iMac4,1 Built-In Ethernet greyed out

[tolozen]

Hi all,
A few weeks ago I got an iMac4,1 from a local guy on Facebook Marketplace. Everything works great (other than a ding on the screen and lots of gunk in the keyboard). I did a clean install and cleaned off the exterior to the best of my ability. Right now it's on OS X Tiger and I haven't been able to connect it to the internet. Trying to use Airport to connect to my WiFi doesn't seem to work (it says it's connected but nothing loads). I then tried to use Ethernet with a cable I know works and it didn't automatically connect. I tried to use the internet connection troubleshooting tools, even going so far as to try and figure out my subnet mask and whatnot to input manually, but nothing worked. Now when I go to try and connect it, only Airport, Bluetooth, and Built-In Firewire are even available. There's no way to even turn on the Ethernet functionality as far as I can tell. Anyone know what could be up?

Thanks.

 

[Bigwaff]

Push cable in until it clicks ;-)

With the Ethernet cable plugged into your iMac, do you see any lights on the router’s or switch’s port? If not, your iMac Ethernet port could be dead. The WiFi situation could be several issues.. iMac Airport card too old and doesn’t support your WiFi security setting, or your router not broadcasting old WiFi protocol.. would need more specifics regarding your WiFi setup.

You should consider running Apple Hardware Test -

GitHub - upekkha/AppleHardwareTest: Apple Hardware Test Download Links

Apple Hardware Test Download Links. Contribute to upekkha/AppleHardwareTest development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[tolozen]

Thanks, I will look into that in a couple days and get back to you. About to go out of town. Things are made a little bit more complicated because I don't have a working, modern Mac at all. I think I can use something like Balena Etch to make the bootable USB similarly to what that repo lays out.

 

[tolozen]

Alright, I tried to get AHT running. There is only one iMac4,1 AHT listed in that repo, for "iMac4,1 3A103". After doing the terminal commands for my machine, I learned that mine is an iMac4,1 Mac-F42786C8. So, not the same, but I tried continuing with the one 4,1 one there was anyways. To make a long story short, I tried putting it into the .diagnostics folder, no dice. I then tried making a bootable USB with the diskutil, and still no dice. It's often not even showing up as connected, and when holding D on startup, it didn't appear an option. It's possible that I just did something wrong but I imagine it's because the board is just not the same. I'm tempted to try the 'unidentified' AHT from the repo. Just based on the file naming conventions it seems like it might be from near iMac4,1. It'd be interesting to discover it's actually my model's.

As for the ethernet port, you may be right. No light on the router when connected.

Sidenote 1: the clock sets itself. Does this mean it's semi-connected to the internet via Airport after all? Either way, doesn't connect to apple.com or example.com.

Sidenote 2: Sometimes when shutting down (not restarting or sleeping), the machine just gets stuck on a loading wheel. And somehow some of the times I booted it up during this testing one of the 3 USB ports wouldn't work. Just odd.

I have a Mac OS X Snow Leopard installation disc. I'm tempted to just upgrade up to that and see what that may or may not fix. The iMac4,1 should support it.

 

[Bigwaff]

I have a Mac OS X Snow Leopard installation disc. I'm tempted to just upgrade up to that and see what that may or may not fix. The iMac4,1 should support it.

Yes. I would boot from the SL install disk, use Disk Utility to completely erase and reformat the boot drive, and install SL.

 

[tolozen]

I was able to get Snow Leopard installed and all the way updated, after quite a long time. Safari still doesn't work with any websites, so I'm just assuming this version of Safari is non-functional at this point for whatever reason. Software Updates, the clock, and my Terminal can connect just fine. So I'm now onto attempting to get a newer browser which supports 10.6 working. Trying InterWeb. Thanks for your suggestions thus far.

Edit: Having troubles with InterWeb, going to try ArcticFox too. I'll see if either one works. I hope the Safari version was the issue after all.

 

[tolozen]

Got InterWeb up and running. I was using the 64-bit erroneously. Still no luck opening any websites. Could it be a DNS issue or something? It wasn't Safari after all.

Edit: Nevermind! I turned off some privacy settings as well as disconnecting and reconnecting and it seems to work now! Thanks for the help.

Do you think it's worth trying AHT again to see what exact specs I have and maybe try to figure out the Ethernet issue?