G3 AIO CD-ROM not ejecting.

[iamdigitalman]

yeah, I have one of these beasts. I upgraded the RAM heavily, and put in a large 20gb HD. For the longest time it was booting with no video, but something told me to give it another go. It works. For anyone with one of these: the long thin grey cable with the black connector is the one for video. It needs to go with the tab up (there is a notch on both sides of the connector oddly), and push it in securly on both sides, until you hear 2 clicks.

Anyways, the CD-ROM drive is not ejecting. It is odd. I can't get it to come out. I get the grey screen with the :?: floppy, and mouse pointer, but I can't get it to come out.

Here is what I have tried:

-pressing the cuda switch

-doing the command-option-p-r sequence, for 5 chimes

-double checking all my connectors on both ends

-replaced the CD-ROM drive with a 32x from a B&W G3 tower (the one in it was 24x)

-unplugging the hard drive, since I heard this sometimes interferes with the CD-ROM.

Anything I am missing? I want to load this with 9.2.2 and make it a very nice classic machine. It's a 266mhz model, I can tell by the AV personality card fitted. Much nicer than my 233mhz bottom bin G3 tower.

Thanks.

-digital

 

[Sosai X]

What kind of RAM did you use? The system bus in the G3AIO is 66 mhz. Did you use PC133? It might not be compatible, or maybe one of the DIMMs isn't seated properly, or maybe just bad? What happens when you boot with just a minimum amount of ram, like 32 MB? Did you check the IDE jumper settings on the drives, to make sure it has the proper master or slave settings? Plus the good thing about the G3AIO logic board is the CPU is a ZIF socket, and you can adjust the bus multiplier with the DIP switches on the logic board. I see 450 Mhz processors that would work fine listed on ebay for as little as $25. Something like that would give you a nice boost.

 

[iamdigitalman]

aha, I did not check the RAM. I think I put PC100 in it. I thought it automatically would work at PC66. I will pull out everything but the stock stick and try again. If it were bad RAM, though, wouldnt the whole system just refuse to boot?

I am not interested in speeding it up at all. I am just going to shove 9.2.2 on it, load it with the newton software, software for the stylewriter 2500, apple scanner software, and the quicktake stuff. I know, it only has 2 serial ports, but I have seen 4 port serial PCI cards for macs that will work.

I will report back as soon as I check out the RAM.

-digital

 

[Sosai X]

Some RAM will clock down to lower speeds, but I have seen some that don't. Has something to do with the CAS latency or something techie like that.. :lol:

 

[iamdigitalman]

nope, that did not do anything. I hunted and pecked for the original module, popped that in, removed the other modules, and booted. Still nothing.

It also can not be power, because the single lead that comes from the supply still works, as the zip and hard drives power up properly.

-digital

 

[Sosai X]

What happens if you disconnect the power to the CD drive, and just boot with the hard drive?

 

[iamdigitalman]

Actually, there is nothing on the hard drive. It is totally blank, a clean slate. I did it that way so I could install a fresh copy of 9 with all the drivers on the machine.

Should I still try and disconnect the CD drive? There would be nothing to boot, so it would sit there and flash.

Maybe it is having a problem with the 20gb hard drive? I know OS X has an 8gb limit, but is that also true on 8 or 9? If so, I will go digging for the original 4gb hard drive and put that back in. That should be large enough for what I need to do.

-digital

 

[Franklinstein]

Turn it on after unplugging the CD's data cable. If it ejects, then the problem is with the configuration, cable, or motherboard.

Make sure the CDROM is set properly. On most beige G3s, the CDROM was on its own IDE channel and set to Master (most Macs won't do Cable Select, either).

Some later ROM revisions (I think it's Rev. F or something) allow those machines to use two devices on the IDE bus. If that's your case, make sure that one drive is set to Master, the other to Slave.

If it still doesn't work, swap IDE positions on the motherboard (with the hard drive or Zip drive, whichever it is).

Then, change out your cable. Sometimes they can become pinched or something, and quit working.

If all else fails, you might try a SCSI CDROM, if you've got one.

