What could be the problem with dead Mac?

[qednick]

Hi all, I just got [yet another] older PowerMac off ebay.com which, when I tried to boot it up, gives these symptoms:

1. The power light and fan come on OK
2. There is no typcial boot-up sound
3. There is no video signal and therefore no flashing question mark icon signalling a missing system
4. There is no detectable hard disk noise as if it's trying to boot
5. The Mac will not boot from an emergency boot floppy either

I'm thinking it needs a new motherboard but I could be wrong. What do you think?

It's a PowerMac 7300 with MacOS 8.6

I'm currently trying the 7300's hard disk in another Mac to test it. The floppy drive and CD drives appear to be OK.

^{programmer (prog'ram'er), n A hot-headed, anorak wearing, pimple-faced computer geek.}​

 

[Zelandakh]

is there any noise at all?

check if the ram is right for the mac.

 

[qednick]

The RAM looks correct. The only 'real' noise is the fan. No usual rumblings from the hard disk or anything like that. All the cables connected to the motherboard look secure. I can't find anything missing. A new motherboard is on its way to me to try out so I guess I'll soon find out.

^{programmer (prog'ram'er), n A hot-headed, anorak wearing, pimple-faced computer geek.}​

 

[Jasen]

On older PM's this is a classic sign of the battery being dead. Especially in the 6100 series. I don't doubt it would do it on a 7300 either. do you have a battery you could yank out of another machine to test? ________
Remember, you're unique... just like everyone else.

 

[qednick]

I've tried a couple of [known] good batteries and still no joy I'm afraid.

^{programmer (prog'ram'er), n A hot-headed, anorak wearing, pimple-faced computer geek.}​

 

[Jasen]

That model has a cache DIMM as well doesn't it? Those go bad on occasion too. Could just be the logic board as you thought too. Guess you'll find out soon enough. ________
Remember, you're unique... just like everyone else.

 

[kfons]

Where can you but batteries for imacs?

 

[jimbopalmer]

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=11751

and

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86181

describes all the batteries

I usually get mine at Radio Shack I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[qednick]

For everyone that's interested or for anyone who may have a similar experience this problem turned out to be a bad RAM slot (not a RAM module itself). I guess you could class it as the motherboard in the larger sense of things but by moving the RAM modules around it finally booted!

^{programmer (prog'ram'er), n A hot-headed, anorak wearing, pimple-faced computer geek.}​