I've looked through previous posting and the Apple site, but have not found help so far. I am PC knowledgeable, but trying to help a friend with an iMac. At boot or reboot, the iMac is emitting 2 very loud tones and never goes to the chimes. The monitor light goes solid green sfor a few moments, then flashes orange 3 times. This cycles just repeats with an entirely black screen. It seems to me that the tones and light sequence designate what (hardware?) error is happening, in the same way the a PC ROM will emit a tone sequence. Is there an reference course for the boot up eror tones and/or lights for the iMac? So far, I've not found one. Any help will be greatly appreciated. The machine in question handles circualtion for a school library and kids show up on Thursday. Thank you, Gary

since you and i are pc litterate and know little about imacs and no one else has answered yet if you know anything about pc motherboards you know what jumpers are try looking on the mac motherboard for bios jumpers and reset the bios if that dosnt work try removing the battery with a fresh one if that dosnt work try booting with battery out then replace and try booting otherwise call apple for help sory im more familiar with x86 arch and as400's

Macs introduced after October 1999, use a revised set of power on self-test beeps during startup. If you experience one of these beeps, you may call your Apple Authorized Service Provider for additional troubleshooting assistance. 1 beep = no RAM installed 2 beeps = incompatible RAM types 3 beeps = no good banks 4 beeps = no good boot images in the boot ROM (and/or bad sys config block) 5 beeps = processor is not usable

You may also have a bad hard drive. Apple used a bunch of bad Quantum drives somewhere between RevB's and RevD's. They have a chip on the bottom that blows up. Check to see if the drive spins up. If not, replace it and your problem should go away. Kerry