Resolved Power Mac G3, No chime, Black Screen = Dead Pram battery?

[max¥¥]

So all yesterday i was trying to get a good install of ubuntu on my PM G3, which i did in the end, the all of a sudden the PM would give me no chime and a completely black screen after alot of fiddling i got it working again, at this time it was late so i turned it off, unplugged it and went to bed, this morening i plug it in, turn it on same problem, turned it off and on and it worked, so i turned it off to plug in a couple of hdd's, turn it on same problem again so far i have not got it to boot again today.

my question is: the pram battery is dead and i keep getting told the problem is that the pram battery needs replacing could that cause these symptoms; turns on, no chime, black screen

Thanks in advance

 

[zen.state]

I doubt it's the battery. Could be though.

What is happening would only make sense if it couldn't be started up at all but it sounds like with some toying you can get ity started up.

I really need more details to be able to help you.

 

[max¥¥]

well ill give you as much detail about what happens as i can,

It was all working fine until about 1:30 in the morning last night, when i shut it down to fix all the drives into the case, when i booted it again it powered up, but i got no chime and the screen is black, the power light on the logic board is on and the primary ata activity light flashes for 1 - 2 seconds, if i fiddle around with it for a while i can usually get it to boot, but have not been able to today

 

[zen.state]

I bet it's a video issue. When it comes to PowerPC Ubuntu the video card support can be a bit sketchy. My guess is that when it does work it has loaded some random generic video driver to half assed get by. Try the live CD boot a couple times in a row as those tend to work better with more video drivers for some insane reason.

One thing I do know for sure though is that video drivers and GPU compatibility are one of the biggest issues PowerPC Ubuntu users face.

What version did you install? I would try 10.10 if you have not. It's out now.

 

[max¥¥]

I bet it's a video issue. When it comes to PowerPC Ubuntu the video card support can be a bit sketchy. My guess is that when it does work it has loaded some random generic video driver to half assed get by. Try the live CD boot a couple times in a row as those tend to work better with more video drivers for some insane reason.

One thing I do know for sure though is that video drivers and GPU compatibility are one of the biggest issues PowerPC Ubuntu users face.

What version did you install? I would try 10.10 if you have not. It's out now.

It's all working now

Graphics never seemed to be a problem, ATA was turns out ubuntu doesn't have the drivers for the PM G3's Primary ATA channel which makes install very difficult. Btw, im using 10.04 because i don't think the ATA driver works on 10.10 yet

 

[zen.state]

Glad you figured everything out.

I assume the video is the stock ATI Rage 128 16MB? Those are pretty common and would be supported for sure in PPC Ubuntu.

Since 9+ I would say Ubuntu is a serious contender as a standalone OS.

 

[max¥¥]

Glad you figured everything out.

I assume the video is the stock ATI Rage 128 16MB? Those are pretty common and would be supported for sure in PPC Ubuntu.

Since 9+ I would say Ubuntu is a serious contender as a standalone OS.

yeah it is the stock card, i do agree ubuntu is a serious contender as a standalone os, it is much better now than when i first used it (6.10 and 7.04) also one of the main reasons i chose ubuntu for this particular machine is the ability to use stranded pc hardware (mainly sata cards) which helps as this is gonna be a kinda file server

Ps. i sorted the problem by just leveing it plugged in for 30min to 1hour