powerbook G4 won't start

spider999 · Feb 9, 2007

My powerbook G4 is about 18 months old. Yesterday whilst on the net it froze and it told me to restart. This I did and it ran for about two minutes before the same thing happened. When I restarted it it came up with the starting mac OSX window and then the same message appeared.

Now when I turn it on the fans start, the optical drive runs and then it makes two low beeps before doing nothing else. I have no applecare so they won't help appart from directing me to the website. I've tried resetting the PMU and the PRAM (i think thats what they called it!) but with no joy. I also tried starting from the install disk but again no joy.

If anyone has any ideas I'd be a greatfull recipient an IT friend says it sounds like bad memory but was very non-committal.

Thanks in advance.

rman · Feb 9, 2007

1 beep = no RAM installed
2 beeps = incompatible RAM types
3 beeps = no good banks
4 beeps = no good boot images in the boot ROM (and/or bad sys config block)
5 beeps = processor is not usable

Have you installed any RAM lately?

KoDorSean · Feb 9, 2007

spider999 said:
My powerbook G4 is about 18 months old. Yesterday whilst on the net it froze and it told me to restart. This I did and it ran for about two minutes before the same thing happened. When I restarted it it came up with the starting mac OSX window and then the same message appeared.

Now when I turn it on the fans start, the optical drive runs and then it makes two low beeps before doing nothing else. I have no applecare so they won't help appart from directing me to the website. I've tried resetting the PMU and the PRAM (i think thats what they called it!) but with no joy. I also tried starting from the install disk but again no joy.

If anyone has any ideas I'd be a greatfull recipient an IT friend says it sounds like bad memory but was very non-committal.

Thanks in advance.

Troubleshooting: My computer won't turn on

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300552

spider999 · Feb 10, 2007

Thanks for the replys. Already tried the trouble shooting stuff with no luck.

I haven't installed any extra RAM, could this mean what's inside is dead?
With that in mind could changing the RAM solve all my troubles.

spider999 · Feb 12, 2007

rman said:
3 beeps = no good banks

simple question what are banks?

??? · Feb 12, 2007

Its a real long shot, take out your wireless card. Very unlikely, but its simple to do and worth a crack.

Osiris22x · Feb 13, 2007

spider999 said:
simple question what are banks?

Memory banks are the physical slots on the motherboard, that RAM is installed into.