 

[jhvaughan2]

I assume you are trying to push the button on the front of the machine right after power up. (Keyboard eject does not work on the AIO IIRC). If you wait until it thinks it is booting from the CD then there is no way to stop it short of restarting.

Since you have tried two CDs I'll throw out the off-chance that they both are bad or both have CDs stuck in them.

Check that the hd is mounted underneath the MB carriage and and attached to the ATA cable there. The CD is connected to the other ata buss with a single device cable. If a two device cable it should be connected to the master side to boot. (assuming your CD is not SCSI). CD eject should have nothing to do with the HD, but these things will help you load/boot the os

But it may be something even more odd. These machines have a two-part button that sticks outside of the case and is supposed to contact the eject button on the cd. If these are not lined up, or the inner part has fallen off, this contact will not be made and the CD will not get the message. I have, in the past, just removed this button all together and used a screw driver to reach in the hole and press the button on the CD.

Good luck. The AIO is a often miss-understood but lovely machine.

JHV

p.s. if you have not done so, read up on the "8 gig limit" issue.

 

[iamdigitalman]

Thanks, guys you have given me a lot to think about and check out later on today. Both CD drives are IDE, and nothing is stuck in either one. I managed to use a paperclip to check both.

I will also try different cables, see if that is the issue, as well as check jumper settings, but I know for a fact the CD-ROMs are set to master, so maybe the ZIP is messed up.

As for the button, I don't think it's that, because I even pulled the drawer back a good inch and reached in the CD bezel and pressed the button on the drive directly with my hand.

I might just unplug the zip drive, since it's an afterthought. I do like how they custom engineered the drive to use the smaller PC floppy drive power cable.

It will be a while until I can check any of this out, it's 2 in the morning and I don't want to wake anyone up.

Thanks for all your help.

-digital

 

[iamdigitalman]

OK, so I double checked the jumper settings. Then I unplugged the IDE cable on the CD-ROM, still nothing. So, I had a hunch, and unplugged the master molex cable, and plugged it directly into the 24x CD drive. I got nothing.

So, I think the connector might be bad, but that does not explain why the zip drive was still powering up. I am downloading a copy of the service manual right now, and I am going to check and see how or if the cable plugs into the other end of the power supply.

Unless anyone has any other suggestions before I remove the upper plastic casing and get near the deadly CRT (I don't know how to nor do I have the tools to discharge one).

-digital

 

[iamdigitalman]

Hmm, well now this is odd. I tried the direct method once more with the 24x, and it opened just fine, but did not close. I then plugged the molex into the other cable to go to all the drives, and I opened the 32x with a paperclip, and I pressed the eject button, and magically, it closed!! I pressed the button again, and when it was closing, it just stopped. I pressed it again, it resumed closing. So, it can close it, but not open. The read light came on, but the IDE cable is unplugged still, so I assume it works. If I have to use a paperclip to open it, I will. But I would like to find some way to power it open.

-digital

 

[iamdigitalman]

OK, this is getting really frustrating. I pulled out a SCSI CD drive (actually a burner), and I managed to boot off that (even with no terminator). I used my 9.2.2 CD. With all the drives plugged in, I got the CD-ROM to show up as ATAPI on BUS 0 ID 0 LUN 0. My hard drive is not showing up. I even swapped IDE channels and still nothing. I think it might be the built in ATA, but I don't have any IDE ATA cards.

I do have a G3MT, 233mhz, revision B, but bottom of the barrel. I could part the motherboard out of that, but is all of that really worth it, or should I just scrap the AIO? I should have just grabbed the other G3 AIO when I was at the school 2 weeks ago. Now that they are closed, he said they would have everything outside, so it might be there, I might swing by and see if I can't pick it up, but again, at $4 a gallon, is it worth it?

-digital

 

[iamdigitalman]

well, I did a bit of digging, and I found someone with a similar issue here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4994036

looks like it might just be a power issue after all. Too bad I don't have any spare computer power supplies to test this theory, nor the knowledge to operate or possession of a multimeter.

Anyone have any ideas? I even harvested the VRM from my G3MT (it is a raytheon yellow board, the one from the AIO is a raytheon green board), nothing.

-digital