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exholt
User

Posts: 6

Question about a PowerTowerPro 225 - 2006/10/20 13:27 Hello,

A friend of mine has recently came into posession of a powertower pro 225 Mhz machine. When he powers it up, the screen remains blank. I checked the RAM and video card on my PM 9500 and they checked out. I did notice, however, that the ROM slot was empty. Would this be a factor in the machine remaining dormant and not booting up?

Sorry if this question sounds stupid, I am relatively new to the world of Pre-G3 macs.

Thanks for any help provided.

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krowmagnum
User

Posts: 790

Re:Question about a PowerTowerPro 225 - 2006/10/20 21:10 The lack of a ROM chip will not keep it from booting. In fact many of the CPU upgrades suggest removing the ROM chip for stabilty with the G3 upgrades.

Will it boot from a Mac OS CD ?

Also try zapping the PRAM on start-up by holding down the command/option/P/R keys for several chimes and that may get it to boot.

I have a PTPro 250 with a G3 card in it and it can be a little tempermental. I usually have to hit the reboot button on the front after pressing the start button. I don't know why but it started doing that a couple years ago.

Let us know what happens and if you have any more questions. I've had several of the PowerComputing machines over the years and I am fairly well aquainted with them.

The PowerTower Pro still my all time favorite Mac. The PTPro 250 was the first "Mac" when I owned and got it new in 1997, it's loaded with goodies and does run OS X but I use it mostly for OS 9 apps. OS X is slow unless you have a fast CPU upgrade.

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exholt
User

Posts: 6

Re:Question about a PowerTowerPro 225 - 2006/10/21 01:45 Hello,

I attempted to boot with the CD and with the stock CPU, the proc from my 9500 (a 200 604e), and my Machspeed G3 carrier ZIP card that works in my 9500....nothing.

When the machine powers up, I can hear the drives spin up, but no chimes nor does anything appear on the screen. In fact, the screen remains dark throughout.....it remains in this state until I finally shut the machine off....even after leaving it on for an hour and 15 minutes.

What are the possibilities for this happening?

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krowmagnum
User

Posts: 790

Re:Question about a PowerTowerPro 225 - 2006/10/21 07:26 exholt wrote:
Hello,

I attempted to boot with the CD and with the stock CPU, the proc from my 9500 (a 200 604e), and my Machspeed G3 carrier ZIP card that works in my 9500....nothing.

When the machine powers up, I can hear the drives spin up, but no chimes nor does anything appear on the screen. In fact, the screen remains dark throughout.....it remains in this state until I finally shut the machine off....even after leaving it on for an hour and 15 minutes.

What are the possibilities for this happening?

I forgot to mention the PTPro has a different key sequence for booting from a CD. The "C" key will not work, you must hold down the command/option.shift/delete keys on startup with the CD in the drive.
The PTPro's came with non-Apple CD-ROM's and it's a good idea to put an Apple branded SCSI CD-ROM in it for better compatibility and to use the "C" key for booting. Any Apple SCSI CD-ROM will work.

Do you get any chimes when zapping the pram ? Does the machine reboot when holding the keys down ? Watch the power light on the front,

Are there any PCI cards installed besides the video card ? If so remove evertything but video. And remove all RAM but one stick,

You could try disconnecting the hard drive when trying to boot from the CD.

What OS CD are you trying you boot from ?

A couple more options I forgot to mention are:

reset the CUDA switch on the logicboard (little red butrton)

try putting your 9500 hard drive/cable in the PTPro.

Try another monitor if you have one.

Try another keyboard.

Check the PRAM battery voltage or swap it, but it shouldn't keep it from booting.

If you have an ATX power supply you can try swapping the PSU. PowerrComputing clones use standard ATX PSU's like peecees.

It can be frustrating tracking down problems like this but sometimes you can get lucky and find the problem with a little trial and error.

I have had similar problems and finally got the machine to boot but I never really pinned down the problem. Sometimes it's a combinatiopn of things or the wrong combination of things.

If you are still getting nothing after using known good components from your 9500 I would guess the board is bad.

eBay, the LEM Swaplist or Yahoo's Macswap list would be good places to look for a board, whch you shoul be able to find for about 10 bucks.

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