[Rand]

Ok, anyone have any ideas? I've worked with macs for over a decade and I have none...

PowerMac G4 running fine, with a few quirks (weird on-board firewire bus), but has run that way since a year after purchased. I just watched a video, eating some food - it tried to go into screen-saver and ended up with a white screen - frozen.

Hard reset by holding the front button. Once it restarts (lights go for it, HDs spool up, etc.) I find no signal to the monitor and my USB mouse has no power (doesn't light up).

Also, can't even open CD bay to check CDs as the keyboard command apparently doesn't get through.

Checked seating of all cards. Reset PRAM, unplugged everything but power, monitor, keyboard and mouse.



After a few minutes tried to ping/RD/Appletalk it to see if it was just headless - but nothing.

and I get nothing. It just sits there with it's single white light in front taunting me - everything spooled up, but no way to talk with it or have it talk with me.... poor windtunnel....
anyone?

[Rand]

Looks like it's the graphics card - taking it out and computer starts normally, allows mouse/CD/keyboard etc.

Replaced with a crappy old PCI video card and things work.


Can a video card do that? Where can I find a replacement? The computer is off warranty, does that mean the video card is as well?

[Sherman Homan]

The video card could have been the culprit. Headless restarts can result in an absolutely dumb Mac. The bad news is that the video card would be under warranty if the Mac was... I am glad you got it running with a "crappy old PCI video card". Do you need better? There are lots of video cards for the windtunnel available. Check out mactracker.ca for specifics.