White screen following security update

[ashleykaryl]

I posted this in the iMac section previously, but there has been no answer, so I thought I'd try here.

I have an old 2007 iMac that I keep as a backup machine and it was working fine yesterday running El Capitan. I noticed in the App Store that there was a recommended Apple security update, which must have been the most recent update for El Capitan, so I ran that and since then all I've had a white screen at startup.

I've tried the following without success

1) Resetting the SMC
2) Resetting NVRAM
3) Starting in Safe mode
4) Attempted entering recovery mode
5) Restarted in verbose mode
6) Unplugged peripherals

Nothing seems to make a bit of difference here and while there is an immediate chime at startup, nothing appears beyond the white screen. Any ideas how this could be resolved, because it seems like too much of a coincidence for a hardware failure immediately following a system security update.

 

[elf69]

I have same issue with a 2010 MacBook and have been told by 3rd party apple repair centre (actually by two of them) that is is the gpu at fault.

Mine was fine one day then next morning nothing, no updates or anything.

at least in your iMac (I have same one BTW) the gpu is replaceable.
I have a 2400 and planning to upgrade to the 2600 if can find one.

 

[ashleykaryl]

This is a tricky one given the age of the computer, because a repair of any kind would likely cost more than it is worth. Sometimes the mouse cursor appears and other times not.

After further testing, I've found that pressing the D key at startup to run a hardware test produces a flashing question mark within a folder for about 30 seconds, before reverting to a plain white screen for a while and then looping back to the flashing question mark. Apparently this means the computer cannot find the startup volume.

At one point I tried typing in my password and it just turned off. Also it seems that if I hit the power button after a while it shuts down after a fraction of a second, so it's not like a prolonged delay before a forced shutdown.

It all seems too coincidental in this case when it was working well until I installed that security update, then immediately went to white screen, but after 10 years I guess anything can happen. My old Power Mac G5 tower only lasted 5 years.

 

[elf69]

GPU is not too bad to replace if you tinkered before ifixit guide is good.

But yes it is getting bit old.
having said that I'm about to upgrade my 2007 Mac so it can run high Sierra.

can you power it up holding T key and then connect it to your other Mac via firewire?
you could then backup your data and try a reinstall via this method, I done this to a MacBook Pro once from my iMac.

 

[ashleykaryl]

I'll have a go, but the other computer is running High Sierra from an APFS drive, so this is likely to produce odd results, because the iMac can't run anything newer than El Capitan. At the moment I'm working on something else, so I'll have to try later this evening and install El Capitan on another drive if needed.

The one thing that really scares me is losing the Mac Pro, because the replacement will be expensive and there is nothing currently available from Apple that comes remotely close for what I need i.e fast, reliable and easy to expand. Sadly, Apple will no longer repair them, despite still being super fast by modern standards. It runs rings around a 2017 i7 MacBook Pro 3.5GHz on heavy tasks.

BTW I noticed you are also in Cornwall. I'm in St Austell.

 

[elf69]

as long as you have el cap installer thats all you need.

just try install in and select the iMac HDD as destination.
in target mode it will just show as a hdd on ur other Mac.

I'm in camborne, cornwall

 

[ashleykaryl]

I think this is really dead. Somehow I exceeded my own expectations by sifting through a drawer and finding an old SATA drive complete with a clean install of El Capitan, which I must have prepared at some point a few years ago. I tested it on the Mac Pro and it fired up, so I attached it via a caddy to the iMac and pressed option key at start up. There was activity for a few seconds on the external drive, but nothing beyond that.

 

[elf69]

oh dear

that's no good.

 

[ashleykaryl]

I'll have one more go in a few days when I can access another Mac to see if I have any luck with that, but otherwise I think it's time to say goodbye to the old iMac, though it's done pretty well.

I was told yesterday that system updates can put stress on old computers and apparently it's common for them die during an update, which is something I'd never heard before.

 

[elf69]

no nor myself and I work in a computer repair shop.

I love my 2007 iMac and for the original cost £149 with 12 months warranty it has served me very well.
I have a time machine back up so just hope my planned upgrades do not result in a white screen as yours.

