iMac starts itself with reboot screen

H

hbennett

Registered
In the last three days my iMac desktop has begun starting itself up. There is an audible beeping (three or four beeps) and the on/off indicator light blinks rapidly. When the screen comes up there is no desktop but a gray background with reboot instructions. When I type the reboot words "mac-reboot" the desktop comes back.

Under Logs in the system profiler I see the following message:

CGXDDisableUpdate:Updates disabled by connection 0x66-3 for over 1.000000 seconds

and

CGXBlindSurface returns-536870210

The computer is rather old, is running OS X 10.2.8 and has never done anything like this before. I would like to understand what's going on and whether this indicates that I should be doing something?

Thanks.
 
Three beeps in a row indicates a problem with the memory (RAM) in the computer -- specifically, it means that none of the RAM banks passed the power-on test. What, exactly, this power-on test involves is a mystery to me, but it probably involves such things as testing to make sure the correct type of memory is installed, that the installed memory is working correctly, and that there is nothing wrong with the communication lines to and from the memory banks themselves.

It could be the RAM chips themselves, or it could mean a problem with the RAM slots.

If it's four beeps in a row, that means something different.

Is it beeping three times, or four times?
 
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