IMac G3 Won't boot up?

I think the popping sound is the power supply going bad. Or maybe the fly-back-capacitor going bad.

you need to reset the Mac's PRAM, NVRAM, and Open Firmware. Shut down the Mac, then power it up, and before the screen lights up, quickly hold down the Command, Option, P, and R keys, until the Mac has chimed twice more after the powerup chime. Then, before the screen lights up, hold down Command-Option-O-F until the Open Firmware screen appears. Then enter these lines, pressing Return after each one:

reset-nvram

set-defaults

reset-all

"The reset-all command should restart your Mac. If so, you have successfully reset the Open Firmware settings."

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1812?viewlocale=en_US

How to eject a cd from the internal cd drive:

eject cd

List of devices:

devalias

List of variables:

printenv

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Which iMac do you have? slot loading or tray loading? Firewire or not?

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

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I'm going to assume it is a hardware problem. To get your data out, remove the harddrive & place hd in an external hd enclosure with an ata/ide connection.

When it does come on it freezes when its on for maybe 10min or if I try to download to a flash drive(to remove all my stuff). I think its running 10.3.9 or some thing like that. Is There any way i can get it to work again?

What the problem with copying? Should be able to copy lots in 10 minutes.

Your data is at /Users/your-short-user name

copy by folder. Look what you got on another computer.

I read that I need to reinstall os 9. But i dont have the money to get one or where to find one.

Were did you read this? It could be a software problem, but with the popping sound, I'd go with hardware.

If I get the USB to Sata/ide would I need just it or the whole power cord too? could I just but on tiger(10.4) and use a usb cd burner

You need an external FireWire drive to boot an iMac G3. Does your machine have firewire port? Get something with a power cord. The usb drive will be no faster than your flashdrive.

I think you can find these cheaper, but this will give you the idea.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/U2NV2SPATA/

Give these folks a call 1-800-275-4576

Robert

You can install 10.3 on top of 9.2.2. This will allow you to dual boot.

Slot loaders can run 10.4. I'd recommend 10.4 because you can run web browsers that will view all web sites with the exception of video.

For tiger, you need 256meg of memory. A slot loader will take 1gig of memory.

You may need to get more memory.

get the 512meg card(s)

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/iMac/G3_450MHz_500MHz_600MHz_700MHz

Mac OS X 10.4: System requirements

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1514

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I tend to think dashboard is neat, but not neccesary for my everyday workflow.

it is possible to enable and disable it as needed,

by entering the following commands into the terminal:

-- To turn Dashboard off:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

-- To turn Dashboard on:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean NO

-- You have to restart the Dock after making either change for it to take effect:

killall Dock

Bye Bye Dashboard

http://www.kainjow.com/kermitsoft/downloads.html

Disable Spotlight, Bonjour and Dashboard:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8749558#8749558

Robert