Safe boot only, no sound or airport

Question

Level 6

8,263 points

Safe boot only, no sound or airport

eMac 2005, 1.42 GHz, 1gb RAM, PowerMac 6,4 Power PC G4 HD 150gb.

The machine has been lying idle for a month or so, and when I turned it on a few days ago it booted to a blue screen, no "starting Mac OS" progress bar, and then it turned black and had to be powered down.

Boots into Safe mode only and won't boot from clone on Firewire drive or from internal startup disk. Will boot from original install disk so I used Disk Utility there to verify the startup disk -- no problems found -- and to repair Permissions.

What I've tried:

* replaced the 3.6V backup battery -- was down to less than 1V -- and reset the PMU.

* reset PRAM, and also NVRAM using the terminal commands after booting to Command Option o f. When it restarted it was the blue screen again.

* started in Single User mode and did fcsk -fy which found nothing wrong with the startup disk.

* also in Single User mode did the sh /etc/rc command for booting and staying in SU mode which showed a lot of info. What caught my eye in particular was "Boot Cache Control -- could not start cache resource busy" and "Boot Cache: cache init failed." Also, further down was a whole bunch of mDNSResponder errors saying "ERROR unknown opt 4"

In Safe mode, System Preferences/Sound say "No output devices found" and the Sound effects are all greyed out.

In System Prefs / Network there is no Airport, although Airport was working before on an Airport Extreme card.

Airport setup says "No Airport card installed" although it is installed and was working a few weeks ago.

In Audio Midi, it says output and input not supported, as well as "default output -- none" and the same for input. However, the startup chime sounds so the speakers must be OK.

Does all this mean that the Video card is gone kaput? I don't know much about the tech side and how this knocks out the sound and the startup functions. Looking for enlightenment.😝

I've had this eMac for 10 years or so and it was mostly used for Internet browsing and some audio and iMovie editing but nothing very heavy. Also for Appleworks 6 occasionally. Would hate to have to throw it away.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2), mid-2012 13inch, 4gb RAM, 250gb SSD

Posted on Sep 25, 2016 11:48 PM

Reply

Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Oct 22, 2016 3:34 PM in response to Cunnla

Airport is disabled in earlier versions of OSX while in Safe Mode.

A few things to try...

Remove RAM & clean contacts with an eraser, reseat the RAM.

Does it boot into Open Firmware with CMD+Option+o+f ?

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42642

reset-nvram (press Enter)

set-defaults (press Enter)

reset-all (press Enter)

Have you done a PRAM reset, CMD+Option+p+r...

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

In fact, do 3 in a row, takes a bit of time.

Boot holding alt or option key, let it sit on the boot choice screen for a few minutes to warm up before selecting boor disk.

Reply

Answer 2

Cunnla Author

Level 6

8,263 points

Sep 26, 2016 10:43 PM in response to BDAqua

Hi,

Thanks for responding.

I've done the "3 in a row" as you suggested, but no joy. Right now it's the blue screen with movable cursor.

Some more info that may be relevant.

* Operating system is OS X 10.4.11

* I have done the Apple Hardware Test from the install disk, and everything passed.

* Erased the hard disk and reinstalled Tiger but it made no difference, except that now I have 2 backups on the

Firewire disk but no way to get them onto the eMac.

* Played a DV movie file on Quick Time player and could see the film, but no sound of course.

Does that mean the video chip on the logic board is OK or doesn't it matter?

* Once or twice in trying to get it going there has been a black and white pattern or rectangles on the bottom third

of the screen. There was also -- at different times -- distortion where the startup Apple logo is in the center. Twice

there was a multicolored square where the logo should be. These things have not happened in the last couple of

days, it's a clear blue sky as far as the screen is concerned. The display is also very clear.

* Can hear the startup chime, unless a headphone jack is plugged in.

Regards.

Reply

Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Sep 27, 2016 7:55 AM in response to Cunnla

Sounds like the video chip is OK, but AHT isn't very good at testing HDD or RAM especially.

Did you try the NVRAM reset?

Long shot, but...

Open Audio Midi Setup in Applications>Utilities, see the input & output options & KHz setting there, some things will change it for their own use, then not set it back.

Reply

Answer 4

Cunnla Author

Level 6

8,263 points

Sep 27, 2016 10:48 PM in response to BDAqua

Did you try the NVRAM reset?

Yes, a few times. After reset -all it reboots to the Apple logo with spinning wheel and then the blue screen.

Incidentally, sometimes the blue screen has a movable cursor and later the cursor freezes. Another thing that happens sometimes is that after a while the screen goes black and will return to blue with a mouse click, as if the sleep function is working.

All of these things happen randomly, not regularly. Here's a picture of something that happened this morning but has disappeared on a restart and not shown up since. It's not text but looks like a circuit pattern or color pattern.

Just did another reset of the Power Management Unit but now it's just a frozen blue screen.

Reply

Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Sep 28, 2016 3:25 AM in response to Cunnla

Have you blown the dust out lately?

Reply

Answer 6

Cunnla Author

Level 6

8,263 points

Sep 28, 2016 4:36 AM in response to BDAqua

Never,😊 but will give it a go tomorrow.

Regards.

