John8520
Well-known member
Hey Guys,
I picked up what I thought was a great deal on a B&W off craigslist last night, and now I can't help but wonder if it's cursed. The previous owner said it worked a few years ago when he last used it, but we all know how that goes....
Anyway, here's what I know so far. Also, I know that there's more testing that I need to do, but I wanted to go ahead and throw this post out there in case anyone here has seen similar behavior or has any additional suggestions.
Machine specs:
B&W G3, rev 2 mobo., original G3/400MHz, 4x 256MB centon branded sticks (all matched), 16MB rage 128 (original). No other cards present, unless testing with SATA devices.
Hard Drives I've tested with: (all with 9.2.2 installed)
- 10GB apple marked ATA quantum
- 80GB seagate ATA
- 160GB apple marked maxtor SATA
Optical Drives: (trying to boot from 9.0.4 and 9.2.1 burned disks
- original CD-ROM
- original DVD-ROM pulled from sawtooth
- original pioneer superdrive pulled from Mac Pro
- LG branded SATA superdrive
The SATA drives were connected using a SIL3112 card with a mac ROM. The card boots in my 7600 and Sawtooth so I know it's mac friendly.
Here's the behavior I'm seeing: when it boots, (it doesn't always chime), it goes straight to a grey screen, and after a few seconds it gives me folder icon that blinks between the ? and happy mac for a few seconds. If an ATA HDD is attached, I see the ATA activity LED blink a bit, then the blinking stops and it hangs on the folder with the happy mac.
Essentially, this behavior is the same no matter what I try and boot from. For example, if I try and boot from a CD (and no HDD is connected) the machine will turn on, go to grey screen, blink between ? and happy mac for a while, then the CD will spin up and start to seek, and as soon as it starts to load, the blinking stops and it sticks on the happy mac/folder icon.
A few miscellaneous notes:
- When I try and do a PRAM reset, (Cmd-Opt-P-R), I can only get it to chime one additional time. After that, it just sits a a black screen. I have to press the reset button to get it back.
- I can get into open firmware (Cmd-Opt-O-F) without issues. I have done many reset-nvram / set-defaults / reset-all sequences to no avail.
- I'm using two different keyboards and mice. One keyboard is an 1999 iMac USB keyboard w/ puck mouse, the other is a Macally iKey keyboard with logitech trackball. All of these devices work fine on the Sawtooth, and I have tried different combinations including no keyboard/mouse present at all. I haven't tested with an ADB keyboard yet, but I will for the sake of thoroughness.
- I am not able to get to the option key boot menu.
- I have tried both "mac-boot" and "boot cd" (which I don't think works on macs, just Sun workstations) and I get somewhat weird behavior. (It just hangs at these screens)
- - mac-boot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mhx8bu5u8nxm76b/2017-10-18%2021.48.21.jpg?dl=0
- - boot cd: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xuthl53pytjd4y6/2017-10-18%2021.55.07.jpg?dl=0
Here's testing that I know I still need to do. Once it's done I'll report back.
- test with OS X install media
- test with a known good PRAM battery
- test the centon RAM in the Sawtooth
- put a stick of the (known good) Sawtooth RAM into the B&W
- test with Sawtooth PSU (if they're compatible, I need to check pinouts first)
- Test with an ADB keyboard
I picked up what I thought was a great deal on a B&W off craigslist last night, and now I can't help but wonder if it's cursed. The previous owner said it worked a few years ago when he last used it, but we all know how that goes....
Anyway, here's what I know so far. Also, I know that there's more testing that I need to do, but I wanted to go ahead and throw this post out there in case anyone here has seen similar behavior or has any additional suggestions.
Machine specs:
B&W G3, rev 2 mobo., original G3/400MHz, 4x 256MB centon branded sticks (all matched), 16MB rage 128 (original). No other cards present, unless testing with SATA devices.
Hard Drives I've tested with: (all with 9.2.2 installed)
- 10GB apple marked ATA quantum
- 80GB seagate ATA
- 160GB apple marked maxtor SATA
Optical Drives: (trying to boot from 9.0.4 and 9.2.1 burned disks
- original CD-ROM
- original DVD-ROM pulled from sawtooth
- original pioneer superdrive pulled from Mac Pro
- LG branded SATA superdrive
The SATA drives were connected using a SIL3112 card with a mac ROM. The card boots in my 7600 and Sawtooth so I know it's mac friendly.
Here's the behavior I'm seeing: when it boots, (it doesn't always chime), it goes straight to a grey screen, and after a few seconds it gives me folder icon that blinks between the ? and happy mac for a few seconds. If an ATA HDD is attached, I see the ATA activity LED blink a bit, then the blinking stops and it hangs on the folder with the happy mac.
Essentially, this behavior is the same no matter what I try and boot from. For example, if I try and boot from a CD (and no HDD is connected) the machine will turn on, go to grey screen, blink between ? and happy mac for a while, then the CD will spin up and start to seek, and as soon as it starts to load, the blinking stops and it sticks on the happy mac/folder icon.
A few miscellaneous notes:
- When I try and do a PRAM reset, (Cmd-Opt-P-R), I can only get it to chime one additional time. After that, it just sits a a black screen. I have to press the reset button to get it back.
- I can get into open firmware (Cmd-Opt-O-F) without issues. I have done many reset-nvram / set-defaults / reset-all sequences to no avail.
- I'm using two different keyboards and mice. One keyboard is an 1999 iMac USB keyboard w/ puck mouse, the other is a Macally iKey keyboard with logitech trackball. All of these devices work fine on the Sawtooth, and I have tried different combinations including no keyboard/mouse present at all. I haven't tested with an ADB keyboard yet, but I will for the sake of thoroughness.
- I am not able to get to the option key boot menu.
- I have tried both "mac-boot" and "boot cd" (which I don't think works on macs, just Sun workstations) and I get somewhat weird behavior. (It just hangs at these screens)
- - mac-boot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mhx8bu5u8nxm76b/2017-10-18%2021.48.21.jpg?dl=0
- - boot cd: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xuthl53pytjd4y6/2017-10-18%2021.55.07.jpg?dl=0
Here's testing that I know I still need to do. Once it's done I'll report back.
- test with OS X install media
- test with a known good PRAM battery
- test the centon RAM in the Sawtooth
- put a stick of the (known good) Sawtooth RAM into the B&W
- test with Sawtooth PSU (if they're compatible, I need to check pinouts first)
- Test with an ADB keyboard