[OmniX]

Hi--I have an older blue iMac/333 which is quite sick: I turn and on and here the bong and the fan (and possibly the HD) spinning up, but the monitor does not at all go on, and if I listen carefully, it doesn't seem as if the computer is booting up (i.e. the HD is not clicking and spinning as is normal during boot).


I think perhaps the iMac is finished, byt I'd much appreciate it if anyone has any ideas on any last-ditch things I can try to rescue it.

tx,
ox

[tooki]

New PRAM battery.

tooki

[OmniX]

what does PRAM have to do with the monitor turning on? (BTW I tried resetting PRAM, but holding down apple-option-p-r didn't seem to have any effect (no restarts and bongs).

[gto47]

A long time ago some mac models were unable to display video when their PRAM batteries died. For example a 6100 would not display video without charged PRAM battery. BUT even then most macs would boot properly without a charged battery, and certaintly all post G3 models will still boot without a good battery. The only purpose of the battery now is to retain date, time, and display settings. Most likely the machine has suffered a failure of its Analog Video board. Unfortunately the replacement of this part costs around $200 plus labor. This is actually a failure in the CRT itself, and not in the logic board or video circuitry. The first generation imacs (revision A-D 233a-333) are notorious for this failure. What myself and many others have done is to remove the insides of the imac with the exception of the analogue video board and the CRT unit from the chassis and transplant them into a standard ATX chassis. Since the imac display connects through a PNP connector you can hook up an old apple pnp monitor to it, or simply get a cheap pnp to vga adapter and use any monitor you want.