Performa/PowerMac 6400/200 will not startup/no video

Mike Hasson

unread,

Feb 20, 2001, 5:35:17 PM2/20/01

to

Continuing from a previous thread...after possibly using the wrong kind of
memory for my 6400 (possibly 4k refresh instead of 2k refresh 168 pin dimms)
I think I may have done some serious damage to the 6400.

After some successful startups and some failures, now the damn thing gives
me a startup beep, the disk drive whirrs & stops, the fan is on, but I only
get a low power light on the monitor, and nothing else happens. I tried
reseating the memory; I even put back the original chips. Nothing. I tried
a different monitor, a different power source.... And when I tried to reset
the PRAM, it never got far enough in the boot cycle to give me multiple
tones.

Did I destroy the memory, the power supply, the motherboard, what?!? Any
ideas? Thanks in advance!

John Selhorst

unread,

Feb 20, 2001, 6:40:24 PM2/20/01

to

In article <B6B85B95.884E%shan...@gate.net>,
Mike Hasson <shan...@gate.net> wrote:

> Continuing from a previous thread...after possibly using the wrong kind of
> memory for my 6400 (possibly 4k refresh instead of 2k refresh 168 pin dimms)
> I think I may have done some serious damage to the 6400.
>
> After some successful startups and some failures, now the damn thing gives
> me a startup beep, the disk drive whirrs & stops, the fan is on, but I only
> get a low power light on the monitor, and nothing else happens.

Sounds like a dead battery to me. $10 at Radio Shack.

Johnny

Jackie

unread,

Feb 20, 2001, 8:59:02 PM2/20/01

to

Me too. :-)

Try this site for help:

http://www.academ.com/info/macintosh/

Mike Hasson

unread,

Feb 21, 2001, 2:12:52 PM2/21/01

to

Thanks for the prompt reply, guys...unfortunately it wasn't the battery.
Just put a new one in to no avail. What's the next step?

andre

unread,

Feb 21, 2001, 2:33:49 PM2/21/01

to

The 6400 / 200 has 8 MB of ram on the board, so I would suggest removing
any extra ram and trying to boot again. This would give you a pretty good
indication of whether the ram is good or not.

-Andre

Mike Hasson

unread,

Feb 21, 2001, 3:29:20 PM2/21/01

to

Doggone it...should have told you I tried booting with no extra memory. To
recap, here's what I've done so far:

- Removed all 3rd party/scsi/etc.
- Tried to reset pram (didn't get far enough in the boot cycle)
- Reseated ram chips
- Removed all ram chips except the 8 on board
- replaced the battery
- tried different monitors
- tried different power sources/locations
- hit the little reset button on the motherboard
- yelled at the wife
- beat the dog
- pulled out my hair

oh...ehh...maybe I let out a bit more than I should have! Anyway...you get
the basic idea.

> From: andre <an...@fleshpickle.com>
> Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
> Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system,comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc,comp.sys.mac.misc
> Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 11:33:49 -0800
> Subject: Re: Performa/PowerMac 6400/200 will not startup/no video
>

andre

unread,

Feb 21, 2001, 5:17:16 PM2/21/01

to

The only other suggestion I guess would be to *hold* the reset button for
a good 10 seconds or so. Also try just letting it sit for an hour or so,
unplugged, battery out.

If that doesn't do the trick, I'd say it's time to visit a serivce center.

-Andre

Bob R. Kenyon

unread,

Feb 21, 2001, 8:32:39 PM2/21/01

to

In article <B6B97DA8.894A%shan...@gate.net>,

Mike Hasson <shan...@gate.net> wrote:
>Thanks for the prompt reply, guys...unfortunately it wasn't the battery.
>Just put a new one in to no avail. What's the next step?

You might have the problem I had with my 7500. Depending on what
system you're running, your disk may have the problem described in the
technotes that DiskFirstAid 8.6 will fix.

<http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n11889>
<http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n75102?OpenDocument&software#English>

Changing the battery didn't fix it. Mine would just freeze on the
happy mac. I had to do pram resets to get it to boot and after a while
even that didn't work.

Good luck!

--
Bob R. Kenyon
Beautiful Downtown San Jose
<http://www.bobrk.com/>

rik...@earthlink.net

unread,

Feb 25, 2001, 6:17:49 AM2/25/01

to

Did you test the voltage on the replacement battery?

ch...@esons.ch

unread,

Aug 4, 2018, 6:52:43 AM8/4/18

to

Well i have some other answer 17 years later, lol
I had exact the same issues, changed the battery, pram reset and so on...

In the end i found out what the issue was:

Harddrive IDE Cable connected wrong

I had connect the IDE cable on the harddrive the other way around. Strangely the internal IDE cable does not have a notch, so you don't know how to insert it correctly. Usually there is one missing Pin (20) in the IDE cable, but that cable has all pins...