9600/300 woes

[Orion]

My 9600 seems to have bit the dust. I pulled it off the shelf and set it up after about a year's hiatus. It booted right away, but to an OSX boot screen (grey apple). I had tried installing OSX with XPostFacto before putting it away. I was unsuccessful in doing so. It hung at the grey screen, so I tried booting from an OS 9 CD. It would spin the disc up for only a few seconds at a time and then spin it back down. It was booting, but VERY slowly. It then froze. I rebooted and did the PRAM keyboard reset trick and it chimed again, but then it did nothing. When I try to boot it now, it chimes, the drives spin up, the monitor comes out of standby, and then it stops. The monitor goes back into standby and it refuses to continue booting. It won't respond to any keyboard commands either except the power button and the restart command.

Here's what I have done so far:

-Replace the G3 upgrade with original processor

-Pull all the RAM (it would then chime but immediately give me the "broken glass" sound)

-Install different RAM chips in different orders to test for a faulty module

-Push the CUDA reset switch on the motherboard

-Remove the PRAM battery overnight (with unit unplugged)

-Leave unit unplugged overnight

-Pull out extra PCI cards leaving just the video card and SCSI controller (powers my 68pin SCSI main drive)

-Try a different monitor

-Curse, swear, threaten, etc the machine }

-Cried because I may have killed my favorite machine

Anyone have any other ideas? This really sucks. :'(

 

[TheNeil]

Anyone have any other ideas?

Exorcism?

 

[equill]

For the noo, remove the SCSI card and either use a 50/68-pin adapter or a 50-pin drive on the built-in SCSI bus to avoid the potential hate-hate relationship between OS X and SCSI cards.

OS 9: During preparation for installation of OS X (which?), did you format the HDD from OS 9, and thereby make sure that OS 9 drivers were present so that you could go on booting into OS 9? Alternatively, did you use the option in OS X's Disk Utility to install OS 9 drivers, for the very same reason of continued bootability into OS 9? If not, you are stymied for OS 9.

OS X: Whether you partition, and whether you install OS 9.2.2 and OS X on separate partitions or the same, take care to install OS 9 first as well as its disk drivers. That way you have always a fallback for troubleshooting. If there is nothing but a dubious installation of OS X on the drive, reformatting is a desirable path to follow.

de

 

[alk]

It sounds to me like your 9600 is dropping into Open Firware on boot with the output directed to a serial port. You could try connecting another Mac and using something like ZTerm to monitor the serial console. You could also try to telnet into it over serial connection. Apple should have directions on their website for both these things.

Once you do that, make sure you do:

setenv auto-boot? true

You might also want to set the input device to your keyboard and your output device to your screen (trickier given the PCI card video setup). In fact, your input device might already be the keyboard, so it might be worth a try to wait a bit after you start it up and then type this on the keyboard:

setenv auto-boot? true

reset-nvram

reset-all

You also need to re-bless your OS 9 System Folder. I don't know if that can be done from Open Firmware. You may need to remove the hard drive and put it in another Mac to do it. But re-blessing in OS 9 is easy: Just drag the Finder out of the System Folder to your desktop, then drag it back in. Once you see all the fancy system icons show up, you've re-blessed the System Folder. In OS X, look into the "bless" terminal command.

I think XPostFacto puts a special Forth script on your hard drive so that when Open Firmware starts the boot process, it reads this script and tries to load OS X. It's neat when it woks, but it sucks when it doesn't.

For the record, I recently had this problem with a 2400c when I tried to install OS X. It would boot into Open Firmware (with the LCD backlight turned off - that's fun). A "bye" command loaded the Open Firmware script to load OS X, the Mac rebooted (after the script was read, I suppose), and ended up right back in Open Firmware. auto-boot? was true, and the reason it was in OF was because OF rebooted that the requested boot partition wasn't bootable. Catch-22 with no fix, or so it seemed. I managed to boot into SCSI Disk Mode ("bye" from OF while holding down Command-S) on a 9500, blessed the OS 9 System Folder, and rebooted just fine into OS 9. Back to the drawing board for OS X, I suppose.

Peace,

Drew

 

[Orion]

Hmmm... The thing about going into open firmware is possible. What worries me is that it won't accept the reset PRAM key command anymore. It worked for one chime and then it just stopped chiming. I let go of the keys and it has displayed this problem ever since. I currently have two hard drives in there. One 9GB one hooked to the internal SCSI port and the 50GB one hooked to the SCSI card. The screen never shows anything at all, so no Happy Mac or anything. I doubt if its a hard drive issue, more likely it seems to be hardware or Open Firmware related. I can try a different drive, but if it were a software issue, it should at least get me a display of something.

I'll try that serial connection and see if it helps.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[equill]

If you do nothing else, do yourself the favour of going back to taws. Re-initialize the logic board. (No power, no battery, no PCI cards, no daughter card, no ground connection.)

Then start again from the ground (ie bottom) up, one addition at a time, beginning with the daughter card and booting from an OS 9 CD after each addition.

Having plenty of native G3 machines to run 10.2.x, 10.3.x and 10.4.x, I have never attempted to install OS X on my 9600 (né an 8600). Nonetheless, from a G3/500MHz (ZIF) supporting OS 9.2.2 flawlessly, it also handles a 24x CD-ROM, 3 x 9GB and 1 x 18GB IBM drives from an Adaptec card, AsantéFAST NIC, USB/FireWire combo card and ATI XClaim 3D Pro. Be systematic and you'll arrive in Kansas territory.

de

 

[Christopher]

My 8500 has a dead PRAM battery so if I unplug it for any amount of time it will either not boot or not recognize the Radeon 7000 PCI card. But if I plug in a TV to the built in video out ports it boots as normal. Plus my machine has the G3 500MHz Sonnet card.

