Chosen Solution
I wanted to see if I could run a very early version of Linux on this Mac, so I got an installation disk for Linux. I tried to boot from the disk, to my surprise nothing was showing up on the TV that the Power Mac was connected to. No grey screen, no boot menu, nothing, even though everything else appeared to be operating fine inside the Power Mac. Here’s what the diagnostic LEDs are showing inside the Power Mac.
Did I brick my machine by trying to boot from this installation disk? Did my graphics Card die? Things I I have ruled out: The VGA cable is fine, I tested it with my Mac mini and it worked. TL;DR: Screen is black, but startup chime is present, fan is running, and 2 LEDs are lit after trying to boot from a linux installation disk. @mayer ideas? Update (11/03/2018) Is this the CUDA button I am looking for? I cannot distinguish between them. Tried pushing both of them, the one on the right made the Mac power on and off, the other one on the left made the Mac do the boot chime and made the optical drive rev up. Still no dice when it comes to the display, there’s nothing being shown. No flashing folder, no grey screen, nothing.
I removed the PRAM battery for 30+ min and that didn’t help either. @mayer Update (11/05/2018) CUDA button was a no-go. I left the PRAM battery out for a full day now, thats a no-go too. Boots up, fans are running, optical drive operates, but no video. One thing I have noticed is before this incident happened, on boot up ALL of the LED’s on the logic board either stayed lit or blinked after booting up. After the linux incident only 2 of the 4 LED’s stay lit after the initial boot up. Could this be a sign? I am leaning towards a graphics card issue. I just don’t want to be pouring money into unnecessary places. Update (11/08/2018) I am afraid that this machine is a brick now. I’ll try a new GFX card as a last resort. Update (11/14/2018) A new Graphics Card didn’t work. This machine is officially a brick.
Linux requires an Intel processor. Yours has a Motorola and will only run an Apple OS. Hang on I’ll find out which. If you don’t have it, email me your address and I’ll burn an installation disk for you and ship it. Then tell me what other types of software you want and I’ll - never mind, I have it all, it’s just a matter of dragging it out. Pre-Installed MacOS:8.5.1, 8.6*Maximum MacOS:X 10.4.11 MacOS 9 Support:Boot/Classic ModeWindows Support:Emulation Only Details:All Power Macintosh G3 models are capable of booting Mac OS 9 and using Mac OS 9 applications within the Mac OS X “Classic” environment. https://everymac.com/systems/apple/power… 350 MHz PowerPC 750 (G3) processor with 1 MB of backside cache, 64 MB or 128 MB of RAM, a 6 GB or 12 GB Ultra ATA/33 hard drive, a 32X CD-ROM drive or a 5X DVD-ROM drive, and an ATI Rage 128 GL graphics card with 16 MB of SDRAM.
Did a new graphics card work? That would be my guess as to why your Mac won’t display anything but appears to run fine. Other then that, I think your Mac might be “bricked”. Incompatible installation discs tend to ruin PowerPC computers and that might be what happened here. Sorry bud.
One simple answer, apple did not configure their products to run Linux too. If you teardown a pc made to run Linux and an apple pc, you will find the basic parts the same but many supplementary parts too that the PC made to run Linux needed that the apple pc had.
