(Manufactured in roughly late 1999 - early 2000. Serial sticker suggests week 3-ish of 2000, DCB has October 1999 printed on it)
I got this iMac G3 for pretty cheap back in January, as it turned on, chimed, and stayed on. However, it would show nothing on the CRT, only showing video on an external monitor. Of course I tried stuff like putting a new PRAM battery in, CUDA / PRAM reset, testing trickle voltages, etc, but nothing helped. Trickle voltages are as they should be.
Eventually I tried getting it booting into the OS 9 setup via a CD, which apparently reset it to a more widely compatible resolution + refresh rate, as a PRAM reset had made the iMac default to a resolution and / or refresh rate that my external LCD VGA monitor couldn't display.
However, the CD got stuck, so I had to open it up to manually get it out as it was just making a loud noise, with the manual eject button doing nothing, maybe a motor issue.
Though after powering it up after, it wouldn't turn back on. Power LED turned green, and it chimed, like usual, but after a few seconds, roughly when the CRT should've started brightening, it shut itself off. The CRT does receive some power, as I can hear some static crackling when it shuts itself off, even though it never displayed anything. Of course I, again, tried PRAM / CUDA resets, new PRAM battery, RAM reseating, etc, but nothing worked.
I'm unsure if this was always there, appeared after it stopped fully turning on, or started a short period of time after the power issues started, but a high-pitched whine is coming from the down-converter board. It appears immediately after it's plugged in, disappears when I press the power button, and re-appears as it shuts itself off. It sounded to be coming from the 470uF cap, so I got replacements for both (thought I might as well, as my school had multiple 470uF caps), but the whine stayed, though another one appeared on the PAV aswell.
However, rarely after keeping it plugged in for an hour or more, the green LED stays on, and it displays something on an external screen, though I couldn't see what due to the incompatible refresh rate, so it just sais "Out of Range". I was able to replicate this a few other times after keeping it plugged in, but it rarely actually happened. Wasn't able to get it to happen again after I actually got a CRT monitor capable of displaying what was likely 75Hz. I did once get it to display something on the external CRT, but that was by spamming one of the 2 buttons by the I/O. I remember a loud whine appearing on the PAV somewhere aswell before it shut itself off when I did this. So I think it might be a capacitor issue. Though I can't see any visibly bad ones on the DCB, or what little I can see of the PAV through the clear orange shell
What else can I do? Got some cheap LCR-T4 tester, so planning on inspecting the PAV soon.
I got this iMac G3 for pretty cheap back in January, as it turned on, chimed, and stayed on. However, it would show nothing on the CRT, only showing video on an external monitor. Of course I tried stuff like putting a new PRAM battery in, CUDA / PRAM reset, testing trickle voltages, etc, but nothing helped. Trickle voltages are as they should be.
Eventually I tried getting it booting into the OS 9 setup via a CD, which apparently reset it to a more widely compatible resolution + refresh rate, as a PRAM reset had made the iMac default to a resolution and / or refresh rate that my external LCD VGA monitor couldn't display.
However, the CD got stuck, so I had to open it up to manually get it out as it was just making a loud noise, with the manual eject button doing nothing, maybe a motor issue.
Though after powering it up after, it wouldn't turn back on. Power LED turned green, and it chimed, like usual, but after a few seconds, roughly when the CRT should've started brightening, it shut itself off. The CRT does receive some power, as I can hear some static crackling when it shuts itself off, even though it never displayed anything. Of course I, again, tried PRAM / CUDA resets, new PRAM battery, RAM reseating, etc, but nothing worked.
I'm unsure if this was always there, appeared after it stopped fully turning on, or started a short period of time after the power issues started, but a high-pitched whine is coming from the down-converter board. It appears immediately after it's plugged in, disappears when I press the power button, and re-appears as it shuts itself off. It sounded to be coming from the 470uF cap, so I got replacements for both (thought I might as well, as my school had multiple 470uF caps), but the whine stayed, though another one appeared on the PAV aswell.
However, rarely after keeping it plugged in for an hour or more, the green LED stays on, and it displays something on an external screen, though I couldn't see what due to the incompatible refresh rate, so it just sais "Out of Range". I was able to replicate this a few other times after keeping it plugged in, but it rarely actually happened. Wasn't able to get it to happen again after I actually got a CRT monitor capable of displaying what was likely 75Hz. I did once get it to display something on the external CRT, but that was by spamming one of the 2 buttons by the I/O. I remember a loud whine appearing on the PAV somewhere aswell before it shut itself off when I did this. So I think it might be a capacitor issue. Though I can't see any visibly bad ones on the DCB, or what little I can see of the PAV through the clear orange shell
What else can I do? Got some cheap LCR-T4 tester, so planning on inspecting the PAV soon.