Re: Dead eMac

On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 08:33:46 +0000, usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Woody)
wrote:


If you press the little power button you hear the first sign of action
(degauss is it?), a couple of seconds later the fan comes on and about
5 seconds after that the screen comes up for a second or so and
typically dies with a vertical red line (that fades away fast) a
second or so after that.

By dies do you mean a total power shutoff feel to it?

I don't think so. I *think* (the Mac is still round my mates shop so
from memory .. ) the fan may still be running and the front on light
remains lit (<< that's for sure).

The other failure mode is it's left at a weird looking screen
(coloured blotches).

That is what I got on my mums old iMac after I upgraded it to a system
it wasn't supposed to be able to use and it had gone to sleep,

Ok, well this hasn't been changed for some time (running 10.4)

or a
graphics card crash.

Ok. Is there anything I can do with that please, like an unseat /
re-seat etc?

When I first got to it an hour ago I pulled the mains lead, left it
off for a couple of minutes and when I turned it on it got to the
screen lighting up bit but failed with what sounded like some high
voltage popping (once every second or so).

Sounds like something has gone and it is taking to much power, causing
it to trip a bit every so often.

I agree with the 'something has gone' bit. :-( If you soft shut it
down (by holding the power button) and start it straight back up (when
the tube is still warm) you get some screen illumination and can see
flyback type lines etc. From that position you don't ever see the good
/ white screen.

FWIW the CDROM ejects from the keyboard button still?

Just until it shuts down?

I think indefinitely ... (although once it dies I generally turn it
off as it has done the 'pop pop pop' noise thing at that point).

Also the power light remains on all the time it's 'on' and with the
power button held in for 7 seconds (or whatever) it shuts down.

It says on the inside of the CD flap:

Emac/700/128/40G/Combo/GF2MX/56K6

cant look from here but does it have an external monitor output?

Erm, good question, I'll phone my mate in a mo and get him to look
(and if I follow your train of thought stick a std monitor on there).

I would turn the power of the tube part off somehow and see if there was
anything out of that.

So PSU problems you think?

Not knowing how these things are designed ... if the 'computer' parts,
logic board (do they call the main board), hdd etc are all powered
from their own PSU and that is a typical internal tin 'pack' then I
guess it could be found (eBay) and swapped out? If the monitor shares
that PSU then it might be worth a try but if the monitor has it's own
PSU in amongst the video logic (like TV) then it might signal the end?
:-(

Cheers, T i m

p.s. A TV engineer friend knew most of the common faults on the
popular chassis and from a decent fault description would tell me the
actual component(s), type and location. He would then often give them
to me, I'd replace them myself and away we go again. ;-)
.