Member Avatar for sprale

My Mac died last week and neither I nor IT have been able to resurrect it. It is a Dual 2.3 G5 with 10.4.11 installed. I got a kernel panic and the fans ran up to full speed and stayed there while I went to lunch. It sounded like a jet taxiing on the runway.

I can not get any boot options on the system. No safe boot or target mode. The Startup Manager just shows a lock, what looks like a password entry field and an arrow. I try to enter known passwords, but no luck. I can get the Open Firmware screen, but know nothing about it.

Anyone have any ideas on this one?

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Member Avatar for Rick150

The G% is in panic mode, thinks there is an on board failure. Fans will run full speed to keep it cool as a precaution. Try removing things one at a time. PCI cards, ram or anything connected that may have failed. I removed a USB card to solve a similar problem on mine. Also if you get it to boot, turn off any sleep mode until you have positively tracked the fault down.

Member Avatar for sprale

Got it! Open Firmware Password was enabled on this Mac, locking out boot options (even resetting the PRAM!). I disabled it by changing the amount of installed memory and then resetting the PRAM. Good to go!

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