Help with a Performa 630

[Muz_]

Hi there,

I am trying to fix a performa 630 that has no video. It turns on and it sounds like it is booting up but there is nothing on the screen. I am using an adapter to convert it to vga but I have tried it with a known working tray loading iMac g3 crt. I disassembled the computer and I think one of the 12v lines are broken. Also the only fan in the system is not spinning. I have tried to use a modern PSU but I only used some jumper wires so I don’t know if I did it correctly. Does anybody know what I can do to fix this? I tried to look around to find a replacement video board but there are none available in my area.

Thanks in advance

 

[danny.gonzalez.0861@gmai]

Hello Muz_

I have a 630CD and I can tell you that it shares the save video out board with the never 6200 series PowerPC Macs.

A few things before we continue. Are you getting a boot chime? You can be getting some power to the drives but the fact that your fan is not spinning is concerning.

The fan connects directly to the PSU with a brown two pin connector. You can try and apply 12V to the fan and see if it is working. If it does spin up then I would suspect your PSU is bad.

Also, I don't understand what you mean by using a known good G3 as they only had a VGA output and do not use the same connector as the 630 does. At least not to my knowledge.

Let us know about the chime/fan so we can see where to go from there.

 

[Muz_]

Hi there,
Thanks for the quick response.
I do get a boot chime and I can hear the hard drive spinning and being read. After a while I have found that the sound buttons work so I think that it has booted up into macOS. Also the fan does spin when I connect it to an external power source.

With you question with the iMac g3. I have a tray loading iMac g3 model. On these computer the logic board is an external module that has a db15 connector to connect to the internal monitor. I have verified that this is db 15 and the adaptor works because I connected that db 15 to the adaptor and connected it to my monitor and it will display. If you wish I can show you pictures

Thanks.

 

[danny.gonzalez.0861@gmai]

Hi there,
Thanks for the quick response.
I do get a boot chime and I can hear the hard drive spinning and being read. After a while I have found that the sound buttons work so I think that it has booted up into macOS. Also the fan does spin when I connect it to an external power source.

With you question with the iMac g3. I have a tray loading iMac g3 model. On these computer the logic board is an external module that has a db15 connector to connect to the internal monitor. I have verified that this is db 15 and the adaptor works because I connected that db 15 to the adaptor and connected it to my monitor and it will display. If you wish I can show you pictures

Thanks.

Good Morning Muz_,

The fact that your fan is not working with the 630's PSU would be my focus for now. You might have a flaky PSU and that might be an easy repair. Have you measured the voltages on the HDD connector? You should see almost all of the signals there minus the -12V of course.

I had a slot loading G3 and never took it apart enough to see how the monitor connected ot the main board but it is interesting and quite funny that Apple when the route you describe. I had no idea.

Let me know what you see for voltage and we will go from there but my gut is telling me that you might be looking at least at a recapping of the PSU to get it back to normal functionality. Also, my 630 worked for a few days and then suddenly died. I decided to do a recapping using a kit from console5 and that fixed my startup issue completely. Those original electrolytics are probably on their last leg.

 

[Muz_]

Hi there,

I will try this tomorrow morning and measure the voltage. If it dead then I will see if I can find this kit and recap the board.
It’s unrelated but as for the iMac g3 the reason that you won’t have seem the connector is that the slot loading iMac g3 has a completely different logic board and is connected differently so that is most likely why you have never seen this.

Once I has measure the voltage I will tell you what I get. I was thinking that the old psu would be bad. I did disassemble the psu but I did not see anything wrong with the caps but they are still most likely the issue

Thanks.

 

[Muz_]

Hi Danny? (I think that is your name from your account)

I measured the voltage on the hard drive and it is fine. It seems that the computer is booting up and is in the operating system.
Could you do some checks on your db 15 connector for me because I am thinking that there is something wrong with the video out board? I just want to see if the resistance that I am getting between ground and rgb signals is the same as what you are getting. I got 1k ohm’s which seems quite high because I checked against a different vga outputting device and the device only had 150 ohms, so I would like to see if this is a thing with vga and db 15 just has different resistance.

Thanks.

 

[danny.gonzalez.0861@gmai]

Hi Danny? (I think that is your name from your account)

I measured the voltage on the hard drive and it is fine. It seems that the computer is booting up and is in the operating system.
Could you do some checks on your db 15 connector for me because I am thinking that there is something wrong with the video out board? I just want to see if the resistance that I am getting between ground and rgb signals is the same as what you are getting. I got 1k ohm’s which seems quite high because I checked against a different vga outputting device and the device only had 150 ohms, so I would like to see if this is a thing with vga and db 15 just has different resistance.

Thanks.

Yup Daniel, Danny shoot I've even been called David and just go with the flow.

I will check this for you when I get home tonight.

I had the kids soccer practice yesterday and got home late.

 

[Muz_]

Hi Danny

Thanks for all this.
Always happy to wait.

Thanks

 

[Muz_]

Hi Danny,

Did you get the readings. Sorry if I come off as impatient.

Thanks

 

[danny.gonzalez.0861@gmai]

Hi Danny,

Did you get the readings. Sorry if I come off as impatient.

Thanks

Hello Muz,

Sorry for such a late response. I have been sick as a dog and stuck in bed. Still not 100% but I had enough energy this morning to get the 630 out of the garage and test the requested pins.

I am seeing 530ohms between ground and my RGB lines. This is with the 630 completely powered down, just sitting on the desk.

Hope this helps!

 

[Muz_]

Hi Danny.

Hope you feel better. Thanks for that I wonder if that might have a play in the issue of it.
Did your performa turn back on? If not then let’s try to fix that.

Thanks.

 

[danny.gonzalez.0861@gmai]

Hi Danny.

Hope you feel better. Thanks for that I wonder if that might have a play in the issue of it.
Did your performa turn back on? If not then let’s try to fix that.

Thanks.

Hello Muz,

FLU turned into Pneumonia but I am finally back at work and feeling much better.

My 630 works fine. I was just saying that the reading I took that day was with the machine turned off. I know that MAC's of that era would kill video output of no monitor was connected. I can connect my monitor and once turned on take the reading again and see what happens then.

Have yo made any progress since we last spoke?

 

[Muz_]

Hi Danny,

Sadly not much progress. I have heard that it might not output video with a dead PRAM. Is this true? My PRAM is dead so that might be the issue.

Good to see that you are better now and hopefully we can fix my performa now.

Thanks

 

[danny.gonzalez.0861@gmai]

Hi Danny,

Sadly not much progress. I have heard that it might not output video with a dead PRAM. Is this true? My PRAM is dead so that might be the issue.

Good to see that you are better now and hopefully we can fix my performa now.

Thanks

Hey Muz,

I have booted just fine w/o PRAM. Granted it will lose time and selected boot disk but it will still boot. Don't think that is your issue.

 

[Muz_]

Hi danny
Sorry for the late response.
That’s good that the issue is not the pram. I guess we will have to keep on thinking.
Thanks