Imac G3 hardware Issue?

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So I will do my best to include as much useful detail while keeping this brief. Thanks in advance for any assistance!

I recently acquired a lovely graphite g3 700mhz. When I got it home, it booted into OS9 and worked. I thought I would try booting into osx just to see how that worked. It booted into osx once, I set things up, all fine. Then when I rebooted, everything went to heck. It gave me a bunch of command line error stuff, and wouldn't boot. I figured the install must have been corrupted.

I attempted to boot from USB (through open firmware) to install os9 or osx again with no luck. It always spit out ", checksum error ok 0 >". So I tried burning CDs instead and booting the install discs. Same error. If I boot without open firmware it just hangs.

I tried resetting PRAM, before and then again after replacing the PRAM battery.

Still the same issues.

What is likely the culprit, and what else can I try? Bad Ram? Something more serious on the logic board?

I'm no stranger to electronics repair, so it wouldn't put me off if I needed to hunt down some issues on the logic board, I just have no idea where to begin!

Thanks again for any help or advice!

Cheers-
SF
 

Cory Cooper

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Hello and welcome.

Sorry for the delayed response.

I assume this is an iMac (Summer 2001), correct? If so, it supports Mac OS 9.1-9.2 and Mac OS X 10.1-10.4.11.

From what I remember, I am not sure that model can startup from USB - it may be FireWire only for external startup. Do you have the original gray Apple OS install discs?

C
 
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Yes, it is a summer 2001 imac g3 graphite 700mhz.

This model is absolutely able to boot from USB. But regardless, as I said, I burned the original install discs (all of them) and those didn't work either.

So here is the update! Spoiler, it's not good news. :(

So I removed the old HDD and added the SSD via SATA to IDE converter. Upon trying to boot from my install discs... It wouldn't boot. I tried turning on while holding option, and I couldn't get to boot manager. Then I tried to get into open firmware, and bupkiss. Then I tried resetting pram, also didn't work... Odd...

So I left it on for a while, and when I returned to it.... It let me reset the pram...good, odd, but good. Then I was able to get into the boot manager, and it saw my install discs, but when I tried to boot from them, it didn't happen. When I tried the osx disc however, it did get to the next screen, with the little mac dude. It still didn't boot however.

So then I tried going into open firmware to see if it would behave like it did pre hdd swap. And it sure did. Tried booting from my USB, and checksum error. Tried booting from my install discs and checksum error.

Obviously something non HDD related is going on, right?

I turned it off again for a while, but then I thought...try one more time. Again I couldn't boot into the boot manager, open firmware, or reset the pram. Once it had been left on for about 15 minutes, as before, then I was able to do those things again. Strange. Like it needed to be warm to detect the keyboard?

I'm super stuck, and at this point, regretting buying a classic mac to have "fun" with. This isn't fun.... But I'm stubborn, and once it's fixed, maybe I'll think it's fun again. :)

Again, any help is DEEPLY appreciated. :)
 

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