B&W G3 not booting.

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iamdigitalman's picture
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B&W G3 not booting.

OK, here is what I tried to do: I have this CCFL kit I have had for almost a year now, with the intention of installing it in my B&W G3. I took the machine apart, removed one of the sides of the polycarb, but found out the bulb wouldnt fit. getting scared of the bulb exploding if I tryed trimming it, I decided to re-assemble my workhorse, so I could use it again, putting the backlighing project on the backburner for now (too much other stuff going on ATM.

So, I get the beastie all back together, hook it all up, press the power, I get a green light on the front, no startup chime, after a few seconds, no video. so, itry reseating my ram, zapping PRAM, reseating the processor, as well as all the jumpers, all the cards, the modem, and the firewire module.

here is what is odd: when it boots, I get the 2 power lights on the mobo, the ATA light, the proc light flashes of a second, goes off, after 10-15 seconds, the ATA light goes of, but I get no USB lights. neither of them.

like I said, I tryed all the cures from zapping the cuda to reseating everything.

did I somehow manage to fry the mainboard? (if so it means I get to get a revision 2!! (I have a revision 1 right now.))

thanks.

-digital Wink

Jon
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ave you tried removing the FW

ave you tried removing the FW module? There are others here that recommend that. They are apparently easy to kill.

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try a new video card

I had the problem with a video card on mine. Move it a slot over. That might help.
The other thing to check is the battery level, and then finally, the only thing I can think off, is that the multiplier is not set right. I also had this thing happen when I set my processor (400MHz) to 500MHz. it did the exact thing. Powered up for about 15 seconds, and then stopped.

iamdigitalman's picture
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I must clarify, the machine s

I must clarify, the machine stays on, unless I kill it.

I tried removing the FW module. no go.

I tried filling the ram banks (rather than just using a single stick) no go.

I tried moving the vid card over a slot. no go.

one new development: the CPU LED is now staying on ALL THE TIME. fully lit. what does this mean?

also, I should clarify. there are 2 ATA lights on the mobo, one for each channel. the one for the hard drive (primary) stays lit for 2-3 seconds, then goes off. The secondary channel's ATA light (close to the back of the machine) is the one that stays on for 10 - 15 seconds.

that's where I am at now.

-digital Wink

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Let's eliminate the obvious ...

You say you zapped the PRAM with the CUDA.

You didn't say whether you checked the voltage on the PRAM battery. If it's below 3V, replace it or run without it. A low PRAM battery can cause more problems than having no PRAM battery at all.

I'm sure you thought of this already, but just to be sure ...

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yeah, the PRAM batt has been

yeah, the PRAM batt has been dead since I got the machine a year ago from iantm. I removed it, just to be sure, but still no go.

slowly running down the checklist to a new mobo...

oh, and now the CPU LED flashes for 1 second, then goes off, just like it's supposed to. must have been a fluke boot. I also made sure the heatsink clip was on right. tried it both directions, and no change.

-digital Wink

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It's the devil's box...

I've had a few experiences with scrambled B&W motherboards that seem to power-up but no video, etc. This usually happens after I've been tinkering or putting in a new bus or something. Try and try and try everything in the world, strip it all the way to the bare bones and put things back in one at a time, zapping, and removing and hooking up peripherals,and sometimes it seems to be catching hold, maybe a video blip once or twice, but no, the thing just won't work. Hours and hours and hours spent trying to get the thing back from limbo until you finally give up. And then you know what?

Put everything back in, everything you want installed, just let it sit for a day or two unplugged, then plug it back in, power it up, and surprise! It just boots right up pretty as you please and sits there humming and looks at you looking at it in amazement and says, "what?"

This has happened to me numerous times.

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so, is that what I should do?

so, is that what I should do? leave it sit for a few days with everything hooked in, except power?

-digital Wink

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One or two days is usually en

One or two days is usually enough. It doesn't have to be unplugged, just don't turn it on. I'm not guaranteeing anything, but it's happened enough times to me that I recommend it in this situation. Maybe one of the wise techs here can explain why this simple resurrection happens. I just figure that the electromagnetism in all the components have become contorted from too much messing around and it takes a day or so without electric input for that electromagnetism in the components to fade back to a default stasis where they can function together again. That's my best guess. I hope it works, although Rev.2 motherboards are very cheap now on eBay, but some of those, of course, may come with their own peculiar idiosynchrosies. Cheers.

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re: contorted electromagnetism

Is that where magic smoke comes from too?

Acute

dan k (stasis magnet)

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Yes, and Electrode the Traine

Yes, and Electrode the Trained Seal as well.

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You need to install a good ba

You need to install a good battery. Check this site for battery part numbers and sources.
Mac PRAM, NVRAM, CUDA/PMU & Battery Tutorial
http://www.geocities.com/texas_macman/pram.html

Cheers, tom

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it's PRAM batt has been dead

it's PRAM batt has been dead for a while now. it never affected it before, why would it bother it now?

also, I turned it on today, 24 hours rest, and nothing. guess i'd better play it safe, and not turn it on until the weekend.

what exactly happens if that doesnt work? new mobo time?

