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Aug 29, 2011 5:58 PM in response to joseph l.by Allan Jones,If this is an early eMac with a 700 or 800mhz processor and Nvidea graphics, you probably have a bad video cable, specifically the IVAD cable. For the first few months of production in 2002, this cable casuesd a lot of grief, including the collapse-to-center effect you see, usually accmpanied by ominous popping sounds. It's rare for one to wait this long to fail, however.
This Apple article will help you use the serial number to figure our what version of the eMac you own:
How to locate the serial number and identify your model
The was an Apple repair Extension Program that repaired this at no cost but I suspect it's long-expired. New cables are still available:
922-6436 IVAD to analog cable for eMac
The part is relatively cheap but the labor would be high. As you would be dealing with high voltage around the CRT display, I cannot recommend that an average user attempt to repair this at home.
If your eMac is not the early one I described, then post back and we'll start over.
If you live in the western US, the company I linked for the cable also does the repair work. They are in Eugene Oregon. Unless you are within driving distance and can drop off the computer. shipping a 50-pound computer two ways plus the cost of parts and labor probably exceed the vaule of a used 1Gen eMac.
I recommend backing everything up to an external drive in case this gets worse and you can't make the computer work at all. And I suspect that, if it's the IVAD cable, it will get worse.
In the meantime, consider using only external speakers. The internal speakers in the first eMacs were poorly shielded and, at higher volume levels, could cause video distortion in the lower part of the screen.
Note: The eMAc does not have a replaceable video card. Like most newer desktop Macs, the video chipset is integral with the logic board and cannot be repaired or replaced independently of the logic board,