Flashing light - freezes up

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Oct 27, 2008
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Fenton, MI
Your Mac's Specs
eMac, G4 running 10.3.9
Please help! I'm not a total idiot (just don't ask my wife, ok) in general but when it comes to computers I'm pretty close. My G4 eMac has worked flawlessly for about 4 years now, and we love it! We'll never go back to the dark side! Anyway, my wife says the machine will lock up occasionally when she tries to wake it from sleep mode or even if the screen saver comes on. The computer will not respond to anything. She turns it off and on again and it will not start up. Sometimes it will sit there, humming, other times it will amit a LOUD beeping from the speakers and start to boot up. At that point one of us will have to either turn it off and on again, then off and on again and repeat this process for as much as 20 - 30 mins!! Each time the computer more-or-less get's a bit farther into the boot-up process. Wha I did notice is that after the computer tries to boot, the screen shows nothing but the white light on the front of the computer will flash either 4 or 5 times quickly. I've tried to run everything I know how as far as disk utility stuff. I did a sweep for adware and found very little. After running the utilities and adware programs there is still no change.
Any suggestions??? I tried the search function on this forum but didn't find anything so please forgive me if I over-looked something.

Jeepaholic
 
Joined
May 18, 2008
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Amberley, Canterbury, New Zealand
Your Mac's Specs
MacMini 14.3, 8.1 & 4.1, OS 13.5, 10.14, & 10.11 & 10.6; Macbook Pro 8.2, OS 10.12.
Oh dear, that reads like the notorious eMac capacitor/logic board failure. It's a terminal condition I'm afraid, and there are three options (well 4, if you include throwing the eMac out).
1. Try to take the eMac apart yourself, to remove the logic board, and have the capacitors replaced at a TV repair shop or similar,
2. Remove the logic board and replace the capacitors yourself (a tricky job),
3. Take your eMac to an Apple store and have them replace the complete logic board. You could try pleading for a kind deal, but the Apple free logic board replacement program is long gone.
Option 3 is very expensive (US$400 or more). Option 1, if you bought the correct capacitors yourself, might cost you US$75-100, Option 2 about US$40.

If I can help you in respect of a complete eMac repair manual (.pdf - 7 Mb), feel free to PM me - but make it soon because I go shortly to dialup only for a fortnight.
 
Joined
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Location
Amberley, Canterbury, New Zealand
Your Mac's Specs
MacMini 14.3, 8.1 & 4.1, OS 13.5, 10.14, & 10.11 & 10.6; Macbook Pro 8.2, OS 10.12.
OP
J
Joined
Oct 27, 2008
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Location
Fenton, MI
Your Mac's Specs
eMac, G4 running 10.3.9
Well, I took the thing apart last night. I couldn't see anything wrong with the caps. No leaking, no bulding or anything. Now I'm bummed because at least I could fix that. what is the next step? At this point it won't even boot so I can't run the self tests or anything. Is it the logic board? could it be BOTH sticks of RAM went out?
HELP!!!!
 

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