I just visited my friend who just installed Mac OS 10.2 on his 400 mhz Power Mac G4. Before (two days ago) he had been running Mac OS 9.2.
Anyway, he showed me some problem he had:
Every time the computer starts up you can hear quite a loud tone coming from the computer before the startup sound. Then before the OS has loaded this appears on the screen:
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Apple PowerMac3, 3 4.2.8f1 BootRom built on 10/11/
Welcome to Open Firmware
To continue booting, type "mac-boot" and press return.
To shut down, type "shut-down" and press return.
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Well, Mac OS X of course boots up after the "mac-boot" command and everything is fine, but my friend thought this was rather annoying.
Well, to me this sounded more serious than just annoying so I took a look at his computer to see if something else was wrong. Well, it turned out to that the computer couldn't boot Mac OS 9 at all now. Classic worked just fine and I tried installing new OS 9 system folders but the computer refused to boot from any of them. All that appeared was a grey dead screen after I had given the "mac-boot" command after the Open Firmware screen.
I even tried out a couple of Mac OS 9 System CD's but same thing.
I sometimes even got in a bit of trouble if I had selected a Mac OS 9 system folder to boot from, in the Startup Disk in System Preferences because after the damn "mac-boot" command it immediately tried to load Mac OS 9 and came with the damn grey screen again. And yes I tried to wait if something would happen, it didn't.
I even tried disconnecting the hard drive from the motherboard and I got the blinking folder with the Mac OS icon on it, signifying that it didn't find a system folder. I then put a Mac OS 9 System CD in the CD drive but the folder just continued to blink.
However when I put the Mac OS X Software Install CD into the drive, it worked and Mac OS X Installer loaded from the CD.
I always managed to get back to Mac OS X on the hard drive though. Classic ran perfectly.
I started asking my friend a few question and turns out that the computer has always acted a little weird but he just never did anything about it for these two years.
He never got the Open Firmware screen before (before installing Mac OS X) and said that he had never heard that tone from the computer before, but that there had always been some problem with turning the computer on and off.
He said that when he gave the regular shut down command from the Mac OS, the computer shut down but that the power button still had a light and the only way to get rid of that, was to pull the plug from the wall.
I saw this myself and the computer indeed seemed off, except that light on the power button. And what's also kind of weird is that the light isn't green like my won Power Mac at home, but instead a bright white color. My machine is Sawtooth btw, perhaps this computer is a Yikes type. And the computer never started up if you pressed the power button when in this condition.
The only was to start the computer was to first pull the plug and then put the plug back into the socket and suddenly the computer turned on all by itself. This had been going on for quite some time he said. He's always had to pull the plug out and put it in to turn on his computer.
Well after some experimenting I've formed a theory:
It seems to me that both the power button and the programmer's button seem stuck in some way inside.
You see, that tone that always is heard when the computer is turned on, I recognize it from when I updated my firmware once in my own computer and the readme file said that I had to hold the programmer's button while restarting until I heard a loud tone.
Well, what can be done ? Is it possible to take a look inside there somewhere to see if the problem is visible ? Should the computer perhaps be sent for repair ?
It seems that the computer is fully functional though, even though you have to turn it on the wrong way, always type "mac-boot" when the Open Firmware screen appears and it only runs Mac OS X.
I checked the firmware version on the computer. It was up to date. I ran First Aid in Disk Utility, it found nothing.
So, any ideas ?
Excuse my poor English btw.
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