Thread
This Power Macintosh 7200 Makes Me Want To Commit Suicide.
I am at wits end.
I started maybe around 8 PM. It is now 5 AM. I have not slept. I have not showered.
I have been attempting to install Mac OS 9 onto this machine for the past 9 god damn hours.
The errors are varied and plentiful. The earliest such one is that we can't find, or can't open, or otherwise use the magical and illustrious "Installation Tome". When I put the CD into my G5 and run the installer in classic mode, it can make a full install of OS 9 with no problem. Put it in the 7200 and for some reason Mr. Installation Tome vanishes. F*** you, Installation Tome.
I ripped the disc and burned another copy of it. Still the same error. So I ripped the disc on the 7200 using Disk Copy booted off a ZIP disk, and then installed from the freaking disk image. No installation tome. So I ripped out the 8x drive and put a 24x drive. HOLY S*** THE INSTALLATION TOME WORKS OMFG ITS THE END OF THE WORLD. WTF.
OMFG OS 9 ACTUALLY INSTALLED. Let's reboot. FREEZE. No extensions, boots fine. Boot it again with extensions - fine, what the f***????? Put in a CD. FREEZE. Eject the cd - it goddamn unfreezes! Rip out the 24x and put in the 8x - NO MORE FREEZING. Let's run the OS 9.1 update. Type -199 error. F*** that. Let's try a different disc. Yeah, it runs, and installs halfway, and then decides it can't find the folder named "Mac OS 9". Reboot. Freeze. Reboot again. No freeze WTF????? Copy the 9.1 update to the hard drive. ERROR -127 WTF. Reboot and copy again. No error. It starts to copy. It's almost done. Almost there. THE WHOLE THING CRASHES TO A BLANK SCREEN WITH A BLANK MENU BAR AND I WANT TO KILL MYSELF.
I have already ripped out every PCI card including the Sonnet card, I ripped out the cache, I ripped out all the RAM except for one 128 MB stick and yes it's the right refresh and it's the right stick and it worked fine in a 7300 and yes it's not EDO so why the goddamn bloody f***ing hell will this 7200 not cooperate with me. I checked the media of the hard drive. It's a 1.2 GB SCSI drive. The media is fine. I tried taking off the scsi zip drive. it made no difference.
I want to grind up the 7200 motherboard into a fine powder and snort it. Then I want to crush the case with a steamroller and then burn the pieces and then snort that too.
I want to cry now. What a night of pure hell.
I just don't understand why this machine is so absolutely positively f***ed up.
I started maybe around 8 PM. It is now 5 AM. I have not slept. I have not showered.
I have been attempting to install Mac OS 9 onto this machine for the past 9 god damn hours.
The errors are varied and plentiful. The earliest such one is that we can't find, or can't open, or otherwise use the magical and illustrious "Installation Tome". When I put the CD into my G5 and run the installer in classic mode, it can make a full install of OS 9 with no problem. Put it in the 7200 and for some reason Mr. Installation Tome vanishes. F*** you, Installation Tome.
I ripped the disc and burned another copy of it. Still the same error. So I ripped the disc on the 7200 using Disk Copy booted off a ZIP disk, and then installed from the freaking disk image. No installation tome. So I ripped out the 8x drive and put a 24x drive. HOLY S*** THE INSTALLATION TOME WORKS OMFG ITS THE END OF THE WORLD. WTF.
OMFG OS 9 ACTUALLY INSTALLED. Let's reboot. FREEZE. No extensions, boots fine. Boot it again with extensions - fine, what the f***????? Put in a CD. FREEZE. Eject the cd - it goddamn unfreezes! Rip out the 24x and put in the 8x - NO MORE FREEZING. Let's run the OS 9.1 update. Type -199 error. F*** that. Let's try a different disc. Yeah, it runs, and installs halfway, and then decides it can't find the folder named "Mac OS 9". Reboot. Freeze. Reboot again. No freeze WTF????? Copy the 9.1 update to the hard drive. ERROR -127 WTF. Reboot and copy again. No error. It starts to copy. It's almost done. Almost there. THE WHOLE THING CRASHES TO A BLANK SCREEN WITH A BLANK MENU BAR AND I WANT TO KILL MYSELF.
I have already ripped out every PCI card including the Sonnet card, I ripped out the cache, I ripped out all the RAM except for one 128 MB stick and yes it's the right refresh and it's the right stick and it worked fine in a 7300 and yes it's not EDO so why the goddamn bloody f***ing hell will this 7200 not cooperate with me. I checked the media of the hard drive. It's a 1.2 GB SCSI drive. The media is fine. I tried taking off the scsi zip drive. it made no difference.
