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l008com · Jul 8, 2011, 10:06 PM

I've had this PowerMac 8500 literally acting as a support for a small table that has been holding up my REAL server for years (formerly a G4, followed by a dual G4, then most recently a Mac mini). I'm finally setting up a closet as the "server room" and so this 8500 is no longer providing structural support. And even better, the thing boots! So I formatted the hard drive (a 1GB drive, fancy!) and I'm installing a clean OS 9 on there. It looks like this Mac has a G3 upgrade card. So in theory I can install 10.4 on there using XPostFacto. Although I don't have enough RAM for it technically, and I'm not sure what I have enough hard drive space for (probably not much).

This is fun, I haven't played with any beige Macs in SO long! Ideally, I'd like to set it up as a machine I could pop a second SCSI hard drive into, and use it to repair/recover data from said drive. That way, the machine could in theory, still have some useful job to perform, if the need ever arose.

Once this OS 9 is finished install, I have to see exactly what is has for hardware. As I type this, it sounds like the CD drive is very, very, very near death. So this might not even finish. But I wonder if this old beige beast can boot off my netboot server!

l008com · Jul 8, 2011, 11:10 PM

So my 1 GB hard drive doesn't look like it's going to cut it. Anyone have an old 4GB - 9GB SCSI-2 (50pin) hard drive they want to donate? I also have something like 176 MB of RAM. I don't know exactly what I have for chips yet, but if you have anything like a pair of 64 MB dimms, that would be very helpful. If I can get this machine up to or past 256 MB, i'll be able to run 10.4 much easier.

BLAZE_MkIV · Jul 8, 2011, 11:25 PM

I have 2 old 8500s saved as bridge machines. They do scsi, IDE, firewire. And Ethernet and LocalTalk. The bag of mostly 8MB 5v dimms won't help you though.

l008com · Jul 8, 2011, 11:28 PM

Nope. I caught a glimpse through OS 9's system profiler. Looks like I have two 8 Mb dimms and the rest are 32 MB. There's also an odd number, so one might just be unseated. Getting at the ram is kind of a pain in the ass, unfortunately. Once I get OS X booted, I'll have more info... or at least info I can trust more. I did just load one of my websites in IE 5 on this thing. Very amusing. Too bad it's stuck with a 640 x 480 screen. But I do have an old 15" VGA LCD lying around. If I can get an adapter that works, that screen will be a huge upgrade, and will save me a ton of closet space too.

l008com · Jul 9, 2011, 12:00 AM

So I plugged in the LCD but the video is all squirrley. But I can clearly see my desktop. The adapter is a DB20 to VGA adapter. But heres the thing, it has 10 dip switches on one side. No brand name or model number anywhere on this adapter. Any ideas how these should go to give me proper resolution? Aside from trying out the 1024 different combinations.

l008com · Jul 9, 2011, 12:04 AM

Actually, it appears that the Mac is sending the display 1152 x 870, and there are no other options in the Monitors control panel. That is larger than this display's native resolution, hence the squigglevision. But I'm surprised I'm able to see anything at all honestly. Native res is 1024 x 768

l008com · Jul 9, 2011, 12:07 AM

Correction DB-15.

l008com · Jul 9, 2011, 12:11 AM

Success.
Apple to VGA Monitor Adapter (5328) DIP Switches

Google results are a lot more helpful when you are searching for the right thing

l008com · Jul 9, 2011, 12:28 AM

I gotta tell you, running a PowerMac off a no-name brand black LCD, instead of an old school Apple CRT, totally KILLS the nostalgia factor!

l008com · Jul 9, 2011, 01:14 AM

Things have taken a bit of a turn for the worse.

So this 8500 had one of those ZIFcarrier upgrade cards in it, with a G3 processor stuck in it. It seemed to be working fin in OS 9. But every time I tried to boot OS X, i'd just get nothing... no video, the machine would just reboot and hang.

So I tried reseating the RAM, then I tried an old 132 MHz 604 processor card I had. Followed by a 120 Mhz 604, followed bu the ZIFcarrier again, but this time down-clocked to a very conservative 40 MHz bus and 300 MHz processor. I don't know what the processor actually is, my guess would be maybe a 350 Mhz. But regardless, none of the processors will boot the machine now, not even in OS 9. I can't even get a PRAM reset to work (before I started reseating RAM and swapping processors, resetting the PRAM would get me booting off OS 9 again after an OS X boot failed.

I remember there were so many little tricks to getting these old bastards working normally. But I don't remember most of them :/
And it's an amazing pain in the ass to access the RAM. So pulling some chips looking for a bad one that might be causing problems, would be a huge pain in the ass. It's easier to remove this computer's processor than it is to remove it's RAM. What was Apple thinking?

reader50 · Jul 9, 2011, 02:29 PM

Take a voltage reading on the PRAM battery. The no-boot problem may have nothing to do with the CPUs.

l008com · Jul 9, 2011, 03:49 PM

The battery is essentially dead. Although I've never seen a dead battery actually make a mac unbootable before. Only forgetful.

Person Man · Jul 9, 2011, 05:47 PM

Originally Posted by l008com

The battery is essentially dead. Although I've never seen a dead battery actually make a mac unbootable before. Only forgetful.

I've seen a dead battery make a Mac unbootable. Try replacing it along with reseating all the RAM and the processor card.

CharlesS · Jul 9, 2011, 07:14 PM

Originally Posted by l008com

The battery is essentially dead. Although I've never seen a dead battery actually make a mac unbootable before. Only forgetful.

I used to see that happen all the time with those old Macs. Don't know if it still happens with the more modern desktops.

l008com · Jul 9, 2011, 08:07 PM

I've already reseated everything. I ordered a new battery on amazon, we'll see if that helps.

seanc · Jul 13, 2011, 02:06 PM

I had a PowerMac 4400 which wouldn't power on because the battery was dead. A couple of hours of power button mashing got it working again....

l008com · Jul 13, 2011, 02:07 PM

So it wouldn't turn on because the battery was dead, and you solved the problem by hitting the power button for hours?

seanc · Jul 13, 2011, 02:11 PM

Pretty much.
The power light would flash for a moment, they kept getting longer until the machine powered up - much like you might find in a machine with failing capacitors.
Changed the battery and it worked fine.

My old Performa 475 is missing its battery. It has a rocker switch, so it powers up, but doesn't chime. Flick it on, off, then back on and it works.

l008com · Jul 13, 2011, 02:13 PM

My 8500 powers up, but never does a startup chime, never has any video, never has any HD activity aside from the initial spin up. If the new battery comes today, I'll pop it in and see what happens.