MacHesney

Q: PPC mac mini & single long beep before boot chime

In process of migrating from a 2005 PPC mac mini 1.1 with a disk error and sometimes at reboot, a very LOUD tone, not beep, results about 5 seconds before the boot chime.  It only successfully boots via Safe Boot, into OS X 10.5.8.


This mac shipped with Panther, now running Leopard.  It has failed Verify Disk - Repair Disk for quite some time.

 

Why the LOUD single tone (not beep) at boot up?

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 2005 PPC 1.42

Posted on Jul 20, 2015 9:41 PM

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Q: PPC mac mini & single long beep before boot chime

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  • by lllaass,

    lllaass lllaass Jul 21, 2015 1:33 AM in response to MacHesney
    Level 10 (189,425 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 21, 2015 1:33 AM in response to MacHesney
    • 1 tone, repeating every 5 seconds: This indicates no RAM is installed.
    • 3 successive tones, a 5 second pause (repeating): This indicates RAM does not pass a data integrity check.
    • 1 long tone while holding down the power button: Indicates an EFI ROM update is in progress on a computer manufactured before 2012.
    • 3 long tones, 3 short tones, 3 long tones: Indicates EFI ROM corruption is detected and the computer is in EFI ROM recovery mode.

    Above from:

    Mac computers: About startup tones - Apple Support

  • by MacHesney,

    MacHesney MacHesney Jul 21, 2015 5:15 PM in response to MacHesney
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Jul 21, 2015 5:15 PM in response to MacHesney

    Thanks but I only posed the question because my situation is not listed.

     

    It does boot eventually - sometimes I have to repair permissions via Tiger DVD and try Safe Boot 3 times, but it does boot, logon, programs such as Safari run no problem, but then simply using the Finder causes a 5 minute freeze.

  • by lllaass,

    lllaass lllaass Jul 21, 2015 5:22 PM in response to MacHesney
    Level 10 (189,425 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 21, 2015 5:22 PM in response to MacHesney

    When you boot from the Tiger DVD and repair the startup drive, are a lot of repairs made?

    What is listed by the line that says S.M.A.R.T. status or similar. I do not remember if it is worded differently in Tiger. TI had Tiger many many years ago.

    It could be that the startup drive is dying.

    Do y have a FireWire external drive yo can install Tiger on and test? The PPCs can only boot from FW, not USB like Intel Macs.

  • by MacHesney,

    MacHesney MacHesney Jul 22, 2015 9:11 AM in response to lllaass
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Jul 22, 2015 9:11 AM in response to lllaass

    SMART is passed no problem, via Disk Utility or Onyx. 
    Repair Permissions could use some explanation, for instance why would a new installation of Snow Leopard have permissions needing repair?

    Another forum post states the disk error was cured via Erase and Reinstall. 
    First reinstall OS X 10.4 which will allow the Tiger DVD (with AHT) to boot up after the Leopard upgrade.

     

    Do y have a FireWire external drive yo can install Tiger on and test?

    The Combo Drive will run Apple Hardware Test and the Installer utilities. 
    SMART passed,
    Disk tests: ________
    Just 1GB RAM leads to a long test cycle so I skipped the full test.

     

    Since rebooting this mac into OS X 10.5.8 is a nightmare - no more reboots except to Installer DVD to Erase and Install.

    May as well replace the 40GB 4,200 rpm ATA drive if do that.

  • by lllaass,

    lllaass lllaass Jul 22, 2015 9:32 AM in response to MacHesney
    Level 10 (189,425 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 22, 2015 9:32 AM in response to MacHesney

    For permissions repair see:

    Mac OS X: Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions messages that you can safely ignore - Apple Support

    I myself suspect a bad disk but I could be wrong.