I want to grind up the 7200 motherboard into a fine powder and snort it. Then I want to crush the case with a steamroller and then burn the pieces and then snort that too.
I want to cry now. What a night of pure hell.
I just don't understand why this machine is so absolutely positively f***ed up.
OK. What you need first is commiseration from those who have also been there, done that, survived, and either triumphed or moved on. So, commiserations, then. Without being able, at this remove, to have any definitive opinion about the specific cause, I observe that what you describe fits the picture of a flakey MLB. You may never get a specific diagnosis, but the principle of test by replacement that you have employed in this affair is suggested for the main board also. If another board works ...
I was recently driven to the conclusion that the SCSI port (What? SCSI never fails!) of a IIci MLB had died, but not before quite a bit of argey-bargey. Best of fortune hereafter.
de
I was recently driven to the conclusion that the SCSI port (What? SCSI never fails!) of a IIci MLB had died, but not before quite a bit of argey-bargey. Best of fortune hereafter.
de
I decided to take the hard drive out of the stripped 7500 and put it in the 7200. The old 7200 drive is removed. Now I'm installing OS 9 on top of the OS 8.1 install rather than doing a wipe and install. The G3 card works at this point with the OS 8.1, but the G3 card works best with the OS 9.1 where it can use graphics acceleration and it boots a lot faster and such.
To me, it sounds like somewhere along the way someone did stick EDO into the machine, and it's borked its memory controller - and you're getting random intermittent errors of all kinds, everywhere.
I think your idea of grinding up the 7200's motherboard into a fine powder is a good idea. Maybe not the snorting. Save much much hassle!
Still - you did the best you could, and came out with wasted time - it does happen!.
Can you get pics or video if you set the logic board on fire?
Dana
I think your idea of grinding up the 7200's motherboard into a fine powder is a good idea. Maybe not the snorting. Save much much hassle!
Still - you did the best you could, and came out with wasted time - it does happen!.
Can you get pics or video if you set the logic board on fire?
Dana
Wow - not much I could say would top that. I, too, have had moments where I wanted nothing more than to introduce the offending object to Mr. Sledgehammer (several items met their fate in that way, actually, though usually just uncooperative drives). Never had the desire to snort ground-up circuit boards, tho.
As for advice? Put that thing somewhere that you will not think about it for at least a week, and then if you decide later that you want to try again, take it slow. Check the hardware for the usual problems (leaking capacitors, loose/corroded contacts or wires, excessive dust, bridged traces, etc). It sounds like the vast majority of your problems have to do with CDROM operations. Old optical drives have a habit of being uncooperative, so if you have lots of media errors, try using a few different drives. As I've said before, Matsushita-manufactured drives often cause me more grief than anything else, and if I'm having CD read errors, the first thing I look at is the drive manufacturer. If it's Matsushita, it's gone. I have a few non-Apple TEAC or Pioneer drives that work exceptionally well, so they're my workhorses.
I don't think there's anything else to say on this one - if you do decide to go Office Space that computer, be sure to wear safety goggles and preferably wear gloves.
As for advice? Put that thing somewhere that you will not think about it for at least a week, and then if you decide later that you want to try again, take it slow. Check the hardware for the usual problems (leaking capacitors, loose/corroded contacts or wires, excessive dust, bridged traces, etc). It sounds like the vast majority of your problems have to do with CDROM operations. Old optical drives have a habit of being uncooperative, so if you have lots of media errors, try using a few different drives. As I've said before, Matsushita-manufactured drives often cause me more grief than anything else, and if I'm having CD read errors, the first thing I look at is the drive manufacturer. If it's Matsushita, it's gone. I have a few non-Apple TEAC or Pioneer drives that work exceptionally well, so they're my workhorses.
I don't think there's anything else to say on this one - if you do decide to go Office Space that computer, be sure to wear safety goggles and preferably wear gloves.
I'm giving it one more try. It may have been the hard drive. If it was screwed up it may have been sending all kinds of crap all over the SCSI bus which would explain a lot of the problems. Magically, when I put in the other hard drive, the onboard ethernet started working correctly again. It's downloading at almost 250K/sec right now (Mac OS 9.1 update). I'll run the update, and then the sonnet G3 software, and we'll see how it fares.
Edit: All the CD drives so far have been MATSUSHITA drives, but I have at least one Apple SONY 4x drive I could try if necessary.
If it was the hard drive then I will make a nice video of the hard drive getting what it deserves }
Edit: All the CD drives so far have been MATSUSHITA drives, but I have at least one Apple SONY 4x drive I could try if necessary.
