Q: my iMac G5 (ambient light sensor) display is completely black when I start up the computer exept ou can hear hard drive and fans and chime. how do i fix it?

I do not think that the g5 run 9.x.

Here is how to find out what version of Mac OS you are running:

Click on the blue apple in the upper left hand of the screen.

click on this icon

Click on the first line, "About This Mac"

Most of these are numbers & that's what we want.

What version & Processor do you have?

--------------------------------------------------------------

You may have a problem with the video chip.

Here is how to tell...

  Shutdown your machine.  Hold down the shift key.  Poweron.  Bootup will be longer.

    Wait awhile while you harddrive is being checked.

  An article on how to boot into safe mode.

    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455

Runs OK in safe mode...

Running in Safe mode leaves out some video drivers.  Which results in your machine not using advanced video hardware. As luck would have it, you can run the safe mode video drivers in normal mode.

Here is how:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/16057567#16057567

Look through the above thread.  See the second page.  You don't have to read through the first page.  Just go to the part where I try a solution that works.

Summary of G5 problems. Includes instructions on a hardware fix for the brave at heart:

See -Rotten Apple- articles in both of these threads.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4023152?tstart=0

https://discussions.apple.com/message/18700825#18700825

Robert

Oh, forgot that little problem.

Query by serial number

Apple's warrenty database will identify the type of Mac you have.  Your serial number is securely sent, but you get only the name of your machine.

https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do

This site provides more information, but lacks security.

"A serial number is a unique, identifying number or group of numbers and letters assigned to an individual piece of hardware or software. It's used for various things depending on the product / brand but what is your Mac's serial number for and more importantly... what is it hiding and what can it do for you ?"

http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php

JG22345 wrote:

 

i got the mac from a friend and when he gave it to me he said that the internal disk drive broke cause his kids put to much cd in at the same time. so do you think thats the problem?

his kids put to much cd in at the same time

Not sure how to interpret this. 

Filled up the harddrive with too much data?   -- I think you would still get a picture. Might crash.

Put several cd in the cd reader at the same time? -- likely to break the cd drive.

Did this machine work over at his place?

In general, it should light up & not be black.

Try these things.

1) The startup manager will list all of your bootable partitions then give you a choice of which to boot.

Try holding down the option key then power on. This brings up the startup manager. Click on your hd. Click on right arrow key.

2)  Shutdown your machine.  Hold down the shift key.  Poweron.  Wait awhile Wait awhile while you harddrive

is being checked.

    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455

When I was working in software support, we got a "laugh" at the expense of one customer.  We had a multi-diskette install procedure.  We got a call from customer, they could not fit anymore diskettes in the drive.  Wonder what to do?  An inquiry, we found they were not taking out the previous diskette when putting next one in drive.

We had left out taking out the previous diskette from drive in our installation instructions!

Robert

Try hocking up a vga monitor to the G5.  ( it's either a mini-vga or vga ).  [ I'm guessing about the vga port. ]

--------------------------------------------------------------

G5 has these hardware issues:

-- bad capacitors on logic board

-- bad capacitors in power supply

-- badly soldered video chip

-- "There were several Mac models with flat panel displays that had bad displays.

     Most had serial numbers beginning with "W8"---the code for one specific factory.

     This affected PowerBooks as well. If that's the case, the rest of the computer

     is probably fine." by Allan Jones in

    https://discussions.apple.com/message/21630224#21630224

Google: g5 capacitor replacement kit

More info on capacitor replacement kits

http://jimwarholic.com/2008/07/how-to-repair-apple-imac-g5.php

http://thecapking.com/applg5.html

When diagnosing hardware, simplify.  Divide & conquer.  Divide down the problem to isolate the problem.

i.e. ... use a wired usb mouse that works on another macine to see if the port is working.  Try different mouses.  Start up machine with any usb devices.  Machine will boot.

Robert

My 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5  (3.0)

• CPUs:          1
• CPU Speed:          1.8 GHz
• L2 Cache (per CPU):          512 KB
• Memory:          2 GB DDR SDRAM
• Bus Speed:          600 MHz
• Boot ROM Version:          5.2.5f1
• OS X 10.4.11
• ATI Radeon 9600 ATY,RV351
• 
  

has recently started getting the "colored vertical line" syndrome.  Of the 8 or 9 lines on the screen at start up, all but one seem to go away after a couple of minutes.  One just sticks on the screen. Not obtrusive, but annoying.  Thanks for the checking process - I'll see if it is the video chip.

Not related (?) I recently installed more RAM (this is now a "daily driver" machine for me), yet the hard drive is constantly spinning like it is using virtual memory.  I have 2 GB total memory -- 800 MB free and another 800 MB inactive at the moment -- with 80 GB free on the hard drive. 

I upgraded RAM from 512 to 2 GB to get rid of this spinning, but no luck (though processing is now MUCH FASTER).  Even with very little CPU usage (Safari at 6% is the most right now) I still have the hard drive whine most all the time.

Is this normal and if not, what can I do to stop / fix it?  I checked around on the user support but couldn't find a reference to this specific problem.