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iMac seems to lose power while booting

Hi,
my iMac G5 seems to lose power while booting. This suddenly happened without me changing anything, so I guess it's a hardware problem, I'd just like to know where exactly the problem is.
So when I booted my iMac a few days ago, it got to the point where one can see the Apple logo and the little loadingwheel. Then the monitor turned blank and the iMac rebooted. This happened like 5 times and then it booted perfectly. The next few days I had the same problem, but after another day or so it got to the point where one can see the logo and the loadingwheel again and just hung there (but there weren't any power failures this time). Nothing happened after that. I booted with verbose mode on and into single-user mode, but I didn't see any errors. I reinstalled OS X and had the power problem again, but after a few reboots it worked again. Two days later I had the same problem, nothing happened after seeing the loadingwheel. I assumed that the powerfailure damaged some files and because of that it couldn't boot anymore. I reinstalled OS X again, this time I enabled journaling for my partition though. OS X boots again now, but only after 5 to 7 power failures before that. I hope that the journaling will avoid file damages now, we'll see...
anyways, what could that be? Power supply unit? If so, does anyone know how much it is to replace it?

Thanks in advance

iMac G5, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Feb 10, 2009 10:47 AM

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4 replies

Feb 10, 2009 10:57 AM in response to cybersystem

Welcome to Discussions - it could be the power supply unit, but it also could be the logic board, have you tried using Apple Hardware Test from your install disc?

You might also try using Disk Utility to repair the drive:

1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.

Then reboot, if you can and repair permissions from your internal drive.

Let us know how you make out,






User uploaded file

Feb 11, 2009 4:40 PM in response to cybersystem

My wife's G-5 iMac behaved the same way. It would work fine for a few days and then it would be difficult to start up, would get half way through boot up and then start the process all over again. Eventually it would boot and run fine for a day or two. Disk Utility never found a problem. SMART status was fine.

It finally just quit working one day. I took it to the shop and had the power supply replaced. It cost me $200.00 (U.S.). Been working fine since.

iMac seems to lose power while booting

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