If it was the hard drive then I will make a nice video of the hard drive getting what it deserves }
Well, it froze on the OS 9.1 update. Right in the middle. Now the install is trashed, pretty much. It wasn't the hard drive.
I think it's the motherboard at this point. I wonder if a 7200 G3 card will work in a 7500 Mac? I'm thinking of un-stripping the 7500. I originally stole the power supply out of the 7500 after the 7200's died and otherwise stripped the 7500, because I thought the 7200 was going to be a nice little workhorse machine with it's nice new G3 card where I could run old games like Duke Nukem 3D. Nobody ever did try the Crescendo/7200 in a 7500, so it's possible it might work. Otherwise I guess it just gets to sit in the box until it disintegrates.
I don't know how to go about converting the 7200 motherboard into a fine powder that I can snort. I need one of those really expensive blenders that they used to blend up an iPhone. I would have to cut the motherboard into strips or something to fit it into the blender but I could make it work.
At this point I'm going to try and get a few hours sleep and then tomorrow move everything over to the 7500 and try again. I don't know about 7200s in general but mine absolutely blows ass and it's a shame.
I think it's the motherboard at this point. I wonder if a 7200 G3 card will work in a 7500 Mac? I'm thinking of un-stripping the 7500. I originally stole the power supply out of the 7500 after the 7200's died and otherwise stripped the 7500, because I thought the 7200 was going to be a nice little workhorse machine with it's nice new G3 card where I could run old games like Duke Nukem 3D. Nobody ever did try the Crescendo/7200 in a 7500, so it's possible it might work. Otherwise I guess it just gets to sit in the box until it disintegrates.
I don't know how to go about converting the 7200 motherboard into a fine powder that I can snort. I need one of those really expensive blenders that they used to blend up an iPhone. I would have to cut the motherboard into strips or something to fit it into the blender but I could make it work.
At this point I'm going to try and get a few hours sleep and then tomorrow move everything over to the 7500 and try again. I don't know about 7200s in general but mine absolutely blows ass and it's a shame.
So much for sleep.
The Crescendo/7200 works in a 7500! It's like a really ghetto poor man's G3 upgrade for a 7500, but it works, DIMMs and all. It's all operative. Graphics appear to be accelerated too. Booted off a ZIP disk right now.
Wiping the hard drive now for a full OS 9 reinstall as the one on there was borked up.
The Crescendo/7200 works in a 7500! It's like a really ghetto poor man's G3 upgrade for a 7500, but it works, DIMMs and all. It's all operative. Graphics appear to be accelerated too. Booted off a ZIP disk right now.
Wiping the hard drive now for a full OS 9 reinstall as the one on there was borked up.
The 7500 is so far flawless. OS 9 installed flawlessly. OS 9.1 upgrade flawless. G3 card is working beautifully. 256 MB RAM working great. CD is great. Now installing Duke Nukem 3D.
The 7200 motherboard will probably be turned into powder. let me know your suggestions on how to do that.
Must sleep, good nite.
The 7200 motherboard will probably be turned into powder. let me know your suggestions on how to do that.
Must sleep, good nite.
I recommend fire*
* don't breathe this.
Dana
* don't breathe this.
Dana
zomb my 7200 mobo:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1380842752&size=l
and the rest of the mobo:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1380842760&context=photostream&size=l
this is nice:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1380248542&context=photostream&size=l
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1380842752&size=l
and the rest of the mobo:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1380842760&context=photostream&size=l
this is nice:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1380248542&context=photostream&size=l
Someone needs to start collecting 7200s very soon if any of this machine that is soon to be very rare are to be saved, because if the number that have been destroyed in recent weeks by this community of supposed rescuers of old Macs is anything to go by then they must be being trashed at a very high rate by people who aren't interested in old Macs!
ive got at least 2 or 3 7200s at the moment
Some designs are not worth saving.
"Will it blend? That....is the question. I have with me today, an old, crappy, broken Power Macintosh 7200 motherboard..."
I wanted to save the 7200. I really did. I even cannibalized a good 7500 for parts. I was putting together an old games machine where I could run games like SimTower, SimCity 2000, Duke Nukem 3D, and some old programs like Graphing Calculator. I can run these on the G5 now in Classic mode but Leopard has no Classic mode. I picked the 7200 because the G3 cards were very cheap, and it also had a PC card where I could run some old PC games too, and because the 7200 was generally unloved/unappreciated. I wanted to show how for just a bit of cash the 7200 could be made into a great Classic OS machine.
