Beige G3 266 OS 9.1 no video output.

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Beige G3 266 OS 9.1 no video output.

Sunday, July 3, 2005 3:20pm
New Orleans (shesh' it's getting hot.)

Hello there Good Geeks!

I've got a recently acquired project: Rev A Beige G3 266 DT OS 9 with no video output. It's all original as far as I can tell except for 384MB RAM. The machine sat unplugged for a year, then booted once but would not boot again. It would freeze with a blank dialog box, or give a bus error message, or one other error message (sorry I'm a bad historian.)

I tried zaping the p-ram, booting from the os 9.1 cd but 'craaped out.

Next after replacing the p-ram battery, reseating the ram and personality card, doing a basic open firmware reset (sounded successful by listening to the drive, but I did it with no video) and resetting the CUDA switch, the machine sounds like it boots ok, but there's no video signal reaching the monitor. The monitor and video cable test perfectly.

Have I fried the v-ram or video processor?

Should I try to put in a new video card?

I've now spent many hours and have finally convinced myself that it's booting, I feel tantalizingly close.

Should I keep hope alive?

I only need this machine for a 4 year old to play edu-games in OS 9 without the web.

Any last rites or suggestions?

Peace.

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Your Beige G3

Yes, you should keep hope alive.
Somebody once told me that a Beige G3 will not boot without an appropriate Video Card installed. I actually have a Beige G3 Mini-Tower and to prove the point I am making, I took my card out (my Mac was working perfectly before I did this) and tried to reboot without it.
No way! So I put the card back in, started up and hence was able to post this info.
From what I can gather, there is code, built into the ROM on the motherboard, which requires your Mac to have a compliant working video card on board. So, the one you have, if I may be so bold to suggest, is defunct! (then again, if I sat round for a year unplugged....well who knows??). I think the answer is to grab yourself an alternate card and see what happens. I hope this has been of help to you.

Jon
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A Beige G3 DT should have an

A Beige G3 DT should have an ATI Rage AGP chip on board.

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A couple of years back I was

A couple of years back I was given a couple of Beige G3s without personality cards. Video was fine on them. Without the personality card you do lose audio though. If you know someone who might lend you a pci video card, you could try that.
With the value of the beige G3 DT down to under $20 you might be better off just finding a replacement.

Wayne

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G3 no video

Have you zapped the p-ram?? control/command+p+r hold down all 4 keys at bootup until you hear 4 chimes then release. If its going to have video it should do it then. Unless the onboard video is bad. If the video is bad you can buy an ATI video card off E-bay pretty reasonable. I would recommend the ATI 128 16Meg PCI they can be had for around $20.00 US.

I hope this helps solve your problem
Wally G.

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