iMac beeps 3 times at startup?

The same thing happened to my brother's G4, then we found out the hard-drive had died, we got it backed up and got another HD put in as well for backup..
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Jimzip

Your ram might be bad. Get a stick that you know works, and take the rest out and put that in.

Altivec is right. Your computer performs a test when it is powered on, and apparently it found that no RAM banks are working. I suggest pulling them and reinserting them to see if that will clear it up. If not, do like Altivec says and find a stick you that you know to be functional & compatible with the iMac, take out all the other RAM and try booting with it inserted.

I had the same problem with my few month old flat panel (17in 1ghz 1 gig ram) imac and i went on the apple support site and found out what it meant but i needed to call apple directly and see if that was the main problem. Well we basically walked through it and determined it was not the ram module thats easliy accesible but its the one thats harder to get to further in the imac. So since i was covered under applecare then i took it down to an apple repair place and told them what apple told me and i called them 2 days or so later because they had to send off for the ram module and lo and behold it was not the ram thats making problems. Which i kinda thought must not be the main problem because i mean i had never gotten kernal panics b 4 and never had any freezes but now i was getting them constantly until it just would not boot up and made the 3 beeps... So they told me they determined it was the cache on the board that was causing the problems and they would have to replace the whole board! lol I was like damn no wonder i got all those kernal panics because from what i know about cache is that most of the info from thr processor passes through it so no wonder it would not boot.. So im patiently waiting for them to replace it because i know that must be a tough job so meanwhile im typing this on my older imac 400mhz dvse... So it just goes to show ya that it could be a completely different problem then u think ... Good luck with that problem by the way...

All the above..Also check your power supply board....there could be a short..

Power supply board??

dstranathan, it looks like you have memory problems!

As explained by Sad Macs, Bombs, and Other Disasters (an invaluable resource; 4th Edition, page 138 for those who have it) the number of beeps indicates a problem encountered by the Mac's Power On Self-Test (POST):
1 beep = No RAM installed/detected
2 beeps = Incompatible RAM type installed
3 beeps = No RAM banks passed memory testing
4 beeps = No good boot images in the boot ROM
5 beeps = Bad ROM boot block or processor is not usable

If you have any extra new RAM modules, try swapping them out with the installed ones. If not, I would suggest taking your Mac to a certified Apple Service Provider to make sure it's not a deeper problem.

Good luck! ...and I know what you mean about OS 9 I've got the same crashing problems. (stupid AIM and Word!)

Vortex

As explained by that book? They ripped that off of Apple's Knowledge Base...and I doubt they attributed the source either.

Like i said above 3 beeps may NOT mean that its just bad ram or if it is even the ram thats the problem. I looked it up on Apples Knowledge Base too but apparently that was not the problem... So just be aware that not all problems are what they seem...

Yep..I mean fluctations across the line...Power supply needs to be steady in terms of voltage & amperage..

Try plugging your imac into a different power plug...
The "cure" might be as simple as that...

It's the RAM. Apparently yours is broken?

My iMac when I turn it on, it does not boot in the system.
Cannot boot off the Mac OS X install cd, no network boot, nothing except OpenFirmware. It will not go into the boot menu by pressing option. All it does is that. When I type boot, I get this message: Cannot open hd:,\\\\:tbxi and when I type mac-boot, it shows a flashing folder.