Unfortunately, this particular 7200 failed me, and I won't have another one again until I come across one locally. My first 7200 I got from a garage sale and was sold off in a matter of days on LEMSwap to someone who needed to use an ImageWriter. This second one I got in a school auction with lots of other Macs.
It's crazy the 7500 can even use the 7200's special G3 upgrade. Sure it takes a PCI slot but for a Classic Games machine I don't really need lots of PCI slots. Onboard ethernet suffices, I don't need USB or FireWire (I use ZIP disks to move data between the old Macs and the G5), the onboard video is fine for old non 3D games.
The PCI PC Compatibility card does not seem to work on any other 7x00 Macs because it needs this proprietary little slot to plug a doohickey into in order to get video.
Unfortunately, this particular 7200 failed me, and I won't have another one again until I come across one locally. My first 7200 I got from a garage sale and was sold off in a matter of days on LEMSwap to someone who needed to use an ImageWriter. This second one I got in a school auction with lots of other Macs.
It's crazy the 7500 can even use the 7200's special G3 upgrade. Sure it takes a PCI slot but for a Classic Games machine I don't really need lots of PCI slots. Onboard ethernet suffices, I don't need USB or FireWire (I use ZIP disks to move data between the old Macs and the G5), the onboard video is fine for old non 3D games.
The PCI PC Compatibility card does not seem to work on any other 7x00 Macs because it needs this proprietary little slot to plug a doohickey into in order to get video.
It doesn't surprise me that the 7200/G3 board works in a 7500, remember they are both based on a similar design.
someone should try in what other macs the pci slot cpu upgrades work... always wanted to know that.
I have a 6500 that I can try it in. Of course the 6500 is a significantly different motherboard design. If it works, it proves the versatility of the card.
I would lay fairly long odds that what you have is an overheating processor.
I've been there, brother. Up all night with a 7100, which had tested out okay, sold to a coworker and flaked out on his wife. Reinstall the OS--> problems. Finally get the OS installed. Run some tests. More problems after a couple of hours. Finally I saw some screen artifacts which reminded me of the same artifacts I had on a Power120. I cleaned the CPU and heat sink, replaced the heat sink grease and all the problems vanished.
Sooooo, if you have not yet burned that poor, maligned 7200, pull the heat sink (or if it's a 7200/120, heat sink/peltier combo) clean the white powdering residue off with some unadulterate rubbing alcohol (just alcohol and water, no scents, oils, colors, etc.) and then replace the grease with a dab and replace the heat sink. The grease is available from Radio Shack for about $3 in a blue and white tube on a card which can hang on a peg board. At least, that's how they used to package it. I think they call it "Heat Sink Compound".
You can use the expensive Arctic Silver stuff for $15+ instead, but my experience is that the Radio Shack stuff works about as well in most uses.
Only put a dab on. It's just filling the tiny imperfections between the flat heat sink and flat CPU die (the square in the middle). Plus if the stuff runs off onto the pins of the CPU it can short them out. I killed a board that way, many years ago when they were still worth hundreds of dollars.
PPC601s run hot. The grease Apple used on them turns to useless powder after a while. At which point the CPU becomes unreliable and the errors wander all over the machine, becaues the CPU is randomly belching.
Anyone with a 7100 definitely needs to replace the heat sink grease. The 7200 is probably about due for it too.
BTW, if you do have a 7200/120 and don't have the Peltier/heat sink combo, then you need one. That's the heat sink with the unit under it which plugs into the 12V connector on the MB next to the CPU. The PPC601 will not operate at 120 reliably without active cooling. It's only rated to 100 with passive cooling.
I've been there, brother. Up all night with a 7100, which had tested out okay, sold to a coworker and flaked out on his wife. Reinstall the OS--> problems. Finally get the OS installed. Run some tests. More problems after a couple of hours. Finally I saw some screen artifacts which reminded me of the same artifacts I had on a Power120. I cleaned the CPU and heat sink, replaced the heat sink grease and all the problems vanished.
Sooooo, if you have not yet burned that poor, maligned 7200, pull the heat sink (or if it's a 7200/120, heat sink/peltier combo) clean the white powdering residue off with some unadulterate rubbing alcohol (just alcohol and water, no scents, oils, colors, etc.) and then replace the grease with a dab and replace the heat sink. The grease is available from Radio Shack for about $3 in a blue and white tube on a card which can hang on a peg board. At least, that's how they used to package it. I think they call it "Heat Sink Compound".
You can use the expensive Arctic Silver stuff for $15+ instead, but my experience is that the Radio Shack stuff works about as well in most uses.
