Desperate for help with old SuperMac

[iGuy]

I really need some help.  The S900 SuperMac 200mhz I have talked about is still giving me problems.  It will not boot.  It has system 7.5.5 and the hardware has not been upgraded much from original.  This is what I have tried:  Zap pram, rebuild desktop, pressed cuda reset, ran an installed Norton Utilities (installed meaning I don't have the Norton CD), replaced the pram battery.  After having the old pram battery out for a day or so then replacing with a new battery it booted fine but then went back to it's same old tricks.  The computer will do three different things when booting. It will boot to a grey screen,  boot and get as far as the smiley Mac then stop, or start and the monitor stays black.

I am thinking either a firmware update is needed or the video card is bad.

Please help!

Ryan

[Bruce_F]

Have you tried removing and reseating all the hardware? It's not exactly a spring chicken any more.

Do you have access to a later version of Mac OS? That machine will run versions 7.5 to 9.1 with no modification. I was thinking that OS 8.5 or 8.6 would be a better choice than OS 7.5.5.

[iGuy]

The only hardware reseated has been the processor card.  I have tried booting from a system 9.1 disk by holding the C key but no go.  Also, there are programs on the computer I would hate to wipe from the HD but will if it is the only fix.  Not sure why it won't boot from CD.

Ryan

[krissel]

I don't remember what RAM you have in that machine. Have you tried taking out some chips to test how it reacts under various combos?

When you say the computer starts but the screen stays black, have you tried turning the monitor off, wait a couple seconds to be sure it is off, then turn it on again, all the while leaving the machine running?

My video card will give me a black screen upon menu restart and I have to go through that routine to get video. If I change startup disks it also does it. It will only act correctly upon cold start or keyboard force restart.

It could be so many things but video card, bad RAM and conflicting hardware sound like good suspects.

One other thing to try while booting from CD or otherwise is to use the Command+Option+Shift+Delete method of choosing a SCSI drive with a valid system folder. It may work.

[Epaminondas]

Probably as above.

Also consider:

(1) SCSI voodoo.  Hard drive and CD jumper settings?  Termination?

(2) Bad hard drive / CD drive - try known working drives in their place.

(3) Bad SCSI cable(s).  Try replacing with known good one(s).

(4) Bizarre things.  I have had a bad keyboard cause weird computer problems that did not appear to be keyboard-related.  Try a known good keyboard and mouse.

Good luck,

Epaminondas

[Dan Bruno]

To add to the list of options, the S900's Hard Drives were formated using FWB 2.0.6.If someone tried to use it to install a newer system and didn't have a clue as to what they were doing ( a trick that I once perfected on my own s900 ) the symptoms were as you discribed. If you have or have access to an older version of FWB, I would use it to try and mount the drive.I agree with taking the hard drive out and putting it into another machine, maybe the 7100 if it works. Or trying another in its place.How many ram slots are used? You will need at least 24mb to run with VM turned on.There is list of things I had to do to tune my computer.Not enough space here

[krissel]

Welcome to TS,  Islander.

Don't worry about posting long lists of info, we have more than a few extra-winded members. You'll feel right at home.

[iGuy]

This is turning out to be more work than I expected.  I don't have the 7100 or an extra HD.  I am using my main computer which is a PM G4 800.  Can I take out the HD in the S900 and put it in the G4 and try to boot from it?

Now the old computer won't even boot to the smiley Mac which I was able to get ocassionally.  Now it just boots to a grey screen mostly.  I tried a couple of your suggestions but some I may not have the capabilities or extra equipment to test.

Not sure how much ram is it.  Looks like it has 8 ram slots. A1 - A4 and B1 - B4.  A3, A4, B3, and B4 look as if they have ram but the sticks don't look identical.

Ryan
 
 [ 02-12-2003, 07:52 PM: Message edited by: iGuy ]

[Dan Bruno]

You won't be able to move the drive to the G4 unless you have a scsi card.I might be able to get an old FWB to you if you want to try it.It can help to eliminate some things. Couple more questions. Can you see the make of the video card? Does the HD ribbon go to the motherboard or to an E100 card in the PCI slot? This just helps to let me know whats inside.Hope there is no hurry on this project.

[iGuy]

Thanks for the help Islander.  The video card in this computer is the original.  Twin Turbo 128.  The ribbon from the HD goes to the mother boad.  Also, what do you mean by FWB?

No hurry on this at all.  Just an old Mac I thought I may get some use out of my 5 year old.  He actually has been able to play a couple of games on it.  It seemed to work fine after I replaced the PRAM battery but that ended up to be temporary.  It went right back to its old tricks.

Ryan

[neokm]

IGuy- I tried to post earlier but my wife made such a spectacular dish consisting of mushrooms stuffed into ravioli - I could not resist - - -

Pondering and reading over your problem and posts- - - then considering that I am on the 'trailing edge' of Mac systems and performance - (suggesting that I am closer to the old creaks and groans than most) - sounds to me like you have bum sector in your hard drive - perhaps (as previously suggested), someone plopped in non-compat.  hard-drive and gave up on getting it to boot.  Seems propable deductionrelative to the intermit boot  'towards the end' preceding the screen freeze.

Suggestion: I have a 50-pin / 540 IBM (formatted to Mac Spec) with OS 8.6 - - - and a  68-pin / 1-gig Conners (formatted to Mac) with OS 9.1 on it (but requires the 68/ 50pin adapter ( I might even have one hanging around).  Anyway, I could ship them to you so you can install and do another system check before giving up.

Another problem you may have is - not being able to perform a "disk repair" from your utilities folder- if you can get your HdD  installed on another system just to check it out - you might be able to repair the bad sector.  

Another possibility:  it could be Norton - anytime I do clean installs it seems I am always alerted to 'un-install' or 'turn-off' Norton sorftware.  

E-mail me if you want to try out my hard-drives. No big deal on the pack and ship.  Don't  give up on it just yet
Mike

This post was edited because I had some wine with my meal and my brain works faster than my fingers when that happens.
 
 [ 02-13-2003, 07:54 PM: Message edited by: neokm ]

[Dan Bruno]

FWB Software-Put out Hard Disk Toolkit, like Drive Setup but with more options.Problem was,it seemed like everytime a new or upgraded OS came out one had to buy a upgrade to FWB.I also have a 2 gig hard drive that came with this umax that I no longer use,a 233 cpu,some memory thats not getting used,3 sticks,(no room),so if you can use,you can have.
 
Forgot this earlier, make sure video card is in first PCI slot.Have you moved the memory chips to the A-1 B-1 A-2 B-2 slots.To remove push tabs at both ends of slot down,remove chip. When installing push chip straight down until tabs snap up.