Mid 2007 iMac has a single long tone before chime, then black screen

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Mid 2007 iMac has a single long tone before chime, then black screen

I have a mid-2007 iMac that I let my daughter use for ages and it finally gave up the ghost. I assumed that it was a hard drive failure, so I decided to replace the hard drive with a Crucial MX500 SSD using iFixit’s excellent tutorial. The installation went very smoothly, but I chose not to format the SSD before installing it assuming that I could do that as part of the clean OS reinstallation. We had no need for anything on the old drive.

The installation seemed to be a success because upon startup I got the folder with the question mark. After a few minutes, however, the screen just turned black. I powered down and up several times, but could not get the white screen or the folder back, just a black screen. Furthermore, prior to the start chime, I would hear a single long beep.

I had a Mojave boot disk on a USB drive, so I tried restarting with that, but was not able to use it because there was the black screen. I reopened the iMac and reseated all of the connectors, restarted and saw the question mark again, but not for long. I made an EFI 1.6 update disk and tried to start up with that and it brought back the folder and question mark briefly, but the screen went black again after a couple of seconds. Finally, I made a Snow Leopard USB boot drive and tried that, but no luck, just a black screen.

I hate to give up on this “ole gal” and would appreciate any guidance you smart folks might provide.

Oh, and one last thing, the category descriptions used by this forum to direct the questions does not allow me to list the 2007 iMac as the subject device, so I picked the 2012 version as the closest relative.

Thanks in advance for your help….

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Mar 29, 2021 8:43 AM

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Answer 1

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Alamo44 Author

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Mar 29, 2021 3:49 PM in response to Alamo44

I went to the article that you pointed me to and, though the symptoms wee not identical to mine, it triggered the thought that several of the symptoms were memory related so I decided to remove and reseat the 1G+4G memory chips. Following that, I rebooted and got the three beep notification suggesting that the memory was poorly installed. Back I went and reseated the chips again. After startup the second time, the three beeps were still there.

Perhaps it has been a failing memory problem all along. I ordered a replacement set (2x2 GB chips). The combo was less than $25.00, and we will see if we can make further progress when they arrive. I'm still not ready to give up.

That said, if you or any other Mac afficianado's have further suggestions, I'd sure welcome them.

PS: I'm now about to test the two chips I have, one at a time, to see if at least one of them is good.

Thanks again for your suggestion. :)

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Answer 2

Alamo44 Author

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4 points

Mar 29, 2021 4:20 PM in response to Alamo44

Further update.. The 4G Corsair chip seemed to be the bad actor. The iMac restarted with the 1G chip installed but with the initial symptoms; one long tone immediately before the chime, the screen lights up and the folder with the question mark appear, and after less than a full minute, the screen went black again. I waited five minutes, powered off, and restarted. One long tone before the chime and just a black screen (no folder, no question mark), just like before. Frustrating!!

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Answer 3

a brody

Level 10

85,366 points

Mar 29, 2021 10:17 AM in response to Alamo44

Unfortunately when I've given guidance on internal repairs on this forum before, my posts were deleted.

That said, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202768 might give an indication what's wrong before you do anything.

[Edited by Moderator]

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Answer 4

a brody

Level 10

85,366 points

Mar 31, 2021 1:17 PM in response to Alamo44

Replacing your own RAM can damage the logic board requiring a costly replacement not to mention can risk your data.

You are far better off taking the machine to an Apple certified repair tech who knows what they are doing.

Only two vendors can I recommend for third party RAM, but the repair tech may opt against using. So discuss with them if they would have difficulty installing RAM from Crucial or OWC. At least these two vendors will specify the model and age of model Mac when you go to buy RAM. Most won't. And it has been my experience the slight differences in timing can make a difference in RAM.

Do not attempt your own replacement or access to internal components.

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Mid 2007 iMac has a single long tone before chime, then black screen

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