Need help with my mac

Hola there! I am having some issues with my eMac and was wondering if anyone out there knows of any programs that I can run to check for viruses? If you are really a mac guru and would like to hear what's wrong, let me know and I'll 'splain it all.

Macs get viruses?

Run Disk Utility any time things seem to slow down or anything doesn't work like you think it should. Simplt repair permissions.

It came with the system

Certain emacs have a problem with leaking capacitors on the motherboard that cause wierd intermittant problems. Good news- Apple will fix it for free. Go to Apples's site to see if your model is within the range of affected computers. I bought one cheap that had that very problem, got it fixed for free.

I've never heard of that one.

So what's happening to your mac. If you don't tell us we can't help you.

Yes, more details, please. I found this about eMacs on wikipedia:

In early 2006, some users started to experience system freezes in their second revision eMacs - by now around 18 months old. The fault was found to lie with a bad batch of capacitors which had also caused faults with the iMac G5, manufactured in a similar time frame. In June 2006 Apple introduced the eMac Repair Program. However, despite relating directly to the capacitor problem, the symptoms listed under the Repair Program do not include "freezing". Apple agreed to extend the warranty for this failure only on any affected eMacs up to 3 years old. However, some users have reported that Apple is accepting eMacs for repair even older than the 3 years stated[citation needed].

I have never had an eMac, but I'm pretty sure we have had a few in the office.

Ok, here goes. Sometimes it will freeze up when it's in sleep mode or when the screen saver is on, though I cannot confirm this 100% because it seems to happen when I'm not home (my wife tells me). It will not wake up. I have to shut if off and restart it. I can hear things inside humming so I know the power switch is sending power through. I unplug it or hold the power button to shut it down and try once again to start it. This can take 30 minutes sometimes. The light will flash either 4 or 5 times (not sure which though for sure right now) but not turn on. As I do this "turn it on, watch it not start, unplug it and turn it on again" dance it will get a little further into the boot up each time (more or less). Once it starts, all is well. It runs OS 10.3.9 and is the 1GHz G4 with 512 SDRAM. Any ideas?

First thing--and not really related to your problem--you need more RAM. 512 is pretty marginal, and can lead to all sorts of instability and problems.

Now, on yours, unfortunately, it sounds like a hardware problem to me. Just to be sure, I'd run it through disc utility. Download Cocktail and run it, too. It fixes a lot of things.

But really, it sounds like hardware to me.

I dunno - I had the same problem on my iMac G4. Sometimes it just would not wake from sleep at all. Upgraded the RAM to 768 MB, from 256, and I haven't had that problem since.

I was getting a few kernel panics earlier this year, but a fresh install of OSX cleared that up.

I second the motherboard thing. Or the power supply. When they go, funny things occur. Apple replaces both for free because it's a known problem. But definitely run the Disk Utility first.