well ill start off by describing the situation, our department relies entirely on Macintosh computers. we use Power Mac Q4 quick slivers and Intel iMacs. the problem that we are having is that one of the Macs is acting up. here are the symptoms:
• stays on of about 1 to 2 hours and the restarts, and in some rare cases restarts muitple time to the point that the start up chime is just one continuos tone.
• sometimes when I turn it on it turns on but just sits at the apple start up page, and dosen't go past that until you either hard reset it or hard reset it and the zap the pram
thing that i have done to try and fix it:
• using onyx to clear EVERYTHING (and when i say everything, trust me, i mean everything
• tried to boot it into safe mode (by holding shift at startup, but it doesn't want to boot into safe mode, it fails to)
I am hoping someone can help me with this problem because it is getting very annoying
• Is this a white Intel iMac, or an aluminum one? Core solo or Core duo? What speed?
• Have you swapped in known-good RAM? Does this change behavior? If so, you may have bad RAM.
• Have you tried resetting the SMC, which controls (among other things) power management? Unplug the machine and hold the power button for 5 seconds. Then plug back in and restart.
• Any external display attached? Have you tried disconnecting it?
• Any USB or FireWire devices attached, besides the keyboard and mouse? Have you tried disconnecting them?
Beyond this, I'd say it's likely you have a failing power supply (all Intel models) or a failing graphics card (more likely in the aluminum model). Different models of the Intel iMacs have suffered from these from time to time. Pray for Applecare?
1) its an intel iMac (aluminum)
2) we are not allowed in our department to open up our computers unless your the it guy (who appears once in a blue moon)
3) tomorrow i wiil try to reset the SMC, and get back to you on that
4) no other displays
5) the only other thing that is attached it the Ethernet cord for our network
i think our school has applecare....crossing fingers