OT G4 won’t start up

[Tom Brooks]

Google something like Macintosh diagnostic help and see what you get. Some of the best help is on the Apple Support site, if you can find the right article. I pasted a link below that I found elsewhere which might help. Start with that.

You need to go through a standard system diagnostic procedure. Unfortunately, I’m no expert on those. But, there are certain steps involved that can focus in on the problem area. Do you ever get anything on the screen before it quits? It sounds like your system board is OK, but it’s possibly not finding OS-X to boot up with. So, your hard drive could be faulty or your video system…

I guess the basic need is to get the computer started up one way or another and then run some diagnostics and repairs on it.

YOu can try to start in Safe Mode. After the chime, hold down Shift. This prevents the system from loading anything but the minimum services and extensions. If something in your software is causing a conflict, Safe Mode might get around it.

If that doesn’t work, you can startup from your OS-X install disk by holding down the C key during startup.

After that you can start with Disk Utility to see what’s up with your startup hard disk. Repair permissions.

See what other suggestions you get and look for articles like the one in the link below.
Try this link as an example!

[Tom Brooks]

I meant to point you to this link:
https://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n300537
This is an example of a basic troubleshooting method. This example is aimed at video problems, but it uses some of the same steps that would be involved if the hard drive was going bad, or the directory structure or the operating system was corrupted. The idea is to start with simple steps that isolate the problem. Failure to boot problems usually involve resetting PRAM, starting from install disks, and running disk utility. If that doesn’t work, you might have to progress to reinstalling software with Archive and Install. But get professional help before you get in too deep.

[David Peralta]

Hi there,

did you install anything recently? if you did, try uninstalling that particular item.

now if that doesnt work remove all “extra” cards, i.e RAID cards, capture cards, and put in a “base” amount of ram and try starting up that way. it could be that there’s a “bad” card and thats whats causing that kind of start up.

now if that doesnt work, have you tried swapping out cables, trying a different outlet?

hmm… I wonder what this button does…

[Steven Gonzales]

The most common cause of this is that the motherboard battery has low voltage. Open it up, look at the motherboard, and batteries are usually pinkish purple.

Take it out carefully and get a replacement, placing it in with the right polarity.

Here’s the Apple info:

https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42713

[Rob Alexander]

Hi,
thanks for the replies. I had searched around the apple forum but hadn’t found anything that seemed relavent – i found the article that you pointed to Tom. No new cards in there but I was wondering about the battery so I’ll try and get a new none today and see if that helps.

Fingers crossed!

[13]

[Rob Alexander] “I push the power button, which lights, then it chimes, fans start and after a couple of seconds with a clunk it all goes dead.”

You mean it looses power after those few seconds. If so it is ether going to be the power supply or the logic board. I seriously doubt that Apple Stores can even gets parts for computes as old as yours. You can take it in and have a them take a look at it, but I would really consider getting a new computer.

[Tom Brooks]

A new computer is tempting. But if it’s just the battery, you can get some more immediate use out of it. That’s definitely a good tip and worth a try. Batteries are absolutely available. I have a few older macs that that around for which I can get batteries at my local battery specialty shop.

[Rich Rubasch]

Let us know if replacing the battery does it….I have the exact same model with the exact same problem. Our local Mac shop took a look but didn’t find the issue. If it’s the battery I’m going to chew them out!

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc

[Rob Alexander]

Had a chat with a local mac engineer and described the problem. He said that it’s the power supply, not the most expensive thing in the world but unless I can find another mac that I can salvage one from probably not worth doing. First mac I’ve owned to die 🙁

guess I’ll pull the HD out and stick it in a case.

[Rich Rubasch]

I had our local Mac guys look at it and they also suspected the Power supply….however I bought one on ebay and it did not fix the problem….curious…

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media