I had a 7500 sitting around that I upgraded for my parents with an XLR8 G/400 card. I tested it out and it was working fine. I sent it home with a family member that came to visit. Now, upon startup all they get is the chime, no video ? I suggested zapping the PRAM and that failed (no other chimes heard). Does anybody have any clue as to what the problem may be ? bad board, video card ??

thanx in advance,
Nate.

[Westbo]

Is the monitor turned on? (I know it's a stupid question, but I've done it)

[mkuehn]

Same thing happened to my parents' 6100. Chime, but no video.

Turned out to be the internal battery. I wasn't there to diagnose it, so they took it to the only Mac-fixing place in town and ended up with a US$60 replacement battery, after the labor charges, etc.

The battery may be a long shot, but it's pretty easy to check. I don't think I've ever had that problem with my 7500, and the battery has died on me twice now.

It may also be that one of the cards (maybe that upgrade card?) got jostled in transit and simply needs to be reseated. I've had that happen on a couple of different Mac models.

Good luck!

Yes, the monitor was on...

I replaced the battery, and reseated the card.. still a no go ? I'm Thinking it may be one of the ram chips..

[mkuehn]

A RAM module that's gone bad could keep the machine from starting up, but I would guess that if there were a defective module, you'd hear the 'chimes of death' to let you know just that.

Maybe try removing everything you've added from the machine and take it back to its factory configuration, then try starting up again.

Or perhaps it's the monitor? Have you tried another one, and/or a different video cable?

Is the machine still starting up, even though there isn't any video? If so, you should be able to listen to the hard drive noises and tell when the Finder is available. If you can then issue commands which would give some kind of feedback (Command-F should make the hard drive thrash a bit as Sherlock opens; use the keyboard to navigate to a folder with a big application in it and open the application, again the hard drive should make some noise; press the power key and listen for the dialog box beep, then restart by pressing 'R' or shut down by pressing 'Return'; etc.) perhaps you will be able to rule out some potential causes.

Again, good luck.

[druber]

Check them cables, too. One loose cable can make everything look dead. Only time I've had a chime but no startup was when my scsi chain was messed up. Are you using the onboard video, or a card?

I've recently upgraded my 8500 recently with a G3/300 XLR8 card...same problem. The strange thing is just before the upgrade my Applevision monitor started periodicly adjusting it's geometry?

I've been pressing ctrl and command with the power key to restart.Everytime the monitor comes to life.

[Westbo]

Could the VRAM been dislodged?

I'm having similar problems with a G3-updated 8500.:
-sometimes the monitor won't start at system startup
-monitor goes black, rarely during normal use, pretty often when using the video-input, using videoplayer, or hackTV or else.
I suspect there' some timing problem between the g3 card and the video-chips. Startup: chips too cold (???).
The monitor is 1710 AV

Found a cure for my problem (see above).
2 thinks made the situation a bit better:
-installed PCI timing extension from Apple
-installed other G3 card drivers, by sonnet (www.sonnettech.com)
What really did it: I changed the "Taktphase" setting on the card (littlejoe card by Metabox, german, sorry) to a slower setting, not only went the videoproblem away, the whole mac runs better (faster).
Hope this helps, good luck, Marc