I have a 2010 MacBook with white screen but chimes on boot.
I have a 2007 macbook pro 17" white screen but no chime.

both laptops was fine evening of day 1 and morning of day 2 boots to white screen only.
my 2010 was my work laptop, I have time machine backup but it is 2 months behind. the internal ssd is good though.

 

[ashleykaryl]

I wish I'd only paid £149 for this iMac. From memory it was about £1100 new including 4 gigs of ram and I used it for just over a year before the hard drive packed up. That was replaced, but the new drive ran too hot and caused burn marks on the screen after about a week; making it unusable for my work. It was swiftly passed on to my daughter, until it came back recently after she bought a new MacBook Pro.

I may look around for a used Mac Mini with an SSD and just install the basic stuff, so I have something on standby in an emergency. There is nothing worse than being without a work computer for a week or two, while troubleshooting, before eventually buying a replacement.

 

[elf69]

I bought mine refurbed and i'm look at getting a 24" 2009 model for around £200-250 mark at some suppliers.

but for now my 2007 will get an ssd and upgrade from 2.0GHz to 2.8GHz.
already maxed the ram to 6GB.
plus removing dvd for a 2nd hdd with my home folder relocated to it.

these old iMac are very under rated.

I got a 2009 model for a friend and hacked it to run Sierra, will hack again soon to run High Sierra.
he first time Mac user and is sooo happy with it even with hdd not ssd.

 

[ashleykaryl]

I guess you have access to the parts at a good price and can do the job yourself, which obviously makes it all easier. There is one guy here in St Austell, who replaced that failed hard drive previously, but I suspect it might cost me a £100 just to find out it's not economically viable to repair. I'm puzzled that it's possible to repair these old iMacs, but Apple won't supply any parts for a 2010 Mac Pro.

Rather remarkably, my original iMac from 1999 still starts, though I passed it on to a relative several years back and it's not much use for work these days. I can't remember the last OS it had installed, but probably something like 10.3. That one had a 4 gig hard drive!

 

[elf69]

what the specs on your faulty iMac?

I only ask as if going to cost you £100 for testing for less than double that I can help get you a replacement machine and just swap HDD over and off you go again.

nice see someone local (ish) on here not in states lol

 

[ashleykaryl]

I don't know for sure that it would cost me £100, but that's just a guess. I once had a Power Mac G5 that was playing up and I was charged about £80 for the guy to take out the CPU tray and put it back in. That was some place out at St Columb Major several years ago. Nowadays that's the first thing I check on the Mac Pro...

I had to go and check the old paperwork, but it's an 2.4GHZ INTEL CORE 2 DUO that was purchased in October 2007 and I gather that was a new model at the time. It has a 24" display and the original hard drive was 320 gigs, but that was replaced with a 500gig drive later on. I also expanded the ram up to 4 gigs.

There is a chance my father will buy himself a new Mac Mini soon in which case I'll grab his old one that is only 5-6 years old. It was the entry level spec, but ought to be usable if I could fit an SSD in there.

 

[elf69]

Was nice machine that.

I got a 20" model and want a 24".
yours got the better 2600 gpu where mine is 2400.

there a specialist in Newquay quoted me £60 for diagnostics.
this fee is waved if you go ahead with the repair with them.

 

[ashleykaryl]

OK thanks I'll make a note of that. I still want to check with the Mac Mini to see if I can use that to coax some life out of it and then I'll take it from there. The only place I know in Newquay is CTS on the main road in the town centre, though I think MacManLee are there as well and it's not a big trip from here.

 

[elf69]

that's one CTS.
I been talking to them over facebook messenger about getting my Macs fixed as beyond my skills (suspected GPU failure)

good luck and hope you/they can get it going again.

You will need firewire cables to link them, do you have some?

I was tempted but a 24" off ebay with known duff GPU as mine is good and swapping mine into it.

still might do that as a 24" come in handy as starting designing stickers and logos for my car club now.
just need bigger graphics tablet too as 6x4 bit small on a 20" and be worse on 24" screen.

 

[ashleykaryl]

I seem to have half fixed this after a bit of trial and error. I was resigned to throwing the machine away but didn't want to do so without first removing the drive, so I dismantled it following a video I found on Youtube and while I was there I changed the battery, but that made no difference.

