09-24-2009, 02:56 PM

I'd finally stopped dithering and made the switch, buying the above machine from a chap off e-Bay - an old model but lots of upgrades. It runs Leopard 5.1.8. Three weeks in this happens.

I'd just remembered something I'd forgotten to do. I was about two feet away and I'd just turned on the computer. As what it was came to into my head, and annoyed at my own absent-mindedness, I banged my hand on the desk, at which point the computer died.

I've never known something of this kind happen so I can only assume reverberation dislodged something. When I press the on/off button the light goes on for as long as I hold it down but nothing starts up.

I can't reset PMU. That requires start-up and I'm not getting any power. It's just dead to all intents and purposes.

Then again if it's dead why does the On/Off switch light up at all?

Please don't tell me it's a gonner. Although a novice when it comes to computers three weeks was quite enough to decide my preference. Bad enough that I've had to hook-up my Windows machine to send this.

09-24-2009, 04:16 PM

Buying a used machine, especially an older one off eBay is a like a trip to Las Vegas. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes not.

I guess you could have disturbed something in the machine so that it came loose when you banged the desk, but it also may be coincidental. Or it could have been jury rigged by the seller so that it worked. (Let's hope not.)

Are you handy with taking things apart? If you are, disassemble the machine and look to see if you can find anything that perhaps came loose. Also take note of the PRAM battery.

Maybe one of these Apple manuals can help: Link

Regards.

09-24-2009, 05:44 PM

Originally Posted by chscag

Buying a used machine, especially an older one off eBay is a like a trip to Las Vegas. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes not.

I guess you could have disturbed something in the machine so that it came loose when you banged the desk, but it also may be coincidental. Or it could have been jury rigged by the seller so that it worked. (Let's hope not.)

Are you handy with taking things apart? If you are, disassemble the machine and look to see if you can find anything that perhaps came loose. Also take note of the PRAM battery.

Maybe one of these Apple manuals can help: Link

Regards.

Thanks for this. Unfortunately I'm no good at all with anything technical so I'd just be poking around blind, especially as the printed circuitry (motherboard?) on mine looks different from the illustrations in the PDFs. I read elsewhere the battery might be a possibility. However I can't test it without juice and it seems unwise to buy a new one until I'm sure this one doesn't work. After all what else is lighting up the On/Off button without electricity?

I'm beginning to fear the worst.

09-24-2009, 11:35 PM

You said its a G4...The pram battery is a 1/2 size lithium 3.6 volts and some Macs refuse to run when one is dead. There is a like silver button called the cuda button its either next to the cpu or the memory. You push it with the machine unpluged for a few seconds plug the machine back in and try it. This resets the Mac. Leave the side down when you start it and see if the little green LEDs lite next to the IDE ribbion. Theres also one in front of the cpu that says power in small writing. It should lite too. Make shure the video cable is tight.

09-26-2009, 08:52 AM

I knew about the battery and had tested the reset button, though I tried it again after reading your post, just to be on the safe side. Nothing lit up, but I poked around the internals a bit while I was there - you know, making sure no plugs had come loose and so forth.

The last one I tried was tucked away in a narrow space beside the main hard drive carriage, directly underneath the optical drives and On/Off button. I don't know whether it was moving this or the pressing the reset button that did it but either way it started up as normal after that. Obviously a loose connection of some sort.

That was yesterday evening....at which point I promptly lost my internet connection until about ten minutes ago. Belated thanks for your consideration and advice. Fingers crossed there are no further problems.

Cheers

09-27-2009, 12:09 AM

Originally Posted by Philipdru

I knew about the battery and had tested the reset button, though I tried it again after reading your post, just to be on the safe side. Nothing lit up, but I poked around the internals a bit while I was there - you know, making sure no plugs had come loose and so forth.

The last one I tried was tucked away in a narrow space beside the main hard drive carriage, directly underneath the optical drives and On/Off button. I don't know whether it was moving this or the pressing the reset button that did it but either way it started up as normal after that. Obviously a loose connection of some sort.

That was yesterday evening....at which point I promptly lost my internet connection until about ten minutes ago. Belated thanks for your consideration and advice. Fingers crossed there are no further problems.

Cheers

Good To Go thats Great! Sometimes viberation makes things get loose.

09-27-2009, 07:06 AM

Originally Posted by Mac SK

Good To Go thats Great! Sometimes viberation makes things get loose.

Yes...I bought a old G3 iMac about a month ago...turned it on, got the "?" question mark icon...and thought to myself this "sucks".

Then I thought that the machine was running very very quiet. Opened it up & discovered that the power cable from the hard drive to the motherboard was disconnected.

Plugged it in...everything was fine!

Always nice when a problem can be fixed so quickly & easily!

- Nick