[X4U] iMac startup problem

[John Baltutis]

On 01/23/08, Paul Moortgat <paul.moortgat at pandora.be> wrote:
>
> A family member has an iMac for 5 year.  Now when she needs to
> restart, she has to do it 10-12 times before it will work.
> After the successful restart everything works until the next restart
> is needed.  She now leaves the iMac on all day.  Sleep at night.
> Is this a power supply problem?  Or does she needs to do something else?

Do these steps, one at a time, and stop when the problem's fixed. First is run
the Apple Hardware Test program that came with the machiine. Second is to zap
the PRAM (restart holding down the CMD+OPT+P+R keys until she hears at least
three bongs). Third is to reset the open firmware: restart holding down the
CMD+OPT+O+F, enter these commands, one at a time, followed by hitting the
return key-the last one reboots the machine:

reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all

If these don't fix the problem, depending on which OS, see these:

OS 7.x-9.x: <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=16473>
OS X 10.3.9 and earlier: <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464>
OS X 10.4: <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25392>
OS X 10.5: <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307005>
Or this for general iMac issues:
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301287>