Help! my eMac wont even turn on

Taumauz,

Welcome to the Apple Discussions!

If you're getting no power-on indication at all (no fan, no power LED), try resetting the eMac's switching power supply by removing all peripherals other than the keyboard and mouse, then removing the power cord from the side of the eMac (to remove the trickle current drawn by modern electronics even when nominally off) and waiting 15+ minutes. Then reattach the power cord only and see if the Mac will start.

If that fails to work, reset the Power Management Unit (PMU). The procedure is described in step 6 of eMac: How to Replace the Backup Battery for nVidia graphics eMacs; for ATI graphics models, the PMU button is on the opposite side of the battery. be careful to press the button once only, firmly, for one second (multiple pressing or pressing for several seconds has been known to permanently crash the PMU, for which the only fix is replacing the logic board).

Note that the first start after a forced shutdown will take significantly longer than usual at the grey screen/Apple logo stage as a faceless version of Disk Utility> Repair Disk runs to check the hard drive for damage caused by the forced shutdown.

BTW, if the computer freezes again, try command-option-escape first to see if you can force-quit; if not, try command-control-eject to reboot (see other keyboard shortcuts at Magical Macintosh Key Sequences).

try an other powerchord on an other outlet at first.
take off all the RAM. you should hear three beeps if eveything goes on the way.
if it still not operaitng, i am afraid you shoul take it to an apple store.

A bad PRAM battery has been known to prevent many Mac models from starting up. If you have a multimeter handy, check the battery while it's under load (still in the battery holder in the eMac); if it's more than 0.1v off from 3.6v, replace it.

When you attempt to start up, are you seeing the power LED flashing? A pattern of two, three, or four quick flashes (most lilkely three), followed by a pause, then repeating, would indicate bad RAM.