Re: [1st] 6100 acting flakey
Richard Halkyard wrote: It probably is a heat problem - it definately lasts longer with the DOS card removed. I've got a small fan that I might mount in there to increase the airflow a bit. (or I could watercool it of course ;). Now that would be a sight to see) You might also be able to try replacing the fan in the powersupply with one with a higher CFM rating. Something I was considering before I finally got a new computer. I may still do it sometime when I have more space to set things up in. As it is though the fan is under the power supply, and the vent is under the hard drive. Can't imagine much air flows under or over the expantion cards in the corner probably just sits there spinning around if anything. -Matthew S. Carpenter -- 1st-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> 1st PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/1st-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:1st-powermacs@mail.maclaunch.com> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> List archive:<http://mail.maclaunch.com/lists/1st-powermacs/> --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: [1st] 6100 acting flakey
Jeff Walther wrote: Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 10:50:06 +1300 From: Richard Halkyard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I've recently acquired a PowerMac 6100 with the DOS card installed, and it seems to be acting up. It has a fresh PRAM battery, but will sometimes act as if there is no battery (startup chime but no display), and then act fine with no data loss later. When it is running, it will occasionally lock up, with coloured pixels randomly flashing in the top-left of the display. I've tried swapping and removing all the bits and pieces - DOS card, cache, RAM, hard disk, CD and everything. Its driving me nuts, because I rather liked the idea of having an (old) PC and Mac in one. Any ideas? I've seen similar symptoms in several 7100s and the cause is overheating of the CPU chip. In those cases, the CPU chip was overheating because the heat sink grease had dried out and was no longer doing its job. It's not a certain diagnoses for you, but it's fairly easy to test and will only cost you $2 - $3 and a trip to Radio Shack if you don't already have some heat sink grease on hand. Remove the motherboard from the machine. Carefully unclip the heat sink (push the tabs out from the back of the board). I write, "carefully", because putting undue downward pressure on the heat sink has been known to *crack* the CPU in several cases. There will be a white residue on the CPU and on the heat sink. Originally this stuff should have been nice and creamy. At this point it is probably dry and powdery. Gently clean it off using rubbing alcohol (70% isopropyl) or 90% isopropyl and some kind of swab. In a pinch Q-tips or cotton balls are okay if you're careful not to leave little polyester fibers everywhere. Clean it off of both surfaces. Let them dry. Heat Sink grease is available from Radio Shack for $2 - $3. It comes in a little blue and white tube on a card which is usually hanging on a peg board. Sure, you can spend $15 on Arctic Silver, but the RS stuff does the job well enough. Apple a little dab on the square metal die in the center of CPU. Do not overapply. Heat Sink grease is mildly electrically conductive and if it runs off of the chip onto the pins of the CPU it can cause shorts. I killed a Power120 that way once. The grease just needs to fill the tiny spaces caused by the CPU die and the heat sink not being perfectly flat surfaces. Carefully clip the heat sink back into place. Try not to slide it from side to side when installing it. Shoot for a straight approach to the CPU without a lot of side to side sliding. Coming in with the heat sink angled a bit, so that two clips go into their holes before rotating the heat sink down so that the other two clips hit their holes often works well. Resinstall your motherboard and test it out. You may also wish to consider installing a little fan on the heat sink. The fans typically bolted to 80486 heat sinks could be unscrewed and fit nicely in the center of the x100 heat sink. Use small cable ties (also available at Radio Shack) to secure the fan to the heat sink tentacles through the fan's screw holes--i.e. the cable ties go through the fan's screw holes and around one of the arms of the heat sink. You can suspend the fan just above the flat heat sink surface this way. Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 22:00:52 -0800 From: "Matthew S. Carpenter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I tried to grab it but still ended up dropping it about a foot... Anyway when I brought it to the lab upstairs I couldn't get the damn thing to glitch out...Gad, it made me look like an ass. Probably jolted the heat sink about just enough to make better contact with the CPU. Perhaps rubbed some of the powder into a better position. Jeff Walther I completely forgot about this but my dad put a peltier heatsink in my 6100... The idea is that it uses electric current to pull heat from the powersupply into the heatsink faster. You can power the heatsink by soldering it's leads the power socket on the motherboard at least that's what my dad did. (just make sure you hook it up to power right, or you won't be very happy with the end results) Shreve Systems sells them in bundles of 5 for $10. -Matt -- 1st-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> 1st PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/1st-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:1st-powermacs@mail.maclaunch.com> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL
Re: [1st] 6100 acting flakey
