iMac G4 - No bong or image on screen

[EvieSigma]

I've had this iMac G4 (1.25GHz) for over a year and it's been mostly problems so far. I finally got the previous problem I had sorted out this week and decided to try installing OS X...and now it has a new problem. The first few boots, I got display and the blinking folder, but then it started having issues with displaying the screen. I tried a PRAM reset, which somehow got me into Open Firmware, and then tried to boot normally but it froze:

Now, the last few attempts have just been a black screen with no bong at all. What could be the problem here? Googling around suggested it could be RAM but it would be odd for RAM slots to suddenly act up like this.

 

[nglevin]

I’ve seen an iMac G4 that needed the RAM within the inner socket to be replaced, ten years ago. It had all kinds of random failures that made it impossible to install any then-remotely-recent OS X.

I’m inclined to believe that the RAM is worth replacing. It is the one thing that I really don’t like about those iMacs.

 

[EvieSigma]

Yeah, I really hate taking this thing apart and I hate getting it back together even more but it's either fix it or try and hock it on Craigslist. 

Fortunately I have a spare 1GB DDR stick to try, so I'll take it apart for the third time in 2 days and see if that makes it boot again.

 

[EvieSigma]

Well it seems I've made things worse because now instead of booting up silently, the machine beeps three times when powered on. Did I break something internally?

 

[Unknown_K]

3 beeps is no good ram found or something like that.

 

[EvieSigma]

That's very strange, since it beeps like that with both sticks it had in there before, and all I did was replace the inner DIMM and then reinsert the original DIMM. I also reseated the SODIMM.

 

[Unknown_K]

You just need PC2700 (333), any chance the modules are bad or slower then 333?

 

[EvieSigma]

The DIMM is marked PC2700 but the SODIMM is not. DIMM clearly isn't bad, unless I have two bad DIMMs (I tried with two different DIMMS).

 

[Unknown_K]

Just use the internal DIMM till it works then put it back together and then try the SODIMM till they both work. I would use a different machine to test the RAM (alone) since it would be easier. Did you get that metal piece you were missing?

 

[EvieSigma]

I did, that's why I've been working on the iMac the past two days, trying to get it to finally work.