Well tonight I tried this fix, proposed by Sri and IT WORKS BY GAD! Any users of British keyboards will find the backtick ` next to the letter Z on the keyboard BTW.
The eMac now starts fine, and runs well. I tried looking at a WMV file using VLC and it runs but doesn't show any video, so I guess that needs the Radeon chip to be active. Quicktime however seems to work OK on Quicktime files. Youtube seems to run adequately, even in full screen mode. DVD player however doesn't work, saying that "A valid video device could not be found for playback [-70017]" I also tried a video CD (remember those?) which will play in VLC but again no video. I will encourage my efriend to overcome her technofear and see how it works for her. Thanks again Sri for sharing this with us. Dan. I had this same problem on a 1.25ghz G4 emac. The bad caps are on a > > circuit that connects to the Radeon chip, and it's only when the > > Radeon chip is active that you get the errors and random freezes. (It > > gets worse once the chip heats up, which is why you can generally use > > it for 5-10 minutes after a cold boot but see it freeze a lot faster > > on a reboot.) When you're in safe mode, OS X emulates all graphic > > functions in software; since the Radeon chip doesn't get activated, > > the eMac works fine. > > > If you don't want to de/resolder the caps on the logic board, the > > quick fix (that I used for YEARS) is as follows: > > > Boot to Single User Mode (hold down Command-S while booting) > > run the following commands: (return after each line) > > > -- > > > fsck -ay > > mount -uw / > > cd /System/Library/Extensions/ > > tar cvf ATI.tar `ls|grep ATI` > > rm -rf `ls|grep ATI` > > reboot > > > -- > > (Double check when you run these, the tar and rm lines have backticks, > > the key to the left of 1, not apostrophes!) > > > What this does is archive and delete the kernel extensions that > > initialize and load Radeon chip support into OS X. Without those > > support extensions, OS X goes to a fallback mode and emulates video > > functions in software (just like safe mode). This is notably slower, > > but since it never uses the Radeon chip it should be completely > > stable. You have to re run those commands every time you install an > > update (OS X will notice the extensions are missing and replace > > them). > > > Hope this is helpful. I came up with this as an interim measure and > > ended up leaving it that way for two years. :) > > > -sri > -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list To unsubscribe from this group, send email to g3-5-list+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE ME" as the subject.
