HELP!!! My iMac wont start up

I

iGhost

Registered
:confused: I have a 400Mhz blueberry older style iMac and I went to use it and all the sudden it wouldnt start up. I hit the power and the power button LED lights up and you can hear the screen power up but there is no hard drive noise and the screen remains black. And it just sits there like that and does nothing.:confused:
 
If your Mac (any desktop Mac, I believe) is more than a few years old, and it won't start up all of a sudden, it may be in need of a new "Clock battery." This little battery keeps track of what time and date it is even when your computer is "off." (Another sign of a dead clock battery may just be that your Mac keeps forgetting what time it is)

The battery itself, is not exactly common. It's fairly cheap though ($10 at most?) Any Apple reseller should have clock batteries in stock. If you're not afraid to open up your iMac, you can replace it yourself (don't ask me how, I've never opened an iMac before), or, I'm sure a service person will be happy to install it FOR you for a small fee.

At least, that's what I THINK the problem is. Judging by the symptoms you've described, (power, but no disk access) I think it's a dead clock battery.
 
If you're technically inclined, there's a little button inside your case, just next to the Ram and Airport slots.

It's called a Cuda switch. Unplug your computer and press it ONCE.
 
Originally posted by Biff_Lugnut
If you're technically inclined, there's a little button inside your case, just next to the Ram and Airport slots.

It's called a Cuda switch. Unplug your computer and press it ONCE.
Click to expand...

What does it do?

Oh, and on the side of the old iMacs, whats the little button/paperclip hole next to the reset one do?
 
oooooooh bugger, i think i know whats happened...


First, a dead clock battery is not going to stop your iMac from starting up. My clock battery is flat and all that means is that when ever you unplug your computer from the mains for any reasonable amount of time, the next time you startup your clock is set to something like midnight, jan 1973 ish. This is confusing for a while untill you figure it out. (sorry adambyte for rubbishing your theory, although it sounds better than mine)


From my experence you problem is way bigger...

about 2 months after i got my iMac (iMac 400DV Slot Loading) it died. There was no warning, nothing. Here are the symtoms: Push the power button on the front, it lights up. No startup chime, no speaker clicking noises, no harddrive activity, i can't remember if the screen powered up or not.

I took it back and they said it had a dead motherboard. Luckly it was under warranty and it was replaced for free. They kept hold of the old motherboard for testing and the such and i havent had a problem since.

I have no idea how much this would cost out of warranty but my guess is that its going to be expensive. Sorry for being such a pesimist but i think you got touble.

Before you going spending copious amouts of money try this:

unplug every thing - printer keyboard, mouse, firewire, usb. So the power cable is the only thing connected to anything, try starting up, if it starts up something external is causing trouble. If not...:(


what does the Cuda switch do? it it like zapping the PRAM?
 
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