I am not finding any help in Support articles. I have a grey iMac 20" that is showing a black screen and giving 9 beeps when powered on.
OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4), i7
Beeps. 1 beep = no RAM installed
2 beeps = incompatible RAM types
3 beeps = no good banks
4 beeps = no good boot images in the boot ROM (and/or bad sys config block)
5 beeps = processor is not usable.
But 9 beeps sounds suspicious; time to get reading.
I've seen both of these bits and neither are useful.
I'm pretty sure it's not in the middle of a firmware update because it was working correctly, was shut down properly, was unplugged and moved and then plugged in again.
When it was powered on it did the 9 beeps thing and refuses to do anyting else.
Was it 9 beeps in a row or a series of 3 beeps a pause then 3 beeps, a pause, then 3 more beeps?
You mentioned you moved the iMac.
Check the RAM modules to make sure that they didn't become dislodged during the move of the iMac.
Did this already, also switched RAM with an identical machine. The other machine worked fine with either set of RAM, the first one didn't work with either. Also blew out the sockets before re-installing RAM.
The 9 was 3, 3, 3 with a slight pause between.
Thanks for the thought.
Did you vacuum out the sockets of dust and dirt or did you use canned compress air to try and blow out the dust, lint and dirt.
Unless your tore the iMac apart, you should be using a vacuum with a crevice tool to vacuum out all the vents, slots, ports and openings around the iMac.
The iMac maybe telling you there are no good RAM banks because you forced more dust, lint and dirt into the iMac and maybe into the RAM slots, as well.
imac has black screen and 9 beeps
