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Scared I May Have A Broken Mini

B

bass93

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 25, 2009
134
0
Hey everyone, I need your help.

I bought a Mac Mini off of eBay a week or so ago. It's the 1.42GHz, 512MB RAM, 80GB HDD. Running OS X 10.3.9 Got it for $85

Right off the bat, I was upset, because the guy did not ship it with a power adapter. So for another $25 I got one of those.

It came today. Plugged it in and powered it on. Worked fine. But I wanted to reinstall the operating system. It was password protected, but I got the password from the seller, and started the reinstall with the original, never used, install disks.

Then terror struck. The drive made a TON of horrible noise. It powered down and the fan was running, but nothing happened. So after half an hour or so, I force ejected the disk by powering down the machine all the way then holding the mouse button while powering it back up. It ejected.

Now I try to power on the machine, and the fan turns on but that's it. No chime. No display still.

I need your help. I have no idea what to do. I'm using a Windows keyboard, so if your help has anything to do with the control, option, or command keys, please tell me what those are on a Windows keyboard.

Thanks in advance.
 
Sounds like a potentially bad hard disk and/or optical drive. I assume this is a G4 based Mini. Judging by its age, you're likely to have a lot of dust build-up inside, among other things.

I would second the idea to contact the seller and find out if this machine is supposed to 100% working. If not, it may be the case that you're out on this one. If the seller insists that all should be well, he may offer a refund. If you end up stuck with a broken Mini, it is still possible to save it, but it will cost you some more $$.

I would even offer to assist you, but then there's shipping, parts and labor that go along with that and it may not be worth it to you for the original price you paid. You can probably find another G4 Mini for $100-$200.


bass93 said:
Hey everyone, I need your help.

I bought a Mac Mini off of eBay a week or so ago. It's the 1.42GHz, 512MB RAM, 80GB HDD. Running OS X 10.3.9 Got it for $85

Right off the bat, I was upset, because the guy did not ship it with a power adapter. So for another $25 I got one of those.

It came today. Plugged it in and powered it on. Worked fine. But I wanted to reinstall the operating system. It was password protected, but I got the password from the seller, and started the reinstall with the original, never used, install disks.

Then terror struck. The drive made a TON of horrible noise. It powered down and the fan was running, but nothing happened. So after half an hour or so, I force ejected the disk by powering down the machine all the way then holding the mouse button while powering it back up. It ejected.

Now I try to power on the machine, and the fan turns on but that's it. No chime. No display still.

I need your help. I have no idea what to do. I'm using a Windows keyboard, so if your help has anything to do with the control, option, or command keys, please tell me what those are on a Windows keyboard.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
 
It was listed as used and fully operational. He's supposed to be calling me in a couple hours. Would any of you like to buy it off of me and try to fix it yourself?
 
Sorry, I have no need for another G4 Mini right now.

bass93 said:
It was listed as used and fully operational. He's supposed to be calling me in a couple hours. Would any of you like to buy it off of me and try to fix it yourself?
Click to expand...
 
Okay. Is there any way I can figure out what is wrong with it?
 
Door Stop

Looks like you bought a nice door stop.
I question your judgement to buy a computer on ebay from some unknown person who wants to get rid of something.
 
Hook up a blank external drive and see if you can install to the external drive. If that works, run it a bit from the external drive to insure it's working. If it's working, then it's a bad internal drive. If not, could be bad ram or the motherboard is dead. Pull the ram modules and 1st see if they are the correct ones for that model mini. Then check to see if they are the same brand ( presuming 2 sticks used). Macs are finicky using multiple vendors ram sticks. Let us know what you find out.
 
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