-digital Wink

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take it apart and redo it

right now, the only thing I can think of, is that you have a grounding issue. either that, or something like a screw got forgotten under the MLB when putting it back together. It might try to resolve the short, and then give up and turn off to avoid damage. Apple has been putting in smarter and smarter technology to prevent damage to components/machines(such as to keep laptops from overheating by shutting themselves down. I have seen too many laptops smoke from not having this feature when left on fabric).

That's the last thing I can think of. So take the board out, and then put it back together, finally, look for missing pins on the CPU Daughter card. If you spot one missing (all of them should be there. It should be a square block of pins) then that is your problem. It may not be passing the POST if it has CPU errors.

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B&W

Did you by chance remover the CPU or the jumper bloc??. If you did remove the jumper bloc there is a chance that it got put back on backwards. you might try marking on end then pulling it off turn 180 degrees and reinstalling it.

If it has not been removed try reseating it as I have run in to the same problem and went back and reseated everything and had the machine power up

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that was my initial thought

but i thought I read that he already did that. But perhaps over (or under) clocking the machine is the problem here.

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OK, i'll pull the MLB later t

OK, i'll pull the MLB later today, and the hard drives, and then take this strong magnet i have, and see what it pics up.

I did OC the CPU by 50mhz, from 350 to 400, but that has never caused a problem before, and infact, the original jumper block was damaged in the first place when i got it. jumber 1 was broken off and mising, so I used some full sized jumpers held in place with some tape. It worked for the longest, why would it fail now?

-digital Wink

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Just an update...

while waiting for a complete mobo to come up on eBay (CPU, firewire and all), I decided to give the old girl one more fire. Something different: I ditched the Ott lite, and did it in the dark. I noticed on first boot, the both USB lights (D54 is the one closest to the PCI slots, and D55 is the one close to the modem), faintly come on on first boot. then, D54 goes out, but D55 continues to stay light for as long as I had it on. I was wondering if this is a good sign or bad? could this thing possibly be revived?

A new motherboard is sure as hell cheaper then buying a new(er) rig, which would be a quicksilver G4 dual 1ghz beast (currently running about $500 dollars). considering I got this for $60 shipped, an additional $20-35 dollars wouldn't be to bad. I did invest $60 for a 120gb HDD earlier this year, but it's a Seagate with 5 year warranty, so that was a good investment, despite the price.

any thoughts (on both the motherboard repair, and the investment in a new one)?

thanks.

-digital Wink

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I got impatian, got a rev 1 o

I got impatian, got a rev 1 off ebay, $22 shipped. dropped it in this afternnon, it all works!!

I dont really care about a secondary hard drive. I just use the secondary bus if I need to, or i'll buy a cheap ATA 133 PCI card.

one thing, it seems to be taking longer to boot. Think a PRAM zap is in order? it actually boots to a blinking question mark, but then after about 30 seconds. then it loads OS X just fine, except it takes a few minutes longer to get to the desktop (probibly because I just added my mother as a user? dunno.)

oh, this one did come with a PRAM batt, but donno if it's dead or not. the old one came with a purple one, this one with a red and silver maxwell. it also came with a biege jumper block set to 400mhz. the old board came with one, but jumper setting one was broken off. so, i just used some big jumpers and set it to 400 (up from 350). it runs fine.

also, it came with a FW module, mounting screw and standoff, and power cable, so now I have a spare one of those.

also, this one has different ram locks. the old one had ones you pushed the module straight down, and locked the 2 locks. they also had thumb grips on them, and a bit wider than the new ones. the new ones you also actually slipped the corner of the module into on both ends, then push straight down, and the 2 locks automagically snap in place when it's in right. these I like better, it's just getting the corner of the module into the lock.

-digital Wink

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When you boot it up, go to st

When you boot it up, go to startup disk and select what you want to start from. That should cure the question mark problem. Also, when you boot it up try doing an fsck -yf in signle user mode. That could be why its slower. May just need a quick repair.

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I know this one! :-D

I stumbled across your post because I had exactly the same problem. After trying everything I could think of, I took a good, hard look at my motherboard and it hit me… you know that label that says “Warranty Void If Removed

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hmm, might have been the prob

hmm, might have been the problem. the new one came with a little beige one set to 400mhz. I would try this, but this machine is a production mac.

also, I tried the startup disk, and it works now!! immediate. But how do I boot in single user mode? I know how to to verebose mode, but not sum.

oh, and it did have a slight relapse in the middle of the night, where it had all the same symtoms, minus 1: the sound worked. so, I pulled power and PRAm batt, let it sit for an hour, plugged back in, and it worked. just needed to clear it's head, I guess.

-digital Wink

Jon
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Verbose is Cmd-V, and single

Verbose is Cmd-V, and single user is Cmd-S.

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