Matthew S. Carpenter wrote: My old 6100 started crashing real hard... would get these four dots up in the top corner and no reset other than power it down, power it up or use reset in the back... Anyway, this was when I was still in Junior high... so I took it to school to get help from the network admin there but when I was fighting with the door whille holding the computer I lost hold it slipped... I tried to grab it but still ended up dropping it about a foot... Anyway when I brought it to the lab upstairs I couldn't get the damn thing to glitch out...Gad, it made me look like an ass. So I went home and it started doing it again a few months later... read on lowendmac about heat issues and remembere reading stories about people fixing Apple III's by dropping them to reseat chips that came loose due to the heat problems in it causing the board to flex enough to have the chips kinda wedged out of place so with that I got an idea... I popped it open and removed reseated every single thing that was socketed in it... SCSI cables, RAM, ROM, Cashe, Power... just every thing. presto chango problems went away. anyway, it comes back once in a while... Was bloody annoying back when I didn't know what the hell was going on... And this symptom is not documented anywhere. -Matthew S. Carpenter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Obviously though, I don't read far enough. If that doesn't fix it, you're probably better off no screwing aroudn with it... but I woudln't bother getting another 6100... There are nicer computers out there... just try to find one that isn't know to have so many problems that has a PDS slot that will work with the DOS card. Oy I never get it all in one message before I think of something else :-/ It's probably got cracked solder joints in it since resocketing stuff didn't do it... intermitent hardware problem from the heat problems... I never had any extra cards in my 6100 I imagine the addition of a 486 card or whatever the DOS card is probably makes it even hotter. It's really kind of sad the 6100 had to get such a poor design as far as cooling is concerned. I swear, I'm not going to post anymore on this issue unless requested. Really. -Matt -- 1st-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> 1st PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/1st-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:1st-powermacs@mail.maclaunch.com> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> List archive:<http://mail.maclaunch.com/lists/1st-powermacs/> --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: [1st] 6100 acting flakey
Matthew S. Carpenter wrote: Richard Halkyard wrote: Matt Emson wrote: You can probably pick up a replacement 6100 for peanuts. I once got 3 in a lot of 9 Macs for less than $40, and that was over two years ago. They're probably cheaper now. I've seen them sell on eBay for $1. Fair enough. It'll make a good parts source then. My old 6100 started crashing real hard... would get these four dots up in the top corner and no reset other than power it down, power it up or use reset in the back... Anyway, this was when I was still in Junior high... so I took it to school to get help from the network admin there but when I was fighting with the door whille holding the computer I lost hold it slipped... I tried to grab it but still ended up dropping it about a foot... Anyway when I brought it to the lab upstairs I couldn't get the damn thing to glitch out...Gad, it made me look like an ass. So I went home and it started doing it again a few months later... read on lowendmac about heat issues and remembere reading stories about people fixing Apple III's by dropping them to reseat chips that came loose due to the heat problems in it causing the board to flex enough to have the chips kinda wedged out of place so with that I got an idea... I popped it open and removed reseated every single thing that was socketed in it... SCSI cables, RAM, ROM, Cashe, Power... just every thing. presto chango problems went away. anyway, it comes back once in a while... Was bloody annoying back when I didn't know what the hell was going on... And this symptom is not documented anywhere. -Matthew S. Carpenter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Obviously though, I don't read far enough. If that doesn't fix it, you're probably better off no screwing aroudn with it... but I woudln't bother getting another 6100... There are nicer computers out there... just try to find one that isn't know to have so many problems that has a PDS slot that will work with the DOS card. -- 1st-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> 1st PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/1st-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:1st-powermacs@mail.maclaunch.com> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> List archive:<http://mail.maclaunch.com/lists/1st-powermacs/> --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: [1st] 6100 acting flakey
Richard Halkyard wrote: Matt Emson wrote: You can probably pick up a replacement 6100 for peanuts. I once got 3 in a lot of 9 Macs for less than $40, and that was over two years ago. They're probably cheaper now. I've seen them sell on eBay for $1. Fair enough. It'll make a good parts source then. My old 6100 started crashing real hard... would get these four dots up in the top corner and no reset other than power it down, power it up or use reset in the back... Anyway, this was when I was still in Junior high... so I took it to school to get help from the network admin there but when I was fighting with the door whille holding the computer I lost hold it slipped... I tried to grab it but still ended up dropping it about a foot... Anyway when I brought it to the lab upstairs I couldn't get the damn thing to glitch out...Gad, it made me look like an ass. So I went home and it started doing it again a few months later... read on lowendmac about heat issues and remembere reading stories about people fixing Apple III's by dropping them to reseat chips that came loose due to the heat problems in it causing the board to flex enough to have the chips kinda wedged out of place so with that I got an idea... I popped it open and removed reseated every single thing that was socketed in it... SCSI cables, RAM, ROM, Cashe, Power... just every thing. presto chango problems went away. anyway, it comes back once in a while... Was bloody annoying back when I didn't know what the hell was going on... And this symptom is not documented anywhere. -Matthew S. Carpenter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- 1st-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> 1st PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/1st-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:1st-powermacs@mail.maclaunch.com> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> List archive:<http://mail.maclaunch.com/lists/1st-powermacs/> --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
