Desperate need of help

[m1mmo11]

Hi all,

I own an old iMac G5 1.8, recently the monitor started to flicker and the system became incredibly slow and unstable. If I boot by holding down the option key the screen remains intact, once i try to boot from hd or optical then the problem starts to occur. Would that suggest faulty ram ?

 

[Jesse714]

I would say that thats a pretty good guess, ram could cause the problem, but i think that it could also be your hard drive. If it was getting ready to go out, it may be spinning faster than it should.. try taking the hard drive out and booting from a disc.

 

[kisuke3]

better yet, back up your data and do a clean installation. y?
1. speeds up your computer because it takes out the clutter
2. this will let you isolate a hardware problem from a software problem
a) if the problem did not persist after a clean install(erase and install)it means it was an OS problem
b) if the problem persist, not sure whether you have APP but it is most like a HW problem. Could be the RAM, LCD or HD...worst Logic board.

Run an Apple Hardware Test. Choose extended test