Only put a dab on. It's just filling the tiny imperfections between the flat heat sink and flat CPU die (the square in the middle). Plus if the stuff runs off onto the pins of the CPU it can short them out. I killed a board that way, many years ago when they were still worth hundreds of dollars.
PPC601s run hot. The grease Apple used on them turns to useless powder after a while. At which point the CPU becomes unreliable and the errors wander all over the machine, becaues the CPU is randomly belching.
Anyone with a 7100 definitely needs to replace the heat sink grease. The 7200 is probably about due for it too.
BTW, if you do have a 7200/120 and don't have the Peltier/heat sink combo, then you need one. That's the heat sink with the unit under it which plugs into the 12V connector on the MB next to the CPU. The PPC601 will not operate at 120 reliably without active cooling. It's only rated to 100 with passive cooling.
I will check on that. I have not junked the 7200 board yet. I'm not at the apartment right now but I don't recall any kind of peltier thing and it is a 7200/120 PC Compatible. I remember my 8100 had a peltier.
These folks have the peltier/heat sink combo for $2 each. http://www.shrevesystems.com/misc.html I don't know what they'll charge you for shipping though. There should be a pair of pins near the CPU to supply the 12V.
Ditto...I've have an 8600 that was giving me errors ohmygod I was ready to rip my hair out after several days of nothing but failures of OS installs...
Anyway, I *thought* it was the SCSI bus and started using an external SCSI drive, and things seemed better for a little while, but then the same sh*t started again...
Then by accident tooling around in there, my hand brushed the heatsink, and OUCH! Whoa...it should be warm/hot, but not blistering to the touch...Anyway, I got some advice on to how to but thermal paste on the chip, cleaned it off and applied new paste, and yes, the thing started working well again.
That never would have been my first guess, or even my 30th, but now that it has happened to me (very much like your situation), I am more savvy to it when things really appear to be 100% weird and inconsistent.
I'm going after my 7300/G3-275 right now with similar issues. I discovered I had the hard drive SCSI termination wrong... that made a huge difference. Just about to clean/regrease the CPU heat sink. We shall see.
So does anyone know of a good free memory test/benchmark/burnin utility for Classic Mac OS? Tons for Winders boxes but I can't find one to exercise my 7300.
So does anyone know of a good free memory test/benchmark/burnin utility for Classic Mac OS? Tons for Winders boxes but I can't find one to exercise my 7300.
TTP?
A good memory tester is Newer Technologies Gauge Pro 1.1 - get it at the bottom of this page http://www.newertech.com/tech_support/support_legacy.php
Frakkin box. It's taken up too much of my time. I really had my hopes up there for awhile. I actually had OS 8.5 installed and the unit would boot every time. Upgraded to 9.1 - OK. Try installing OS X with XPostFacto - crasho. Then the machine won't even boot until I strip it right down to minimal RAM, take all the cards out, etc. Then it'll boot. I can then slowly upgrade it back to its original self and it'll work for awhile. Then it'll die and I'll have to repeat the same thing all over again.
It's posted in freecycle RFN. Good riddance to it.
I just removed the 7200/120 motherboard.
Problem 1: No peltier is installed. I just ordered two of them from Shreve as I'm sure the other one will come in handy in another Mac. Total was $9.50 including shipping.
Problem 2: Old cracked thermal paste. I got some today and I'm going to go ahead and clean it off and apply the new paste.
Problem 3: No power supply. Does anyone have one that works on such 7200s?
I would like to get this Mac put back together with the DOS card and use it for some old Windows 95 stuff.
Problem 1: No peltier is installed. I just ordered two of them from Shreve as I'm sure the other one will come in handy in another Mac. Total was $9.50 including shipping.
Problem 2: Old cracked thermal paste. I got some today and I'm going to go ahead and clean it off and apply the new paste.
Problem 3: No power supply. Does anyone have one that works on such 7200s?
I would like to get this Mac put back together with the DOS card and use it for some old Windows 95 stuff.
The 7500 power supply will work in the 7200. I don't have a spare because I have only one, which is what I use to test x500 motherboards.
You can convert an ATX, if you put an inverter on the soft-power-on line. I think instructions are in an article at xlr8yourmac.com. But it might be difficult to find an ATX supply the right shape for the 7200/7500 case.
An 8500/9500 power supply would also work electrically, but won't fit.
You can convert an ATX, if you put an inverter on the soft-power-on line. I think instructions are in an article at xlr8yourmac.com. But it might be difficult to find an ATX supply the right shape for the 7200/7500 case.
An 8500/9500 power supply would also work electrically, but won't fit.
Does the system recognize all the RAM both on the motherboard and on the upgrade?? You wouldn't happen to have a 6500 you could try that out on would you?