Q: power button has 3 blinling lights
Power Mac G5, power button has 3 blinking lights every 4 seconds, has all new 8 gigs of ram and Radeon x800xt video card. While running a Tech Tool scan on 8-24 as surface scan was at end of scan my screen went dark and the computer started speeding up with a whirring sound like fans running at top speed and getting faster. I powered it down and now nothing but the blinking lights. What is wrong? Mother board? Video card? Ram? Hard drive or the OS?
PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.5)
Posted on Aug 25, 2011 4:50 PM
Hi Billy,
1 beep = no RAM installed
2 beeps = incompatible RAM types
3 beeps = no good banks
4 beeps = no good boot images in the boot ROM (and/or bad sys config block)
5 beeps = processor is not usable
In addition to the beeps, on some computers the power LED will flash a corresponding number of times plus one. The LED will repeat the sequence after approximately a 5-second pause. The tones are only played once.
Note: In this case, a flash is considered to be 1/4 second or 250 ms or greater in length.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1547
If you're sure the RAM is good, try the Hair Dryer trick...
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13240047#13240047
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15223603#15223603
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15499912#15499912
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15613068#15613068
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3270112
It can show on any G5, and even many other computers & electronic devices of the period.
Posted on Aug 25, 2011 5:24 PM