Help! G4 problem after power cut...

[polkadot]

Hi all,

The electric tripped out this morning and cut my G4 off.

When I switched it back on the power light came straight back on on its own but there was no signal going to my monitor as if the mac was switched off so I tried to restart using the little restart button on the stack but nothing. I also tried holding the power button but nothing.

As all else had failed I tried turining off the power and back on but the power light is still stuck on!

Can anyone shed any light?

Cheers :0)

 

[MacHeadCase]

Welcome to Mac-Forums, polkadot.

Did you try unplugging it from the electrical outlet in the wall and waiting for about 10 minutes? This will help drain the capacitors.

You can try Safe Booting once you plug it back in by holding down the Shift key, then restart normally. See where that takes you.

I had a power outage myself last weekend (don't ask, the fuse in the electric box blew up - the air conditioning overtaxed the office's circuit or something) and the only way to bring my iMac back (it would absolutely not want to get past the grey screen and the spinning dial thingy no matter what I tried) was to run DiskWarrior on it and I got my lil' baby back.

This is the second time DiskWarrior saved my hide with an untimely power outage. DiskWarrior to me is part of the essential Mac software to have.

DiskWarrior is pricey, but it beats wiping your hard drive with all your files and reinstalling the OS any time.

 

[lolingram]

Welcome to Mac-Forums, polkadot.

Did you try unplugging it from the electrical outlet in the wall and waiting for about 10 minutes? This will help drain the capacitors.

You can try Safe Booting once you plug it back in by holding down the Shift key, then restart normally. See where that takes you.

I had a power outage myself last weekend (don't ask, the fuse in the electric box blew up - the air conditioning overtaxed the office's circuit or something) and the only way to bring my iMac back (it would absolutely not want to get past the grey screen and the spinning dial thingy no matter what I tried) was to run DiskWarrior on it and I got my lil' baby back.

This is the second time DiskWarrior saved my hide with an untimely power outage. DiskWarrior to me is part of the essential Mac software to have.

DiskWarrior is pricey, but it beats wiping your hard drive with all your files and reinstalling the OS any time.

Surely a far better investment would be a UPS... running any office without this is surely asking for distaster?

 

[MacHeadCase]

If I had an office, I would most certainly buy one, I'm a full-time student. But if you want to buy me one, I wouldn't say no.

 

[lolingram]

If I had an office, I would most certainly buy one, I'm a full-time student. But if you want to buy me one, I wouldn't say no.

UPS is cheaper than Disk Warrior, and no chance of a foutu Mac!

 

[MacHeadCase]

I bought DiskWarrior 4 years ago, paid an upgrade 2 years ago of $50CAN and it's still in use on the same license.

As for the UPS I want, I want a grace period of 15 minutes and need to plug in 3 Macs in it.

 

[lolingram]

I bought DiskWarrior 4 years ago, paid an upgrade 2 years ago of $50CAN and it's still in use on the same license.

As for the UPS I want, I want a grace period of 15 minutes and need to plug in 3 Macs in it.

3 Macs mais pas de UPS comme meme?

Très belles images sur votre site...

 

[lolingram]

I'm a full-time student.

May I enquire what subject?

 

[dtravis7]

I bought DiskWarrior 4 years ago, paid an upgrade 2 years ago of $50CAN and it's still in use on the same license.

As for the UPS I want, I want a grace period of 15 minutes and need to plug in 3 Macs in it.

Disk Warrior is in a class by itself and worth having in case something goes wrong on the Hard Drive. No UPS can replace that software. Not all HD problems are caused by Power Outages!


A UPS can really help if you have Power Surges and often outages. I bought one for the iMac G5 and glad I did the 2 times now the power went off. iMac kept on running and when the battery in the APC UPS went to 15% OSX shut down. I got this one on sale at a very low price. Glad I did purchase it especially after that one Outage with a large Surge before it went out!

To the OP, what G4 Mac is this? Tower? iMac? Do you get a startup chime or does the power light just come on when you plug in the power cord? Give us a bit more info on the Machine and it will be easier to help.

 

[MacHeadCase]

<Off topic>

3 Macs mais pas de UPS comme meme?

Très belles images sur votre site...

Merci beaucoup! J'adore ma caméra qui fait de très belles images. The model I was close to buying about 18 months ago cost around $150CAN (the cheapest I could find with a graceful shutdown period that was Mac compatible).