Reply

Answer 7

Cunnla Author

Level 6

8,263 points

Sep 28, 2016 10:04 PM in response to BDAqua

Opened it up and used a vacuum cleaner and hairdryer to clean it up as much as possible. There wasn't much dust inside. Booted up to the blue screen with the circuit-like patterns.

While inside there, I noticed one capacitor with a slight brown stain on top, possibly a leak. That may be the cause of the trouble. Now looking for replacement capacitors or a used 1.42GHz logic board but no luck so far.

Reply

Answer 8

K Shaffer

Level 8

36,058 points

Oct 22, 2016 3:35 PM in response to Cunnla

Although some time has passed since you posted, results from search do show

some products; and you may also be able to send the logic board to a specialist

who can repair it (even now) such as wegenermedia.com if you contact them first.

Companies who are set up to repair logic boards have the capacity in-house.

A few possible sources, some perhaps you've already checked, appear here:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=emac+g4+logic+board+replacement&ia=web

{Given the overall weight and bulk of the eMac G4 the costs can be extreme

to ship these beasts. I had three new from Apple eMac with issues; I paid full

to return them. The shipper would leave them out in the snow & drive away.

For me to return them to Apple meant a 240-mile drive, to the nearest FedEx

then paid cash money to return ship them to Apple in California.}

So I don't really have any pleasant memories or expectation of restoring them.

There is a link back to iFixit guides (for some products, they list parts)

• eMac Capacitor Repair Kit, Apple eMac G4 A1002

www.ifixmaccomputers.com/emac-capacitor-repair-kit eMac Capacitor Repair Kit,

Apple eMac G4 A1002, eMac capacitor replacement kit,

Because there more than a few build versions, from 700MHz to 1.42GHz

to locate one now may be difficult; or the price unrealistic for most users.

A company such as powerbookmedic.com may sometimes have parts

for several different models; recycling businesses who take in Macs may

on occasion break these down and try to sell them as parts. As time goes

by, fewer are likely to be OK. Some educational markets may still have a

few of these; a handful of repair shops could have expertise to fix them.

Looking through these ASC discussions, most seem to have been edited

in the past few weeks, so any fairly recent activity is buried by much older.

Hopefully you can restore your eMac. Some versions were said to be quite

good; sadly none of mine were. ~ Especially out in the middle of nowhere,

newly delivered - yet broken, sitting in near zero temperatures in the snow.

Good luck & happy trails! 🙂

Reply

Answer 9

Cunnla Author

Level 6

8,263 points

Oct 21, 2016 3:47 AM in response to K Shaffer

Thanks for responding and for all those links!

I managed to find the right capacitors -- 1800 μF 6.3V -- and replaced the four seemingly dud ones on the logic board. However, my soldering was not up to par and I overheated one section. Tried to turn the eMac back on but pressing the power button did not even produce a sound. I checked the power button lead and it was OK so I suppose it is probably a logic board circuit I may have disrupted in my clumsy efforts at repair.

So I have taken out the hard drive -- 160 gb -- and will use it for storage or backup and am now waiting for a recycle truck to pass by our house so they can take the eMac away.

Luckily, I have a Mac Mini (2005) which has Tiger installed and can run Classic applications. It can do everything the eMac can do although it is not as powerful -- 1.25gHz as opposed to 1.48gHz.

For anyone who may want to try such a repair, this Youtube video is very helpful, but you have to slow it down!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpsKXQXDO1M

Thanks again.🙂

Reply

Answer 10

K Shaffer

Level 8

36,058 points

Oct 21, 2016 2:26 PM in response to Cunnla

Having read through a few linked sites, it would seem parts/kit from iFixit.com

• eMac Capacitor Repair Kit, Apple eMac G4 A1002 - includes all years capacitors.

So for reference sake, that ^ may be a source for any others looking to restore eMac.

There is another (forgot the name) part that involves power, that may need replaced.

For coincidence-sake, I'm using a Mac Mini Late 2005 1.5GHz PPC at present; it's

running 10.5.8 and at this time am using TenFourFox browser; though it is slow. I

was able to get a few security certificates from various sites to use Safari; but not

all sites offer a newer certificate. So that limits where you can go online, or login.

Well, I have to go offline, there's some new snow here that is heavy/wet but only 4".

That means over an area, few more hours to shovel. Supposed to clear, & be +15°F.

...Maybe after another inch or two of snow. This would be the first sizable snowfall in

the southcentral (larger population area) of Alaska this new season, near sea level.

Hopefully you can sort out the issues if you chose get your eMac G4 up & running.

When had a few of those, the unit appeared to the front part of a rocket or missile. A

few times, I wanted to 'launch' my defective emacs into orbit. ~ One way or another.

Sounds like the garbage truck may be progress; unless another emac user could use

it for parts. Not sure what, maybe a dry aquarium?

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

Reply

Answer 11

Cunnla Author

Level 6

8,263 points

Oct 21, 2016 4:53 PM in response to K Shaffer

That's a good one about the rocket nose cone!

...unless another emac user could use it for parts. Not sure what, maybe a dry aquarium?

Oddly enough, this is what my desktop picture was on the eMac and now on the Mac Mini.

Happy? shovelling.🙂

Reply

Answer 12

K Shaffer

Level 8

36,058 points

Oct 22, 2016 12:16 PM in response to Cunnla

Well, now that it's cooler outside, I'm having more luck

in swatting snowflakes than mosquitoes with a shovel..! 🙂

Reply