iMac G3 won't boot after installing Airport card.

Hello everyone, I received a free iMac G3 from a yard sale and got it working by replacing the 3.6V battery. I then ordered a Airport card for it and after installing then restarting it I am unable to get it working again. It has the same symptoms as the battery again but I tested the battery and it's good. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

iMac9 said:

Hello everyone, I received a free iMac G3 from a yard sale and got it working by replacing the 3.6V battery. I then ordered a Airport card for it and after installing then restarting it I am unable to get it working again. It has the same symptoms as the battery again but I tested the battery and it's good. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

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Did you install the Airport card with the special iMac G3 Airport card adapter?

- Nick

Yes and it booted up fine after I installed it but when it couldn't locate my Airport Express (or any router for that matter) I restarted it and it wouldn't boot. I'm just hoping I didn't fry the logic board.

iMac9 said:

Yes and it booted up fine after I installed it but when it couldn't locate my Airport Express (or any router for that matter) I restarted it and it wouldn't boot. I'm just hoping I didn't fry the logic board.

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Many people don't know about that adapter card...but then on the other hand...it's basically impossible to install the Airport card without that adapter.

So what exactly is or isn't this computer doing at the moment?

- Nick

Hahahaha sorry. Well when I push the power button it turns green and you can hear it start to boot up but then shuts down immediately. The screen shows nothing.

iMac9 said:

Hahahaha sorry. Well when I push the power button it turns green and you can hear it start to boot up but then shuts down immediately. The screen shows nothing.

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Earlier you mentioned that it did boot up fine (at least once)...is this correct?

This would seem to mean that the hard drive & current OS install on it is fine.

Do you have an OS DVD to boot from?

- Nick

That's correct, it did boot up successfully once. After not being able to connect to my router I turned it off and unplugged the power cable to ensure that the antenna was plugged in after checking that I plugged it back in and tried to boot it up and it wouldn't. Unfortunately all I have is snow leopard, which would be frustrating trying to run on a power pc Mac hahaha

iMac9 said:

That's correct, it did boot up successfully once. After not being able to connect to my router I turned it off and unplugged the power cable to ensure that the antenna was plugged in after checking that I plugged it back in and tried to boot it up and it wouldn't.

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I was thinking about this some more...and it is possible that the hard drive on this computer could be going bad (given the age of the computer). I have experienced hard drives that were going bad...where sometimes they would boot, and sometimes not...or the booting would take a very long time...and then finally the hard drive would crash for good!

- Is this HD making any "weird" noises?
- Also...is the iMac's display working ok? What do you see on the display when you start the computer (and it's not booting from the HD). Does the display "light up"? If so...what do you see?

iMac9 said:

Unfortunately all I have is snow leopard, which would be frustrating trying to run on a power pc Mac hahaha

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Not only would it be frustrating...it would be impossible (for a bunch of reasons)...but mainly because Snow Leopard will not run on a PowerPC Macintosh (no Intel cpu).

- Nick

I think you're right! I was just talking to a friend who said the same thing. Upon further listening I cannot hear the hard drive at all. It's probably the original 5200 or 5400 RPM hard drive which makes a loud, cracking sound when it would start up fine before.

The display will not come on at all though. You can hear it start up but then immediately shut off. Would a bad hard drive affect the display also?

iMac9 said:

The display will not come on at all though. You can hear it start up but then immediately shut off. Would a bad hard drive affect the display also?

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No. A bad hard drive would not effect the display (the display should still illuminate).

Has the display ever worked since you got this iMac G3?. It sort of sounded like it was working in the beginning of this thread (posts #1 and #3).

But if the display is not working at all (no illumination)...then with no display, it's hard to be 100% sure if the computer is booting properly or not.

A free iMac G3 from a yard sale is not always "free" for no reason. I'm sure (from what's going on in this thread)...that preexisting conditions were present.

Keep in mind...these iMac G3's are only worth about $20 bucks (sometimes more)...so you may have already exceeded it's value by purchasing the Airport adapter card & Airport card (assuming you had to buy them).

- Nick

G3's are almost always fussy given their age, it is possible that the logic board is going or the HD. (sometimes having a dead HD can cause some very strange issues)

Any idea on what Operating System you're running right now?