[maar]

I’ve been a mac user for a long time, but I haven’t seen anything like this before, and I’m hoping that maybe one of you guys has, so any help will be greatly appreciated. I have an old 7500 with some 412 mb of RAM, 2 drives, nexus128 video card and newer tech G3 400/200 daughter card. Unlike new G4, older macs with a bit more RAM take a bit longer to boot, so normal behavior on every cold start for the 7500 was to chime load all that RAM (maybe 20 sec) without any video signal (black screen), than the the monitor would light up and the inits would load and it would be up and running. For the last two days this doesn’t happen any more. On every cold start after the machine has been shut down properly (special menu), it chimes normally, but the screen doesn’t get any signal and stays black, so the only thing to do is to power it down with the button on the front. Here comes the strangest thing (it happens every time), on every start after the machine has been powered down with the button on it’s front, it boots up without any delay as if it didn’t have to load any RAM and gets video signal immediately after the chime. So now after every proper shut down I have to start it twice to get it running (power it down with the front button after the chime when nothing is happening and the screen is black - and power it up again to get it to boot up). I’ve tried everything I could think of and that includes taking out all additional cards and RAM (tried different configs. of RAM too), resetting the cuda (went as far as resetting the cuda and removing the battery), also tried installing original daughter card, using the built inn video but nothing changes the situation. I also tested the battery and reset the PRAM conventionally - nothing helps. What do you suggest I do next. Thanks

[iKevin]

This may sound odd...but i had sorta the same problem with a PM5500 once. What fixed it(at least what i think fixed it) was that i removed the cache...reset the cuda switch, rebooted, shutdown, reset the cuda again...the replaced the cache.

Don't know if this will help you, but it seemed to work for me

Kevin

[jeromep]

You say you have "tested" the battery. Do you know the voltage it is giving the computer? Have you replaced it? I hear about a lot of strange issues with video settings and strange start ups and many (not all by any means) are solved by giving the Mac a fresh battery.

Each model of Mac acts differently when the battery gives out. Some just loose the time. Others do what yours seems to do, and others just die completly. A double restart indicates to me that your machine is starting up and getting power. As such the motherboard and chipsets are now charged and operating. By doing a hard restart with the front switch you are not powering down the motherboard, but telling the machine to warm reboot. As such, the PRAM chip is now already up and running and you get video. Don't ask me how PRAM and video are attached to each other, but often times PRAM and video are linked by stored preferences and when the PRAM battery dies, video is affected.

Good luck! I hope this helps.

[Walter J. Ferstl]

Originally posted by maar:
<STRONG>I’ve been a mac user for a long time, but I haven’t seen anything like this before, and I’m hoping that maybe one of you guys has, so any help will be greatly appreciated. I have an old 7500 with some 412 mb of RAM, 2 drives, nexus128 video card and newer tech G3 400/200 daughter card. Unlike new G4, older macs with a bit more RAM take a bit longer to boot, so normal behavior on every cold start for the 7500 was to chime load all that RAM (maybe 20 sec) without any video signal (black screen), than the the monitor would light up and the inits would load and it would be up and running. For the last two days this doesn’t happen any more. On every cold start after the machine has been shut down properly (special menu), it chimes normally, but the screen doesn’t get any signal and stays black, so the only thing to do is to power it down with the button on the front. Here comes the strangest thing (it happens every time), on every start after the machine has been powered down with the button on it’s front, it boots up without any delay as if it didn’t have to load any RAM and gets video signal immediately after the chime. So now after every proper shut down I have to start it twice to get it running (power it down with the front button after the chime when nothing is happening and the screen is black - and power it up again to get it to boot up). ....</STRONG>

My first question here is: What type of monitor do you have?

I have experienced nearly the same problems on a 7500 with a PowerLogix G3/400 upgrade. To this machine, a 17" third-party-monitor is connected. I have to use one of the Mac-to-VGA converters for the video signal.
I had the same phenomena when trying to reboot after a proper shutdown as you do. Finally, I plugged the monitor's power cord into an extension cable with a switch and set this switch to off after shutdown. Now, with an additional flick of this switch before putting the monitor on and powering the Mac up, everything works fine.

Obviously, the monitor has its own settings memory and this memory has to lose all its residual capacity, otherwise it will disturb the Mac's boot process.

Maybe this could help.

Of course, checking and changing the PRAM battery is never a bad idea (Lithium 3.6 volts in this case).

Regards,

Walter.