I was an idiot and installed OS X without upgrading firmware, then compounded it by zapping pram. Now, it has start up troubles. What happens, when it doesn't want to boot up, is this:

1. pops into orange colored Open Firmware screen, I shut it down and reboot.
2. Next reboot, goes into white apple logo screen, then back into a black colored Open Firmware screen. I shut down.
3. Next reboot, it goes into white apple logo screen, then freezes with some white monitor band glitches across screen. I hard power it off. This will repeat with reboots.
4. I stick OS 9 boot CD in, it boots halfway and freezes. I hard power off again.
5. I try the OS 9 CD again, this time it boots.

From now on, it will boot normally. until next time.

Right now, it's set to boot into OS X 10.2.5. Not sure what happens with it set into boot to OS 9 yet (maybe this will avoid the prob?)

Any ideas as to why this happens? Any help would be appreciated.

[bwest3]

Originally posted by tycheung:
This is concerning an iMac DV SE (graphite), just had a new logic board put in as I was an idiot and installed OS X without upgrading firmware, then compounded it by zapping pram. Now, it has start up troubles. What happens, when it doesn't want to boot up, is this:

1. pops into orange colored Open Firmware screen, I shut it down and reboot.
2. Next reboot, goes into white apple logo screen, then back into a black colored Open Firmware screen. I shut down.
3. Next reboot, it goes into white apple logo screen, then freezes with some white monitor band glitches across screen. I hard power it off. This will repeat with reboots.
4. I stick OS 9 boot CD in, it boots halfway and freezes. I hard power off again.
5. I try the OS 9 CD again, this time it boots.

From now on, it will boot normally. until next time.

Right now, it's set to boot into OS X 10.2.5. Not sure what happens with it set into boot to OS 9 yet (maybe this will avoid the prob?)

Any ideas as to why this happens? Any help would be appreciated.

Almost all newer desktops have open firmware 3(version) and if you have booted into Open Firmware at startup chime(comm.+option+O+F) then you can make changes to the nvram. The only variables stored in PRAM are the partition and the disk number, which usually are returned to the default settings once the PRAM is reset. You can usually see what version of firmware you have when you boot into super user mode via command+S. It's usually the first or scond line you'll see come up.

If you are up to making some changes to your Binary Boot loader at the Open Firmware prompt then visit http://www.bombich.com to see what options are viable for your situation. You might want to try holding down the D key to enabe force booting from the internal disk or Command+Option+Shift+Delete for the first bootable device.
Your scenario seems repairable by you since it can boot eventually. Just have to find which variables need "tweeking".

Good Luck!

[tycheung]

Hmm...OK. thanks. So do you think there is or isn't something physically wrong with the board, or does a new logic board just need tweaking?

The problem seems to always occur if the computer has been left off for about 1 hour or more. Right now, I've tried taking OS X off the drive (well, i reinitialized it...), and it's only running OS 9.1 right now. The OS 9.1 version of this is:

1. boots with blinking missing disk question mark. I can reboot it with cmd-cntrl-power

2. after reboot, gets gray screen

3. after reboot - gets smiley mac and freezes - this may happen for 2 or 3 reboots.

4. reboots, gets to Welcome to Mac OS 9.1, will boot find from here.


It almost seems to me that something needs to "warm up" before the machine will work. I remember hearing stories about microfissures in the logic board, i.e when the circuit expands with head and closes the fissure, it will work. I really hope it's not that...