ADDING

Or if I do not have a tv on hand just keep restarting until it works, which can take a long time. Be glad you have a power button on your machine.

 

[alk]

Hmmm... The thing about going into open firmware is possible. What worries me is that it won't accept the reset PRAM key command anymore. It worked for one chime and then it just stopped chiming. I let go of the keys and it has displayed this problem ever since.

That's annoying, but not necessarily a problem. In fact, I seem to recall that this is what caused the same problem with my 2400c. Anyway, it doesn't respond to Apple-Option-P-R anymore because it stops at the Open Firmware prompt before it loads the Apple ROM and resets the PRAM.

Try this. At the black screen after a few seconds (count to ten, I guess), type

bye

Then as quick as you can, hold down Apple-Option-P-R. Does the Mac reboot (or at least make the chime sound again after a few seconds)?

Peace,

Drew

 

[Orion]

Well, this is weird. On a whim, I left it on all night and tried it again this morning. Still no dice. So, I replaced the video card (Rage 128 from a B&W) with my Radeon 7000 and it booted, but now I am not getting any response from the screen at all. It no longer comes out of standby even briefly like it did before. I'll try another Rage 128 and also try using the lower bank of PCI slots rather than the upper if just replacing the card doesn't work.

 

[Orion]

ITS ALIVE! MUUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! }

Swapped in another Rage 128 and it booted. Booted to OS 9 from the hard drive, this being the same hard drive that wanted to boot to OS X every other time. I am typing this message on my awesome 9600/450(G3) using my favorite keyboard, the Apple Extended II Keyboard. I am in computer heaven!

Thanks for all the advice, though the computer seems to have resurrected itself.

 

[Christopher]

ITS ALIVE! MUUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! }

Swapped in another Rage 128 and it booted. Booted to OS 9 from the hard drive, this being the same hard drive that wanted to boot to OS X every other time. I am typing this message on my awesome 9600/450(G3) using my favorite keyboard, the Apple Extended II Keyboard. I am in computer heaven!

Thanks for all the advice, though the computer seems to have resurrected itself.

I love that keyboard! I got 2 of them!

 

[Orion]

ITS ALIVE! MUUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! }

Swapped in another Rage 128 and it booted. Booted to OS 9 from the hard drive, this being the same hard drive that wanted to boot to OS X every other time. I am typing this message on my awesome 9600/450(G3) using my favorite keyboard, the Apple Extended II Keyboard. I am in computer heaven!

Thanks for all the advice, though the computer seems to have resurrected itself.

I love that keyboard! I got 2 of them!

I've got about 20!

 

[alk]

I'm sorry to have led you down the wrong path, but I'm glad that you got it working!

What are the specs on the machine?

Peace,

Drew

 

[Orion]

Currently this:

Power Macintosh 9600/300

450 MHZ Sonnet G3 upgrade

424 MB memory (a wierd combo of 64, 32, 16, and 8 MB chips)

9 GB Quantum 50 pin SCSI hard drive

50 GB Seagate SCSI hard drive (80 pin with an adapter card for 50 and 68 pin connections)

SCSI Zip 100 drive

Basic 24x CD Rom

Adaptec 68 pin SCSI PCI card w/internal and external connections

Asante 10/100 PCI ethernet card

Rage 128 from a B&W w/DVD Decoder card

Apple Multiple Scan 20 display

Apple Extended Keyboard II

Apple ADB Mouse II

And that's it for now. I plan to try and get that darn PC Compatibility card working again in either this system or perhaps another. I could never get the thing to reliably boot. Usually it would just start booting and then freeze. Right now I am using this system to play older games and use older hardware that I have sitting around here. I plan to set up the ultimate system from that era with a Laserwriter, SCSI Scanner, etc. Its gonna be awesome!

 

[equill]

Currently this:
... 424 MB memory (a wierd combo of 64, 32, 16, and 8 MB chips) ...

Which I suggest strongly that you rectify at your earliest opportunity. The Mac is designed for interleaved (paired) DIMMS, either EDO (presently cheaper) or FPM, but definitely not mixed EDO and FPM, installed (in pairs if you are using interleaving) from highest slot numbers downwards towards the lowest.

What you describe is alone capable of producing any number of erratic and unexpected responses as the system tries to allocate memory over a groundplan that leaps from precipice to plain.

4 x 128MB EDO 168-pin 60ns DIMMs are readily obtainable, and may signal the dawn of a new era for your Mac.

de

 

[Orion]

I do have them as matched pairs. The only one not matched is the 8mb chip. I could get more ram for it, but the few times I use it makes it really not worth the money for me.

 

[equill]

I didn't mention the RAM complement at the outset because I considered that that would be part of your arsenal of knowledge, which you have confirmed (although you did not mention either mixed or top-down installation). Nonetheless, I strongly recommend (from experience in heavily upgraded 9500 and 9600 contexts) removal of the orphan 8MB card, especially if the rest of the RAM is interleaved.

de

 

[Quadraman]

Good work. It's like I like to say, Macs don't usually crash due to hardware failures, they usually crash due to configuration conflicts or corrupt OS installations. Macs keep going long after contemporary PC's are dead and buried.

 

[Temetka]

That's because they are better machines.

I know both my 8500 and BeigeG3MT are tanks and will run forever. I am still amazed at how well they run. True, comparable hardware on the PC side of things is mostly gone if not hard to locate at the moment.

Good to see your 9600 is back up and running.