iMac 21.5 EFI restoration problem

Question

iMac 21.5 EFI restoration problem

Hi,

There was a blackout yesterday and my iMac 21.5 (mid 2011) got a power off.

When the electricity turn on, the iMac turned on automatically, but with a blank screen and beeps (three short, three long, three short).

I understand from the Apple support page that the beeps indicating that EFI restoration is supposed to be in progress with a grey screen and progress bar.

But strangely, the grey screen never appear because the iMac shutdown after the beeps (fan is off), and then turn itself on again (fan is on) automatically with the beeps, and then shutdown again, and keep restarting forever. Can someone please give a clue about what is going on here?

Thanks

Luke

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on May 13, 2014 9:49 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

May 13, 2014 9:52 PM in response to lukman_chemist

Three beeps at startup indicates bad RAM.

Intel-based Mac Power On Self Test RAM error beeps

Power On Self-Test Beep Definition - Part 2

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Answer 2

May 13, 2014 10:06 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks for the reply, but the page below provides more recent information:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5860?viewlocale=en_US

and it is actually not three beeps, but nine beeps in sequence: three short, three long, three short.

I checked the RAM too, but they seem to have no problem.

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

May 13, 2014 10:12 PM in response to lukman_chemist

Well, that isn't what you described. See Mac computers- About startup tones. This error is related to the EFI, as you already should know.

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Answer 4

May 14, 2014 3:02 AM in response to Kappy

The page also states, "Newer computers automatically recover from a corrupted ROM; when this occurs a progress bar appears on a grey background." But in my case, there is no grey background nor progress bar, only blank screen because right after those nine beeps, the mac keep restarting; and each time it restart, the same pattern happens: nine beeps then followed by another restart. I have no clue, what should I do to solve this problem?

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Answer 5

May 14, 2014 1:14 PM in response to lukman_chemist

Someone had the same problems and upload it on the youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjSfarELul0

Is it really logic board that broken? I'm out of warranty.

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