Problems powering up Mac

[charlie752]

I bought a 6400 second hand cheaply and am in the process of making a few upgrades. It's got OS 8.5 installed and had older browser versions on it (IE 4.0 and NS 2.0!) I wanted to upgrade.

I downloaded the IE 5.1 files and installed them (eventually - had problems un-Stuffing a couple of times). Then I kept getting a "error 2" alert when trying to run IE and would freeze so I had to shutdown using the power button on the back of the CPU. I found out that it was because the program kept running out of memory. So I allocated 10MB min and 20Mb preffered memory to it. Worked fine.

But now I can't even boot up. When I press the power key I hear the fan switch on, but no "bong" sound or power light or boot progress on screen. The CD drive opens and closes and I can hear the fan.

Because I bought this second hand I never got the OS installation or boot disks. What do I do?

I've looked on some forums for similar posts and I've seen it could be a dead PRAM battery. Would it be?

 

[alset]

You may have some luck restteing the mother board. I don't know how to do this on your machine, I am sorry to say. But, as I just suggested in another thread: try checking Apple's Knowlede Base.

http://www.info.apple.com/

Good luck!
Dan

 

[ibjoshua]

Re: Problems powering up Mac

Originally posted by charlie752
I bought a 6400 second hand cheaply and am in the process of making a few upgrades. It's got OS 8.5 installed and had older browser versions on it (IE 4.0 and NS 2.0!) I wanted to upgrade.

I downloaded the IE 5.1 files and installed them (eventually - had problems un-Stuffing a couple of times). Then I kept getting a "error 2" alert when trying to run IE and would freeze so I had to shutdown using the power button on the back of the CPU. I found out that it was because the program kept running out of memory. So I allocated 10MB min and 20Mb preffered memory to it. Worked fine.

But now I can't even boot up. When I press the power key I hear the fan switch on, but no "bong" sound or power light or boot progress on screen. The CD drive opens and closes and I can hear the fan.

Because I bought this second hand I never got the OS installation or boot disks. What do I do?

I've looked on some forums for similar posts and I've seen it could be a dead PRAM battery. Would it be?

I'm having similar trouble with my old Umax s900. Starts up with no chime then just sits there.

Have you tried zapping the PRAM? Command-Option-P-R at startup? That may help. It hasn't done anything for me though.

Let me know if you have any luck.

i_b_joshua

 

[MrMacMan]

That's nothing my oldidh
'All-in-one G3' Boots flashes and then turns off.

Sometime you hear the flicker hear the fan turn on then off again, bah.

 

[charlie752]

Fixed!

Thanks for the help everyone. Luckily just resetting the motherboard did the trick! Phew!

Just a quick question on another subject though: I've got OS 8.5 installed on this Mac, but I have the OS 8.6 upgrade files. I'd like to upgrade the OS, but would I need to re-install the software already on it if I do so. I ask thi because I got the Mac 2nd hand and don't have any of the installation disks for the software on it.

Thanks