Eventually I got to the original hard drive and after pulling it out, I tested it in a caddy on the Mac Pro, but found it wouldn't mount, so at this point I started thinking that maybe the drive itself had gone. No amount of messing with disk utility did any good.

I figured it was worth a try putting in that clean install drive of El Capitan and without fully reassembling everything it started up fine and ran smoothy for about 15 minutes. After putting back the case it starts and runs fine, but the fans seem to be running hard, so I figure that either the heat sensor is badly placed or this drive is no good for this machine.

The drive is pretty ancient and probably came off an old Power Mac G5. It's 256 gigs and the design is slightly different than the one that came out of the iMac, which had more space for the heat sensor with a neat little silver area on a backplate to apply the pad. I followed the Youtube video and applied the sensor to the back of the drive where there was a silver coloured circle right in the centre.

Right now I figure there are three possibilities:

1) The replacement drive is not suitable for an iMac
2) The heat sensor needs to be moved
3) I need to use one of those fan apps that control the speed

It's nice to know that the machine itself is still functioning, but I'd like to get this fan issue sorted safely.

 

[elf69]

does sound like heat sensor if all was working before.

not seated correctly or due to age it failed or the lead for sensor has failed.

if in stock you could try "thebookyard" they are UK supplier of parts for macs.
I used them few times.
cost more than ebay but you know will be working part.

Glad to know you got it running though.

i have "macs fan control" app on my imac, not needed but it does give me temp readings.
It should tell you if sensor working or not as the readings be way off if not working.

 

[ashleykaryl]

There was no rushing hand while computer operated with the new drive until I closed everything up. It could be that the temperature stayed low while there was fresh air circulating, but I've read that it might be the LCD heat sensor that runs along the bottom of the screen and is awkwardly positioned, so it can actually be cut by the screws when being closed up again. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3749402


EDIT: Update after putting the old 500 gigs drive in Mac Pro I was eventually able to bring it to life by trying to partition it, which finally made it appear on the desktop after a few minutes. A quick check showed it's empty, but checks out OK with first aid, so now I'm a bit unsure what to do, but it looks like I'll be opening the iMac again one way or another.

 

[ashleykaryl]

After a lot of messing about I finally have it working pretty well. It turns out the old drive was in fact failing when I checked it with an app called SmartReporter. I stripped off a small silver coloured strip from that old drive and taped it onto the replacement; then fixed the heat sensor on that strip, so it was like the original. The replacement was the original drive from my 2004 Power Mac G5...

I was then able to reassemble it all and everything works smoothly with no rushing fans. The only strangeness is that if I plug it in to the wall socket, the computer starts immediately, rather than waiting for the power button to be pressed, however I can live with that and I'm glad to have it back as a reserve.

Looking inside, it's clear why iMacs have heat problems and there was a lot of dust that I managed to clear away. Taking account of those design limitations I would say this machine has been surprisingly robust to still be going after more than 10 years of almost daily use. If it goes wrong again like that I'll definitely try another drive, before assuming it's the logic board.

 

[elf69]

If you put a 2004 drive in then I personally would have put in a new one.

most HDDs are designed to last 3 years.
after that your on "on borrowed time".

SSD would have been way to go.

I bought a caddy for my own 2007 iMac to fit an ssd.
the caddy looks like a 3.5" drive and even has the plugs offset like a 3.5" drive so it a direct fit to ANY desktop.

But glad you got running.

 

[ashleykaryl]

I may well do that soon. This was my first time looking inside an iMac and the main purpose was to establish whether it was the hard drive or something else. In the past I was always scared off by horror stories of how complicated it was and I didn't want a £200 repair bill on a computer that is almost 11 years old. Everything is backed up now, so it's in a good state.

The drive that came out of the iMac was Western Digital from 2009, but I think I've been luckiest so far with Samsung drives. The Mac Pro has very good ventilation though, so that could be a factor. I've never had much luck with Seagate or Maxtor.

 

[elf69]

these old iMac actually not too bad to work inside or to get inside.

another reason I like my 2007.
im gonna bin my dvd drive in mine and fit a 500GB 2nd hdd.
I got the adaptor to do it even though in a 2007 the dvd is IDE so drive will be slow.

but a 240GB SSD will be going into it a primary boot drive.