neikous Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 Hey everyone. Recently my girlfriend's parents gave me their old iMac G4 ( 1.25 GHz, 768 RAM, 80 gb HDD ). To say the least, I expected it to run somewhat decent. Since I got it, I completely wiped it out, zeroed the drive a couple times and everything, but it still manages to run strange and choppy. I used Apple's TechTool to check all the hardware, everything passed including the surface scan. To make a long story short, the system keeps completely locking up and needs to be manually powered off while playing Starcraft. I heard that resetting the PRAM and NVRAM might help the issue, however every time I try to run ANY keyboard commands on startup nothing happens. I'm wondering if this is because I have a generic Dynex USB keyboard that I picked up from best buy? The keys I'm pressing are: WINDOWS + ALT + P + R -- which would translate to COMMAND + OPTION + P + R correct? If anyone has a clue how I could get this thing to reset PRAM and NVRAM please let me know, or if you have any other ideas why it's running the way it is. Thanks! EDIT -- It's running OS X 10.4.11 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/144813-imac-g4/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
tayklor Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 Try the Control key instead. There is also the reset button on the Motherboard, but getting into in iMac G4 is not the easiest feat. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/144813-imac-g4/#findComment-1028453 Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_cope Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 yeah the magic button has revived our aging G4 towers many a time. Those suckers lock up on boot once or twice a week now. Getting to the point that they'd be better off in a landfill. That being said my dad still uses his G3 iMac DV with no issues at all. You might try a legit apple keyboard, I know my windows keyboard isn't recognized by OSX until I do the little profiling deal on a fresh install. Could be that the location of the apple key (on a generic keyboard) is set after OSX loads, which would make flashing the pram mighty difficult. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/144813-imac-g4/#findComment-1028507 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synaesthesia Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 If it's very slow it could be the hard drive that's giving in. If it freezes, it could be leaky capacitors or some other hardware related issues. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/144813-imac-g4/#findComment-1029061 Share on other sites More sharing options...
neikous Posted January 7, 2009 Author Share Posted January 7, 2009 Thanks for all the replies. Tayklor: I've tried pretty much every combination of keys, nothing seems to work. I'll have the original keyboard and mouse on sunday (I'm just an instant gratification person) haha. capt_cope: I'll definitely try doing the magic button technique, seems to be what I hear all around now. I would say you're right about the keyboard not being mapped until the OS is loaded. Synaesthesia: I agree with the hard drive possibly causing issues. When I first got the machine, the hard drive would sometimes do grinding in sets of 4 ( 4 repetitions of the same sound ) and would do it for up to one minute, locking the computer while it did it, then wake up and run fine. However S.M.A.R.T reports the drive as "Verified" and after zeroing the drive a few times it no longer makes the strange noise. Regardless I will be buying a new hard drive when I have the money to. As far as locking up or crashing with Starcraft, I suspect either the bad caps, or some problems with the video memory. On another note, I did run Apple's Tech Tool and did all the tests (even hdd surface scan) and they all pass with flying colors every time. Strange G4 behavior. Hopefully resetting the PRAM and NVRAM will do the trick. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/144813-imac-g4/#findComment-1030958 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaaseyRacer Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 Try deleting the system/library, library, and user caches and see if that helps. Also what version of the OS are you running? If you are running 10.4+ boot up holding down command+s type in exit after the system loads and hit return. The computer will boot up, from there restart your computer and see if that has helped. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/144813-imac-g4/#findComment-1033109 Share on other sites More sharing options...
neikous Posted January 10, 2009 Author Share Posted January 10, 2009 MaaseyRacer: Thanks for the reply. I tried most of that stuff, and to no avail. I ended up buying a 320 gig hard drive and throwing it in there, also popped the PRAM battery while I did the installation. Re applied thermal paste and put it back together. It's reinstalling OS X 10.4 right now. Hopefully this will do the trick. If not, I'll be one bummed out guy Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/144813-imac-g4/#findComment-1034649 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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