Kris: Thanks for the info, especially the last paragraph! dc: I eventually narrowed the problem to the installation disks I was using... I had a OS 8 and a OS 9 disk, and neither one would boot the machine. Then it crossed my mind to try to boot the machine with a Panther CD I have here - it booted straight up, until the point it generated a kernel panic for not being able to determine the CPU type, based on the system model. I then got another OS 9.2.1 CD and I got it to boot!
It is now running with OS 9.2.1, and when I have the time (and the money) I want to get some more memory for it. Is it hard to get some more VRAM? Or is it better to get a PCI graphics card? The RAM is PC- standard, although is a bit slower than the one I have here for my Pentium III PCs, so it shouldn't be too hard to find... I also want to install a USB PCI card, in order to use some older hardware which is not OS X-friendly, like my old flatbed scanner. But right now the machine is working perfectly! Thank you both for your help! MM On May 4, 7:25 pm, Kris Tilford <[email protected]> wrote: > On May 4, 2010, at 10:27 AM, Manuel Marques wrote: > > > I also reseted the PRAM, > > The Beige has a problem resetting the PRAM. The problem is that the > power supply has some capacitors that allow residual charge to keep > the old values in the PRAM/NVRAM even after hearing the chimes or > typing the "set-defaults" & "reset-all" commands. The ONLY sure way to > reset the PRAM/NVRAM in the Beige is to remove the PRAM battery AND > the cable from the power supply to the motherboard, and then press the > CUDA reset button near the 3rd PCI slot. I also let it rest for 5 > minutes or so and press the CUDA AGAIN before reinserting the PRAM > battery and power supply cable. This is a pain in the butt, but it's > the ONLY way I know to be certain the PRAM/NVRAM is reset on the > Beige. This is Beige specific, and there is no reason to go to these > extremes on any other Mac model. > > > and even tried to boot with a OS 8 CD, but nothing, the machine > > won't boot at all from the CD! It keeps booting from the internal > > disk.What can I do about it? > > Most Beige won't boot from any optical drive that is set to "slave", > so the optical drive should be set to "master" and be on a separate > bus from the internal HD. The OEM Apple optical drives in the Beige > were known to problematic for booting, and using and "modern" CDRW or > DVDRW as a replacement is a good idea. Some of the OEM Apple optical > drives required a firmware update that can only be done in MacOS. > Since OS 8.5 as the most advanced OS when this firmware update was > made, if you use it with OS 9.x it will give a warning that can be > ignored, and you can still try to run the updater. The updater is > "smart" and knows which drives to update, so you should try this > updater just in case your optical drive is one the needs this new > firmware: > <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=24714> > > > Should I use an external SCSI drive? > > In my experience most SCSI optical drives are a flakey and bad as > these early ATA optical drives. As I said, a more modern ATA drive set > as "master" would be a better solution. You can boot OS X "indirectly" > on "slave" set drives using XPostFacto which uses the internal HD as a > "helper disk" to start the boot process on and then switches the boot > over to the normally unbootable optical HD. > > The Beige is probably the most difficult Mac to work on, it's very > finicky with lots of quirky, non-Mac like behavior. Honestly, the time > for the usefulness of the Beige as past by, and you should consider > other options unless you have both time and money to spend on this > project, which will most likely be a frustrating handful. PPC Macs to > consider as replacements might be AGP G4's, G4 or G5 iMacs, or Minis. > > You can run OS X 10.4.11 on a Beige, but you'd need a Radeon graphics > card and probably 3x256MB of LOW-DENSITY PC100/133 SDRAM (768MB is the > max. for the Beige, low-density means chips of BOTH sides of the > module, 16 chips). Even then, any AGP G4 can run circles around the > Beige. The Beige is a handful as an upgrade project. > > -- > You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for > those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power > Macs. > The list FAQ is athttp://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtmland our netiquette > guide is athttp://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
