[eaeskywalk]

Hello,

I am having a problem with an emac at work and was hoping someone might be able to offer me some advice. I work in a department at a college, and said emac is set up in a window for people in the halls to see, it continually runs a screensaver with some pictures highlighting our program. I believe it has been running almost nonstop for about 2 years.

Recently the computer just quit working. When we try to power it on, we can hear it trying to start, but nothing happens. I have never worked with this particular computer before, and as a result have no idea what processor it has, or what operating system it is running on, or anything else about it.

This feels like a stupid question, as I am not surprised in the least that a computer run for so long is having troubles, but is there anything we can do? School starts in about a week and we'd like to have it working by then. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Krusty]

Well, this may not be of much help, but if its been going for 2 years it probably a 700 or 800mhz G4 and its probably running some version of OS X 10.1. Computers of that vintage go for $500 or less these days so it may not even be worth repairing if it has a major problem. If you say that it "sounds like its trying to start up", I would recommend trying to find a system disk and holding down the "C" key when you try to start up. This will force the machine to boot from the CD rather than the hard drive. If this works, then you have a bad hard drive.

[eaeskywalk]

Thanks for the advice. This is going to sound really stupid now, but the computer was in this big tagboard-like box, so it looks like a TV. I took it apart to get at the actual computer and got my first real look at it... and just realized it's actually a tangerine iMac, not an emac. Also, I tracked my boss down and got some of the specs. It's a G3. I think he said 300 mhz. It's almost 5 years old, it's just that this screensaver thing has only been running for the last couple of years. I'm not sure if this changes anything... but I will definitely try finding the system disk and doing what you suggested. Thanks!

[Dave N]

Does it "chime" when you press the power button?

If it does NOT, and you can hear the hard drive spinning but nothing else happens when you press the power button, then it may be a dead battery. I have had macs act like that in the past when the battery died.

[Krusty]

Ahhh .. a tangerine iMac is pretty F-ing old. Its probably running OS 8.x or 9.x. Either way, booting from a system disk should still work to troubleshoot the hard drive. Dave N's post is another possibility. A third possibility is that it is, in fact, booting fine but the monitor finally went out. If that is the case then you are probably outta luck ... replacing the monitor would be far more expensive than the machine is worth and iMacs like your tangerine did not have Firewire or VGA-out like all of the models since then have had **.


** Note: DV iMacs and later had Firewire, which would allow you to use them as an external firewire drive to another computer -- allowing you to still access the contents of the hard drive even if the monitor wasn't working. Many also had VGA-out, which would allow you to use the iMac like a regular computer and view its display on an external monitor. Tangerine iMacs didn't have either of these abilities, I'm afraid.

[buffalolee]

Try replacing the battery. It's a $10 part, and it might work.