The G4 iMac in the bedroom that I used as a jukebox (connected to a cheap CD micro system I got in a charity shop) stopped working mid May :-(
Unfortunately, it was the screen that was broken - probably the inverter. I had flashed the firmware ages ago to extend the desktop to my flat-screen TV which was a big mistake as I hadn't told it to mirror when I'd last used it to watch a movie on the TV. This meant I could boot the iMac with it connected to the TV and see the background on the TV but see nothing so I couldn't reset it to mirroring to use the TV as a display all the time :-(
I tried the old Core Duo macMini from the spare bedroom that I only use for ripping VHS tapes to digital. It played music on iTunes fine with its internal speaker but kept cutting out when connected to the micro system :-(
So, for about 6 weeks or so I had to share my iPod Classic between work and music in the bedroom :-( A couple of weeks ago, my brother gave me back my old 4GB ipod Mini that I won in a Walkers Crisps promotion about 12 years ago :-) So, it became the bedroom music player but still not as good as the G4 iMac...
I had another broken G4 iMac that I'd stripped the guts out of last year and tried a mod to turn it into a monitor that I lost confidence in as it didn't seem to work at the testing phase of a how to I was trying. I thought the inverter was broken so I had ruled out swapping that screen with the bedroom's one. Decided this week that it was worth a try and did the swap this evening and... it worked :-) Result!!!
I had to open up the bottom as it wasn't seeing the SATA drive to boot-up -- it's been moved around quite a bit and the adapter board for ATA100 to SAT must have worked loose. Opened it up (there's 14 screws you have to undo to get inside and take the drive-bay out) and checked all the connections then the task of tucking all the extra cables back in to reassemble it without nipping any in the case. Everything is working again :-) took me over an hour as I took it down to the spare bedroom for more space to work. Then I had to move the macMini out of the way and dust the top of the chest it sits on. Yet to test it playing iTunes through the micro system as I'm still enjoying listening to Liza Tarbuck on Radio 2 :-)
Well Liza is finished now so time to test iTunes through the stereo...
Yay! Everything back to normal - Paul Heaton's Acid Country is sounding great :-)
