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1.83 GHz Core Duo or 1.83, 2, or 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo A1208 (EMC 2104/2110/2114/2124)

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Black screen, power light on steady, no chime: POST / BootROM failure?

I have reviewed previous answers to this question and reviewed articles on the support.apple website. Apple support indicates a "POST or BootROM failure" because the screen is black and the power light is on steady. I have no idea what "POST or BootROM failure" means or how to resolve it and could not find further reference to it on the Apple site.

Any ideas of what to test / replace?

Thank you!

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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First try unplugging it and press the start button and hold for 10 seconds. I've seen this model with bad capacitors. I'm sorry, if this does not work the next is not an easy fix. The frame will have to be removed. There are diagnostic lights to the right of the RAM slot. Sometimes these are covered with a small piece of electrical tape. Please examine those first on start up and let us know what you get. To diagnose further the screen needs to be removed. The bad capacitors (if it has them) are located on the back of the logic board. This is not an easy problem to repair or fix. This model also has a recall on it for striped screen. It is processor upgradable to a Core 2 Duo, I did one last week. Hopefully someone can suggest an easier fix, I may have been to deep into the forest to see the trees on this one. Also the tear down guides on this one are for the Core 2 Duo, not the Core Duo. The guide for the 1.9 GHz G5 iMac machine is much closer

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Thank you. I tried the 10 second restart to no avail. I see no illumination from any leds near the ram chips.

If I understand, the next step would be to remove the screen and the logic board to examine for bad capacitors? And if bad capacitors are found, then logic board would need to be replace or the computer would need to be replaced?

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I pulled the logic board to examine the capacitors for leakage. I could not see anything that looked compromised.

I bought the machine used. It has obviously been opened and worked with before - missing screw, messed up EMI tape, etc.

Any further thoughts?

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If you're getting nothing on the LED diagnostic lights then the power supply is kaput. Even if you get just one light, it's kaput. Replace it.

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Even though the fan and HD spin up? The power supply is kaput?

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This makes no sense. If you're getting power to the fan and hard drive, the diagnostic LEDs should have at least two lights on. POST, happens at startup, acronym for Power On Self Test. Let's start over. Insert your system installation disk and restart holding down the "C" key and let us know what you get.

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Reseat the RAM. I've seen this behavior when the RAM was not properly reseated upon reassembly.

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