May I enquire what subject?

Desktop publishing, I think it's called in English? (Procédés Infographiques the real name of the course I am taking... the rhythm is insane, ack! )

</Off topic>

Disk Warrior is in a class by itself and worth having in case something goes wrong on the Hard Drive. No UPS can replace that software. Not all HD problems are caused by Power Outages!


A UPS can really help if you have Power Surges and often outages. I bought one for the iMac G5 and glad I did the 2 times now the power went off. iMac kept on running and when the battery in the APC UPS went to 15% OSX shut down. I got this one on sale at a very low price. Glad I did purchase it especially after that one Outage with a large Surge before it went out!

To the OP, what G4 Mac is this? Tower? iMac? Do you get a startup chime or does the power light just come on when you plug in the power cord? Give us a bit more info on the Machine and it will be easier to help.

Indeed, dtravis. And the area we moved to seems to have less reliable electrical power than the neighbourhood we moved from.

There might be wicked Terminal tricks to get the G4 back after power outages but I don't know them out of booting into Open Firmware and resetting NVRAM and a couple of others.

Anyone know what Terminal commands could be used in a case like this?

 

[dtravis7]

There might be wicked Terminal tricks to get the G4 back after power outages but I don't know them out of booting into Open Firmware and resetting NVRAM and a couple of others.

Anyone know what Terminal commands could be used in a case like this?

One of the main reasons I am asking the OP what exactly he owns is on older G4 Towers there is the CUDA button. I have seen that exact issue and one press of the CUDA and it was fine again. Not sure if you can do that on the iMac G4's though as I have never had one to check out. The power outage made something go nuts and I have a feeling it's that. Just a guess but I hope he comes back and tells us what Mac it is! A friends G3 B&W and another friends Yikes G4 both had that issue and holding down the CUDA button on the motherboard did it for them.

 

[lolingram]

Disk Warrior is in a class by itself and worth having in case something goes wrong on the Hard Drive. No UPS can replace that software. Not all HD problems are caused by Power Outages!

Data loss due to system crashes caused by outages/surges can be catastrophics by comparison

 

[MacHeadCase]

Yeah the CUDA chip reset fixes some startup issues and not knowing if it's an iMac or PowerMac changes everything.

Just in case, Resetting Cuda/PMU on Power Mac G5, Power Mac G4, Power Macintosh G3.

 

[lolingram]

<Off topic>

Merci beaucoup! J'adore ma caméra qui fait de très belles images.

L'appareil de photos fait uniquement ce qui ordonne le chef!

 

[dtravis7]

Data loss due to system crashes caused by outages/surges can be catastrophics by comparison

That still does not change the fact that the program is great for what it's designed to do.

 

[lolingram]

That still does not change the fact that the program is great for what it's designed to do.

Agreed, but not first priority by an order of magnitude IMHO, given that Disk Utility will look after your HD OK under most circs. Continuous surges will wreck PSUs as can be seen on this forum, with all that follows...

Strange how many (most?) folks will spend serious money on goodies, without much thought to backups and UPS.

 

[MacHeadCase]

Listen, in 11 years of owning Macs, I've experienced two power outages. The only thing I am thinking of is that we probably moved in a neighbourhood where the electricity service is a bit flakier and I will be looking into buying a UPS as soon as I can but financially we are heading for very very rough times and it won't be any time soon.

I say the service seems flakier because we had a couple of thunderstorms and the electricity went noticeably weaker at times, something I've never noticed at the places we used to live before.

DiskWarrior is a must have app IMO because when I used it, DiskUtility couldn't get me out of those jams (which weren't all power outages, btw) but DW did.

I will always recommend DW as a can't-be-without-it app. I'm not saying UPS shouldn't be considered by anyone, I'm just saying that DW is a life saver.

Now that I've had my say, I am out of this thread.

 

[dtravis7]

MHC, Agreed 100% as always. Also, a Hard Drive can mess up without the help of a power outage. Disk Warrior can help you recover your files. A UPS can not do that, but that is not saying a UPS is not important, but it's a totally different thing. DW is not meant to prevent damage due to a power outage, that a UPS does and quite well!! DW is made to repair your hard drive when nothing else works.

I will say nothing more on this.

Did the OP ever solve his issue?