Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

HotSoup · 05:01 PM

Hey, I hope one of you might know the problem and solution to this. Thanks in advance, i'm really in trouble it seems.

I live in Central PA, we got some rain and high winds from the echo of Hurricane Isabell. After the storm we tried to start up the PMac, nothing. The light lit like it was gonna start, then quickly dimmed out. Does that everytime. We changed the Power wire, don't think it's that.

So we sent it to this guy to see if he could do anything. he says he couldn't fix it for whatever reason, but he did say he thought it was a 'power source' problem. Another guy said he thought it might be a Power analog board problem.

But has anyone experienced a simliar problem? Any suggestions? We've had it for years so our warranty is obviously expired. After we get the comp back from this 'tech guy', we might call Apple. But any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks again.

voyageur · Oct 1, 2003, 06:54 PM

Reset the PMU (or CUDA). To do this, shut down your computer, open the door of your G4 and look for a small brownish button about 1/4" in diameter located on the logic board near the battery. Hold down the button for a few seconds, then close up the door and boot up.

t500 · Oct 1, 2003, 07:01 PM

The same thing happend to me. When I called applecare they had me unplug the computer for 2 minutes and then push that little button on the mother board (forget what its called). When you flip open the case its located in the righ side of the motherboard. Hold the button down for 10 seconds and you should be good to go (If you had the same problem as I did)...
Good luck!

Originally posted by HotSoup:
Hey, I hope one of you might know the problem and solution to this. Thanks in advance, i'm really in trouble it seems.

I live in Central PA, we got some rain and high winds from the echo of Hurricane Isabell. After the storm we tried to start up the PMac, nothing. The light lit like it was gonna start, then quickly dimmed out. Does that everytime. We changed the Power wire, don't think it's that.

So we sent it to this guy to see if he could do anything. he says he couldn't fix it for whatever reason, but he did say he thought it was a 'power source' problem. Another guy said he thought it might be a Power analog board problem.

But has anyone experienced a simliar problem? Any suggestions? We've had it for years so our warranty is obviously expired. After we get the comp back from this 'tech guy', we might call Apple. But any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks again.

pinkoos · Oct 2, 2003, 08:30 AM

Same thing happened to me and pushing that little button did the trick.

One thing, though, push it only ONCE! I read somewhere that if you push it more than once, it will screw things up or something like that.

HotSoup · Oct 3, 2003, 03:25 PM

Awesome! Sorry to bump this thread, but I wanted to say thanks. I'll try it out.

And to think we were gonna pay this tech guy a $100 to fix it.

HotSoup · Oct 4, 2003, 12:02 PM

Hey, guess I do need some extra help. I held down the button for 10 quick seconds and guess what, it booted! 1 problem down.

However, when I started up I got this folder icon that flashed the old OS 7 Finder icon (pretty much the same as Os 9 and 10.2, that one) and then it flashed a question mark.

I think I got something like this before so I held down X, nothing. Held down option to pick my drive and nothing showed up for selection.

I tried a few other things like inserting the software restore discs and it won't even recognize my hard drive for some reason. I ran a hardware diagnostic, seemed to pass. However I can't get it to recognize my drive.

Any suggestions? Thanks

Catfish_Man · Oct 4, 2003, 05:23 PM

Originally posted by HotSoup:
Hey, guess I do need some extra help. I held down the button for 10 quick seconds and guess what, it booted! 1 problem down.

However, when I started up I got this folder icon that flashed the old OS 7 Finder icon (pretty much the same as Os 9 and 10.2, that one) and then it flashed a question mark.

I think I got something like this before so I held down X, nothing. Held down option to pick my drive and nothing showed up for selection.

I tried a few other things like inserting the software restore discs and it won't even recognize my hard drive for some reason. I ran a hardware diagnostic, seemed to pass. However I can't get it to recognize my drive.

Any suggestions? Thanks

sounds like either a busted drive or a busted ATA controller. Hope its the first one.

HotSoup · Oct 4, 2003, 06:13 PM

How do I figure out which one and how to fix it?

HotSoup · Oct 5, 2003, 08:09 AM

I hooked my iBook up in firewire mode, so i'm running off that. Anything I can do now?

fady · Oct 5, 2003, 09:31 AM

I had a similar problem one day... at least I think... cause I did not have to use that button...

I could boot up from Jaguar Restore CD but Disk Utility would not find my drice...

So, I booted with an OS 9.2 CD and from there... for some reason I could reformat with Drive Setup and then rebooted and reinstalled Jaguar...

I am still unclear about all of this but it's been working awsome since...

best of luck!
F.

HotSoup · Oct 5, 2003, 08:04 PM

You see though... I don't wanna have to reformat and erase everything!

h00ligan · Oct 5, 2003, 08:48 PM

you don't have to format and lose everything, jsut reinstall x

do an archive and install to it.

HotSoup · Oct 7, 2003, 03:34 PM

sweet idea! I hope it worx. THen i'll just hafta update to 10.2.8, right? Cool. Maybe I should hold off till 10.3.... or not. Can't wait till the end of the month.

HotSoup · Oct 9, 2003, 03:15 PM

I now think it's a problem with my hard drive. There is a weird loud hum/buzz and I get the eerie feeling it is the hard drive needle scraping across the hard drive.

I guess i'll have to send that off to repair.