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| Terrible, terrible day.... (6100 died.) |
Posted by: PowerPup on 2011-02-07 20:43:18
Today will be forever be remembered as a sad, sad day in my house. For today a good old friend as passed on. My PowerMac 6100. 🙁
I was trying to get the MaxPowr G3 card's L2 cache working again. This time with a working clock battery installed. It kept freezing after turning on the L2 cache, eventually not allowing me to enable it all. (A re-install is required to work around this.)
The PC monitor I was using made a spark when I was placing it back on top of the 6100. (I was aware it was going bad, vga cable was having problems.) The monitor stopped turning on. Not a big issue. I had a Mac monitor from another machine I could use. So I hook up the Mac monitor and boot up the 6100, it freezes as it's booting up. (This has happened before as it's trying to enable L2 cache.)
I force restart on the keyboard. screen turns black....... No startup chime.... I turn off the Mac, wait a few seconds, and turn it back on..... Still no startup chime!!! Oh no! My mac has died!!! 8-o
Fortunately my dad might still have a 6100 from which I use the motherboard. Then hopefully I can get that G3 card to work properly. 😛
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Posted by: ClassicHasClass on 2011-02-07 22:05:43
Oh no! Hopefully your spare parts will save the day.
I'd get rid of that monitor, though, if I were you!
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Posted by: PowerPup on 2011-02-08 01:51:07
Yup, the dead PC monitor will be added with the other monitors awaiting to be recycled. 😉 The monitor I replaced it with is an Apple Multiple Scan 720 Display.
Hopefully a new motherboard will be all I need. It would explain why enabling the G3's L2 cache would cause the computer to freeze.
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Posted by: coius on 2011-02-08 04:30:24
Have you tried replacing the RAM. if the first part of the RAM it accesses is bad, it's not going to chime as it doesn't have enough memory to do the POST routine.
How much RAM do you have and how many modules? I would try that first. Also remove any other cards in it. Also run it without the G3 card.
My LC II did something like this, and I found out that the token-ring card in it was bad. I removed it, then found out the RAM module it had in it was bad. Replaced those and it works great now 🙂
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Posted by: trag on 2011-02-08 09:09:04
Some times the L2 cache on the G3 card is bad, and that certainly sounds like the problem you're having. On my first G3 upgrade for NuBus machines, some of the heat sink grease was dribbled across the cache pins during manufacture. That stuff is electrically conductive and so it was causing a short.
My G3 upgrade behaved exactly as you describe yours. It would always freeze the machine when the software loaded the cache. My G3 upgrade was a NewerTech model.
Pull that G3 upgrade, install a PDS termination card and try powering up again. Your 6100 may be fine and it could be the G3 causign the problems.
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Posted by: PowerPup on 2011-02-08 12:08:32
Thanks for the tips all,
I already tried booting without the G3 card, which is also NewerTech. I could try booting without the two sticks of 64MB RAM. (6100 has 8MB built on the motherboard.) I don't have any other pairs of RAM until I get the extra 6100.
It'd be kinda sad if it does turn out to be the NewerTech G3 card. It ran fine for years, the 1MB cache was really nice to have. This issue only started after the 6100 not being used for a long time.
I'll try without the RAM and post results later. 😉
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Posted by: PowerPup on 2011-02-08 13:11:23
Update: Well it looks like my 6100 wasn't dead after all! I booted it up with the original L2 cache card (256k) and the startup chime came back. 😀
G3 still won't let me enable it's L2 cache. Which is really weird... Can't even make it freeze if I wanted to. 😛
So I guess the NewerTech G3's L2 cache is bad.
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Posted by: techknight on 2011-02-08 18:47:51
yup its toast.
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Posted by: Dennis Nedry on 2011-02-08 19:10:41
You could try reflowing the cache chips with a heat gun.
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Posted by: trag on 2011-02-09 09:31:37
You can get a pair of compatible cache chips from Digikey for about $30 shipped.
http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=CY7C1347G-250AXC-ND
Of course, soldering it into place is challenging, but not at all impossible.
Alternatively, Sonnet has the 400MHz/1MB upgrade for $29.95 + shipping.
https://secure1.sonnettech.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_91&products_id=251&osCsid=27d343a2b18c646224a363e778001f87
Because it's going in a 6100, the fact that Sonnet may not work with a Fast & Wide SCSI card isn't really a problem. I think Sonnet actually fixed that, but in the early years, the NewerTech NuBus upgrades worked with the FWB JackHammer card and the Sonnet upgrades did not. And, IIRC, neither worked with the Initio SEIV card.
If you look at the same card under "Special Deals" on Sonnet's website, it's $39.95 instead of $29.95, so use the "Processor Upgrade Cards" category in the side bar to get there. They don't seem terribly consistent in their website pricing.
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Posted by: ClassicHasClass on 2011-02-09 13:25:56
I use one of those in my "SR-7100." Works well. I think you'll get good service out of it in a 6100.
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Posted by: PowerPup on 2011-02-10 14:56:50
Thanks for all the tips all. 😀
I do not have means to "reflow" the cache chips, or to resolder new chips on. So that maybe be an option sometime in the future. 😉
Anyway, my dad happens to have a Sonnet G3 card, (but I think it only has 512k cache.) So I'll have at least something.
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Posted by: kite210 on 2011-05-14 17:25:07
I've got a Sonnet G3 card in my 7100, and it works really well, I've yet to try it in my 6100, but I bet it will make that machine feel brand new.
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