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| Power Macintosh 64/6500 won't display. Machine chimes but no power LED or display |
Posted by: ckeeton27 on 2026-08-05 05:04:34
HI All, just looking for a little advice. A friend has given me a PM6500, it will chime every time but the LED on the front never lights up and it never displays anything. I know the PRAM battery is missing but I'm sure I have booted this series with no battery before. Could that be the issue or are there other avenues I should be chasing down? |
Posted by: Phipli on 2026-08-05 05:34:06
HI All, just looking for a little advice. A friend has given me a PM6500, it will chime every time but the LED on the front never lights up and it never displays anything. I know the PRAM battery is missing but I'm sure I have booted this series with no battery before. Could that be the issue or are there other avenues I should be chasing down? First thing is to inspect the board for battery damage. While it took longer for them to leak in these machines, I have had multiple boards like this with battery damage and the battery is right next to the SCSI and video circuits.
You have to look so closely your nose touches the board. I sometimes take a photo in good light and then zoom in on the photo to make it easier to see any damage to vias or traces. |
Posted by: ckeeton27 on 2026-08-05 06:30:13
definitely no board damage that I can see, everything looks clean as best I can tell. I've seen battery damaged boards several times and did think to check it so I think that isn't my issue. |
Posted by: killvore on 2026-08-05 13:30:47
Do you have another machine you can try it in, to see if it is specifically a board issue? The 6500 will work in eg. a 6200 (the 6400 and 5400 need 3.3v for PCI I think but the 6500 manages without it). |
Posted by: joevt on 2026-08-05 21:43:19
Chime means ROM and audio and CPU work. Chime is when the RAM is tested on some Macs.
I would try connecting to the 6500 using a serial cable and trying to get into Open Firmware. Or see if the Serial Test Manager is running because a test failed during boot. |
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