UNBOOTABLE G3 Desktop Beige

[Eschers]

Hello everyone,

Picked up today for 10$ a "Apple Power Macintosh G3 300 Desktop". The Guy told me it had some kind of dual boot and had OS X and OS 9 and that it was running everything well so far. The machine has the following specs:

300mhz cpu
2x64MB and 1x 128MB RAM=256MB
ATI Rage 128 with 16MB VRAM
a USB PCI Card
a FireWire PCI Card
1x 16GB HDD(On it on different partitions are OS 8, 9 and X)
1x original 6GB Apple HDD

(I have actually no idea what is original and what is added, but I found out its revision 3 or type C motherboard, which should have the least issues with OS X and so on.)

So far so good, got home booted it up and got str8 in the OS 9.2.2 desktop. On the loading screen the OS 9 hat some strange lines going up the screen. Then I found the Start Disk option and selected OS X and the screen stayed black for the first time for a good 45min. Somehow I managed to get back to 9.2.2 and booted from there to OS 8, where the desktop was constantly stuck and frozen for a while.

Found laying around a 60GB HDD and booted up succesfully from created bootable CD with OS 10.2, but from there the pain began. I was able to do the first part of the OSX 10.2 install, then when the bar filled up it rebooted and I assumed I had to insert CD 2 but nothing happened and everything stayed black.

No chance to boot up the install CD again as the picture was all teared up and the system froze. After some tries(with the 6GB hdd as well, but no luck) i put back everything in original order, but still could not get to boot it properly from the original HDD containg the OSes.

Since then I can manage to get OS 10.2 CD to boot, but fail to format any HDD in the process. nothing else is possible. I have tried the following:

• Holding opt+alt+p+R several times, but: the smiling icon appears, and then it reboots, the chime can be heard and everything stays black until pram reset again, and then it starts from the beginning.
• removing all drives except the one with OS 8, 9 and X, no success
• removing usb and firewire pci, no success
• all variations with the rams, no success
• dusted out everything, no success
• checked all cables and for leaked capacitors, no anomalities
• EDIT: always tried to install on 7,9GB partition

Everything leads to the smiley and reboot and staying black or in a unsuccessfull try to partion the hdd via OS X 10.2 install CD.


What do you guys think? Is it something on the motherboard? I actually won the thing on a auction, it was said that everything is functioning properly.

Thank you for any further suggestions!



EDIT:

 

[weckart]

Sounds like issues with the graphics card is preventing booting. Try first with extensions off. If that is reasonably stable then you probably have a failing card. You could also try operating with the inbuilt graphics card if you have one and the adapter for VGA out.

 

[Eschers]

Sounds like issues with the graphics card is preventing booting. Try first with extensions off. If that is reasonably stable then you probably have a failing card. You could also try operating with the inbuilt graphics card if you have one and the adapter for VGA out.

I tried also booting with shift held down, but no success..will try that out today! Thanks!

 

[havokalien]

Once the pram battery is dead, some beige G3's with OSX partitions go nuts as it were. If you can get your hands on an os 9 cd and hold c on turn on/boot until it loads, you may be ok. Once it does, leave it plugged in or replace pram battery. Mine act this way as i keep the batteries out so they dont leak. Considering OS X and how it works differently than classic, seems it kinda mucked things up a bit so you would buy a new mac.

 

[Eschers]

Hello guys

Popped in a new IDE drive, new battery and maxed the machine out with new ram..installed os x 10.2.8 and os 9.2.2 on it, runs great ever since! Even had laying around a old usb bluetooth dongle from early 2000 which worked „out of the box“ and managed to connect a logitech mx master mouse.

Although I have to mention that i have pulled the usb family kext from 10.2.6 and popped it in 10.2.8 to get my usb mouse working, but only because I did not have a adb 2 mouse and os 9 installation is pretty hard without a mouse!

Greetings