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I was listening to a YouTuber this morning while playing a game of Mahjong when suddenly the screen went black and all I could hear was an electronic "dit-dit-dit-dit" noise. Okay... I shut it down, waited a minute, tried to restart but the screen had vertical yellow bars on it and the startup progress bar stopped at the midpoint but after several minutes of waiting it would progress no further.
On to Plan B, then: I tried starting it up from an older Installation/Utilities disk I have (an OS this computer ran fine in the past), but it only got about half-way and then the computer started making a loud series of three tones (EEN-EEN-EEN...EEN-EEN-EEN...etc.) that repeated until I shut the computer off again.
I suspect this is a failure of hardware rather than software since it wouldn't start from a disc. Any idea which component may have failed that would cause these symptoms?
Until I get another computer or, if the problem is something simple and easily repairable (Go ahead, laugh, I did as I typed that) I fix the iMac, I'm on my backup computer, a 1.83 GHz Mac Mini. Woo-Hoo!
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The three beeps then a pause repeating thing is definitely what it was doing which indicates bad/wonky/improperly seated RAM, and (insert deity of your choice here) knows it needs a RAM upgrade from the piddly amount it has now anyway, so that's the best possible scenario.
However, this from the linked thread is a possibility as well:
hal wrote:
I had a mac doing all kinds of bad things including 3 beep chime at startup, but it didn't do it every time. Biggest problem was sudden shut down. Sold it as broken and the guy that bought it said that he was able to get it going well by fixing/replacing the dried out processor goo. The processor was overheating. This was a 2010 i5 mbp.
The iMac in question has run hotter than any other Mac I've ever had, laptops included, since the day I got it when it was only three years old so that could be it.
C(-)ris wrote:
Hard drive failure.
Always a possibility, but wouldn't it's refusal to start up from an installation CD/DVD rule that out?
One other weird occurrence that may or may not be related- A week or so ago while watching a video and touching nothing, the screen brightness went from +/- 50% to 100% on it's own for no apparent reason, dang-near blinding me in the process. I was able to turn the brightness back down in Preferences and it didn't do it again, but I found that very strange.
And because I forgot to say this in my initial post, thanks to any and all for your help and suggestions. :hail:
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Start up from DVD or external HDD, and what happens?
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Buzz wrote:
Start up from DVD or external HDD, and what happens?
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When I try to start up from DVD, I get this:
"Three beeps, then a 5-second pause, repeating
The memory in your Mac didn't pass an integrity check. If you added or replaced memory, make sure that it's properly installed."
I haven't touched the memory at all, but from day one the startup bar has always paused for a second or two at the half-way mark before progressing, and this pause got noticeably longer when I upgraded to the more RAM-intensive Sierra OS. The half-way mark is where the startup progress bar stops entirely now, so maybe a stick of my RAM has been on and finally completed a long, slow death spiral.
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Sounds like C(-)ris scouted the RAM fer ya.
If/when you get the RAM beeps, ya gotta play the RAM roulette and re-seat mambo. C(-)ris was on point w/ the HDD diag based on your initial description(s). OYOH, when you got to the overheatin', that can mess things up big time. Find a techy high schooler to help you tear it apart and de gunk everything. Make sure fans work properly, and RAM & HDD check out OK. Sounds like the old iMac could go either way, but just needs a little TLC.
Many moons ago w/ the G3 iMacs, I thought I had (another) one that literally went up in smoke. Snap, crackle, pop, poof, sparks, stinky smoke. Had a few already die that way, and thought this was just another paving the way to a(nother) G4 eMac. Shipped the iMac to Ken Sp. from here, to use for parts, w/ the proviso he send the HDD back +$20 towards my shipping costs. HDD was backed up, so wasn't an immediate need to get into it..... so of course, many months later when I went to fire up the HDD, it literally started on fire.... it was the damn HDD all along, so Ken Sp. got a great deal. IOW, that's why a techy high schooler needs to be employed; no sense bailing on on it, if there's still a quality iMac hiding underneath.
Good luck.
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Update before this is off the front page: Swapped the RAM chips into each other's slots, no change. Put the RAM chips in the two heretofore empty slots, and the startup progress bar went slightly further before stopping.
I'm gonna roll the dice on a RAM replacement/upgrade because $80 for two sticks of RAM is still a lot cheaper than I could get a comparable or better used computer.
I also vacuumed an astonishing number of dust clogs from the tiny holes on the bottom of the case, so it should run cooler if and when it runs again.
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