frozen iMac, help!

[ceruleanventure]

Can some one help me? My sister borrowed my iMac G5 to load some photos from her digital camera. She called me up and the iMac was frozen. (never happened before) Ok the screen read "Usb device is drawing too much power, component will be disconnected" Ok, I did a restart and the iMac took a long time to boot up (again unusual) This time my mouse and keyboard lights were blinking on and off and the iMac is still frozen. I restarted again and then the searching for mouse and keyboad utility pops up on the screen, even though both are plugged in. I unplugged them and restarted, then plugged them in again at the start of the utility. No luck. I brought in another pair of keyboard and mouse set and tried again. No luck. By this time I've restarted at least six times. Now my imac starts and freezes and the utility screen. I have no idea what to do, does something need to be reset or something? can some one help me?

 

[Fleetwood Mac]

Can some one help me? My sister borrowed my iMac G5 to load some photos from her digital camera. She called me up and the iMac was frozen. (never happened before) Ok the screen read "Usb device is drawing too much power, component will be disconnected" Ok, I did a restart and the iMac took a long time to boot up (again unusual) This time my mouse and keyboard lights were blinking on and off and the iMac is still frozen. I restarted again and then the searching for mouse and keyboad utility pops up on the screen, even though both are plugged in. I unplugged them and restarted, then plugged them in again at the start of the utility. No luck. I brought in another pair of keyboard and mouse set and tried again. No luck. By this time I've restarted at least six times. Now my imac starts and freezes and the utility screen. I have no idea what to do, does something need to be reset or something? can some one help me?

My Canon PowerShot did this to my Mac mini. No promises it will help you, but you could try a PMU or a PRAM reset.. It solved my problems. (I'd give you a link, but I can't find one after ten minutes and I really shouldn't be on the forums right now.. )

Something about cameras and Macs..lol. My friend had to have his logicboard replaced because of a camera once.

 

[ceruleanventure]

Thanks iDuck, I'm going to try that like right now.

 

[ceruleanventure]

It's not working since the keyboard isn't responding....however the CAPS Lock light keeps blinking on and off. Does anyone have any other ideas? How do I reset the PMU or PRAM without the keyboard?

 

[imac abuser]

Hmmm I have had two iMacs and 2 different canon powershots sd550 and sd700is and have not had this issue i also have used both cameras on a 1 gen mac mini also.

 

[ceruleanventure]

Ok, now I'm really worried. Now the imac takes like two minutes to get to the gray screen and instead of starting up, a "you need to restart your computer" message repairs. It keeps happening now matter how many times I restart. Also the fans go on extremely loud. Does this mean something is broken? What should I do? I live about thirty minutes away from an Apple store, should I take the iMac there? The computer is less than six months old, I think this sort of breakdown is totally unacceptable for a computer, I thought macs were good with photos, am I to expect a breakdown everytime I plug a camera into my Mac? I'm sorry for the rant, but I'm so angry right now. I'm on a student budget and this is my second computer purchase in a year. I can't afford to keep buying new computers every six months. Can anyone give me any advice on what to do?

 

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hmmm I have had two iMacs and 2 different canon powershots sd550 and sd700is and have not had this issue i also have used both cameras on a 1 gen mac mini also.

I've only experienced the issue with the A series.

I've had the problem with an earlier generation on one of my notebooks as well.. It's probably very seldom something like this happens. Its even less likely that the camera is the cause, I just thought I'd put it out there. It is possible.

Anyways.. Yes, I would take the iMac in. It's still under the orignal 1-year AppleCare and they should sort you out better than you could do yourself. I think this problem may require opening up the machine (G5s still have the button on the mobo, right?). If I were you, I'd take the camera in to see if the problem can be reproduced aswell.

 

[ceruleanventure]

You were right iDuck, the motherboard was blown. Thank goodness it was still under warranty, otherwise the repairs would've cost almost $900 according to the Mac genius. Btw I got great help there (even though there was a four hour wait lol) I should get my iMac back next week, thanks for the help you two.

 

[Fleetwood Mac]

Great to hear your machine will be back up and kicking soon.