PowerMac 8100 Beginning to bore me

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olikicksmacs's picture
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PowerMac 8100 Beginning to bore me

Hi,

I have a powermac 8100 that is pretty much stock, except it came with 200mb ram!! (i was quite chuffed) and i dont know what to do with it. I tried to install 7.5.3 but it crashed at startup, so i put in disk tools and after looking around for a bit, i found out that it was the 'System 7.5 Update' in the system folder that was making it crash. Now i boot it up and it is stuck in 640x480 res;. with 256 colours and i cant change it because the monitors control panel doesnt work. it comes up with a 199 error?!?!? I tried to reinstall 7.5.3 but it keeps crashing during install. ive done it 8 times and it crashes at different places in the installation, so its not one specific file. Im getting sick of it now, so any suggestions in my hour of need?

Oli

P.S. Wots wrong with me? (Oliver, sick of a mac? Huh?)

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Re: PowerMac 8100 Beginning to bore me

You might try removing some of the RAM. Those symptoms "smell" like a flaky SIMM. System 7.5.3 is pretty solid. I refurbed a bunch of 8100's last year, with 8.6 on all of them.

olikicksmacs's picture
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Ok then...

Ok then, how can I check which ram is faulty? And I relly wanted 200mb of ram. Thats just sods law

AG-Wolf's picture
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It's best to bring yourself d

It's best to bring yourself down to the minimum required to install the OS, and if you have problems there, swap RAM chips. Once you get a set that work, add more incrementally until you find the problem.. I've got an 8100 myself, and although I know it didn't have 200 megs of ram; up until I stopped using it, it was running great with os 9.1...albeit a little slow, but hey Blum 3 what do you expect from an 80mhz 601.

I'd honestly suggest either 7.6.1 or 8.1 for that machine...7.5.3 is trimmed, but no matter what people say to the contrary, it sucks. Period. Why do you think Apple gives it away for free anyway? 7.5 at best has to be updated completely to 7.5.5 to ensure the most stability... it isn't worth the hassle.

If you wanna breathe some new life into your machine and get quite a few more years of use out of it, think about upgrading:

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/crescendo_nubus.html

Only one upgrade available, but it's a hell of a lot better than a 601 @ 80.

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It could be a sick harddisk,

It could be a sick harddisk, have you formatted the HD before installing the OS? Or tried an other HD?

An other classic cause of various odd behaviours is a flat pram battery. Did you notise if the date was 1953 or something like that?

olikicksmacs's picture
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Nope

It wouldnt let me format the disk!

And the date always goes back to a really stupid date. Where can you get those batteries in the uk?

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Its 3.6 V batteries, take it

Its 3.6 V batteries, take it out a go to a larger electronic store or perhaps even one that sell cameras. In real desperation go to an Apple dealer Wink

take a look in the yellow pages and "batteries" and then use a phone teeling that you need a 3.6 V battry that is X times y mm in size

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Battery spec

What you want is a 3.6V 1/2-AA (that's half AA size) lithium - Tadiran TL-5151 or equivalent. I have one sitting on my desk, and that's what it says on it.

Rather than testing your RAM one stick at a time, you could separate into two piles with half your sticks in each one. Test with each pile: if one pile works and the other doesn't, the bad stick is in the latter pile. Divide that pile in half and continue.

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With 8 slots and 200MB of RAM

With 8 slots and 200MB of RAM already, you must have a fair number of 32MB cards. Check that none of them is a composite card, or make any that is/are the first to get the fish-eye.

eBay has had a small run of G3 upgrade cards for the 8100 recently. Scour the lists for one, and you may even find a MAXpowr PDS card with a pass-through connector so that you can continue to use your HPV or other PDS video card. OS 9.1 will be quite happy with a G3 card.

If you don't want to go that route, I'd add my voice to the others who recommend that you reformat your drive and install OS 8.6. You'll be able to use HFS+ format on your drive.

de

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