Dead intel imac - new firmware needed?

M

mwelliott

Registered
I have a 17" intel imac just 6 weeks old. I have bootcamp and Windows. All has worked fine but it now won't boot up at all. Press power and the white light lites up solid, you get 2 seconds of the fan starting then silence. Black screen nothing except the white light. Also got a PC Sim game in the slot which has been working fine for several weeks.

Spoke to Apple who ran through all the different solutions. I can't get the CD out to install the install disk. Apple reckon firmware conflict with Windows (apparently a known problem) has caused this and it needs reload of firmware...but can't do this without getting disc out.

Have recommended I take it into Apple tech but have warned it may not be covered by guarantee?

Anyone got any suggestions? How do I get disc out (needs to be mechnical solution as none of keyboard tricks work)? Even if I could get this out, how do I reload firmware?

Thanks

Matt
 
I will also recommend taking to an Apple tech. There may be a failure covered by warranty. The thing that is not in warranty, is removing your CD. The iMac probably needs to be disassembled, taking the CD drive out to extract that CD. The iMacs with iSight cameras (including all Intel models) are not easy to open up. I would probably charge for one hour labor to remove the disk. The shop you go to may be different with that charge.
If there is a failed firmware update, you can download a firmware restore CD (from another Mac, of course) that may get your iMac going again. The CD slot would need to be free again, which is why your CD needs to be removed.

If the firmware restore CD doesn't help your iMac, then a warranty repair could be likely, especially if this was not an immediate result of updating the firmware.
Have you just updated the firmware when this happened?
 
I have a dead iMac Core Duo after accidentally interupted the updating firmware process. The solution offered on the Apple site with the Firmware Restore CD does not work at all. Do I have any chance to restore my Imac at home?
 
The answer is short: No.

BTW, you do not have your iPod connected to the Mac when booting, do you ?
 
I had this happen to me once before with a loaner iMac Core Duo that was sent to me by an Apple rep. Apparently, I got the black screen with no boot after I did the firmware update to use Boot Camp. I also couldn't revert back with the Firmware Restoration CD since the upgrade had completed succesfully. Luckily, I had installed OSXvnc before that and for some weird reason I was able to log in remotely to the iMac. All I saw was the gray screen with the Apple and the progress indicator in a locked position. From what I could gather, it seemed that after doing the Boot CAmp installation and not installing Windows XP (opting to install it later), Boot CAmp had selected the partition I had created for Windows and would lock up since I hadn't installed it.

My solution (after numerous trial-and-error runs) was to hold down the Option key the second I heard the Macintosh startup chime. I had been holding that down previously, but since I was so used to waiting RIGHT AFTER the chime to hold down the key (as I had done successfully many times before with the PowerPC Macs) I wasn't fast enough. Apparently, these Intel Macs are quite fast at the posting process so you have to hold it down the second you hear the chime. You should then see some life from the Intel iMac with a screen that allows you to select which partition you want to boot from.

BTW, before selecting the partition I also reset the SMC on the Intel iMac. This might have helped matters as well, but it was hard to tell.
 
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