Forums | MacLife

could this be the problem?

OK, beeps and flashing lights are a clear sign of a hardware problem.
I don't mean to sound like and ass, but contrary to the last two posts, this problem almost certainly has nothing to do with power cords, mice, or keyboards.

http://www.welovemacs.com/whdoallthbme.html

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

In addition to the beeps, on some computers the power LED will flash a corresponding number of times plus one. The LED will repeat the sequence after approximately a 5-second pause. The tones are only played once.

Shut down (don't restart) and power your Mac up.  Try to get it to beep / flash again. This may not happen immediately and you may need to do this several times. Count the number of beeps your mac is making.

Or, you may want to try the hardware test CD which may have come with your Mac. That might be able to diagnose this problem.

Have you installed RAM recently? If so, bad RAM could be the problem.

Last edited by Aqua OS X (2007-09-02 6:00 am)

I called apple and they made me do a SMC reset which I had never heard of. I have tech tool pro and I ran all the tests and they passed but like an idiot I rebuilt the volume structurse and that ran ok so I tried to optimise and it shut down in the middle of that!  It seems everything is OK. I will try to unhook the trimring. I have a USB hub attached and off and a firewire cable hooked up and unplugged, but I have had all that the same for 2,5 years. I recently updated extensis suitcase but I cant believe that is the problem.  They want me to take my imac to a apple store and leave it there.
I really dont want to do this as even though I have no top secrets all my keeychains etc to my banks etc are there. I backed up all my stuff but still kind of leary eraseing my whole drive..... 

I have 1 gig of ram and it seems to be working so the test says....

Thanks for all the suggestions any more will be greatly appreciated. I think it is a power supply issue but they said that usually would go dean and not come back on???  Should I do a PRam thing??? Also what is the hardware test that came with the mac??  do you mean tec tool deluxe???

Thanks again  Rob

Hardware test is a CD that you probably have.

Backup your files to CD or other hard drive, and take Big Mac in for a date with shake and fries.

Considering the beep, I'm betting this is a RAM problem.

But yeah, back it up, take it in, and prepare for the worst (all of your data erased).

Aqua OS X wrote:

Considering the beep, I'm betting this is a RAM problem.

But yeah, back it up, take it in, and prepare for the worst (all of your data erased).

Take out all but 1 RAM chip.   If there's no beep, then a bad RAM chip has been removed.

What is the internal temperature of your computer?  Might be safety system to shut down your iMac if it gets too hot... Check the cooling fan... does it have a fan?

oh they said my apple care was not on the computer and she said I needed to contact apple to straighten it out. I asked since they were apple whether they could help me and she said I had to call.....

All,

Well the apple store finally called and I went and picked up my imac. It was late so I plugged it in and didnt really get to play with it much but the dark lines are gone on the display and all my stuff was still there that I did not get to erase. (scary?  or  cool...???)

They said they had to replace a power supply and the logic board. I have a question, I have a m-audio audiophile digital firewire interface which I hook my stereo up to. There are alot of warning about hot pluggging the firewire device as this has caused other devices to burn out the Firewire bus port in your computer or disable the firewire device itself.  I am only mentioning this as a possible cause for my problem.  That said I did not unplug or plug in the said device at anytime while on however I am pretty sure the imac shut down once or twice with the device on. I then shut it down and restarted the mac.

Anyway we will see what happens....

Thanks for all of your help and suggestions