Blueberry G3 Imac boot-black rectangle middle of screen

[bobcaryh]

Sorry for the duplicate posts, I was doing it from my phone.

One other bit of info,I just thought of it .I have photos of it running with tiger installed. The guy said he was trying to upgrade it to panther and it in fact came with a panther install disc 1 in the drive. he said he rebooted and that was when the black rectangle screen appeared.

Is it possible the panther disc did something to the firmware and that's why kernel panic now? I am just speculating and have no real clue. Just didn't know if this would help someone more advanced that me.

Also,if i were to get an external cd rom for it, is there a certain one i should look for on ebay or amazon? Just a USB 1.0 external CD?

I was also just able to command option o f to a command line. Reset the nvram then reset all. Rebooted and same result with panic.

 

[bobcaryh]

I have a 256mb memory chip coming today. I am hoping maybe this is all a RAM issue. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[MacTech68]

Sorry for the duplicate posts, I was doing it from my phone.

One other bit of info,I just thought of it .I have photos of it running with tiger installed. The guy said he was trying to upgrade it to panther and it in fact came with a panther install disc 1 in the drive. he said he rebooted and that was when the black rectangle screen appeared.

Is it possible the panther disc did something to the firmware and that's why kernel panic now? I am just speculating and have no real clue. Just didn't know if this would help someone more advanced that me.

Also,if i were to get an external cd rom for it, is there a certain one i should look for on ebay or amazon? Just a USB 1.0 external CD?

I was also just able to command option o f to a command line. Reset the nvram then reset all. Rebooted and same result with panic.

For some reason, I missed this post. If this is correct, then I think the installed system is hosed/toast.

Your system thinks it is 10.4.11 but a Panther 10.3 install is part installed. I suspect that you have a miss-match of extensions/libraries and frameworks causing a kernel panic.

USB boot is hit or miss with differing USB to IDE bridge chipsets. I recall finding only one with an internal PSU and standard IEC power socket inlet worked but I can't recall the chipset. Interwebs says it's NOT possible to USB Boot a tray-loading iMac - PERIOD.

Otherwise a "Working" CR-175-D , 176, 177 might be cheap - ?

 

[bobcaryh]

Yeah that makes sense. He said it was completely fine with Tiger and the issue came with the restart after starting to install panther.

Question now is what do i do? I tried starting from the panther CD by holding C and dont get anything other than the question mark folder icon. I also tried starting from an os 9 cd and nothing. Its like it doesnt know the CD is there which is why i thought maybe the cd drive was bad but if it got him that far I dont think the drive is bad.

I do have a spare IDE hard drive. I think i will toss that in and try restarting from an install CD and see what happens.

 

[MacTech68]

The Panther CD Set is 3 CDs and one optional DEV CD IIRC. How many do you have ? Only Disc1 is bootable.

Try disconnecting the HD and power up with Disc1 loaded. Give it time to time-out looking for the HD - could take a while.

 

[bobcaryh]

Well i think this project is officially over. I was messing around, replaced the hard drive, left it apart while i powered it up and it caught on fire lol. The cable going to the CD started smoking and then lit up. Stunk something horrible. I see some traces on the motherboard are gone too. So I think I will officially blow taps and bury it out next to the garage like the old man in the christmas story...

 

[MacTech68]

Ouch - that is really odd. I don't want to speculate about how that occurred.

Any pics of the logic board damage ?

 

[CooperBox]

Well i think this project is officially over. I was messing around, replaced the hard drive, left it apart while i powered it up and it caught on fire lol. The cable going to the CD started smoking and then lit up. Stunk something horrible. I see some traces on the motherboard are gone too. So I think I will officially blow taps and bury it out next to the garage like the old man in the christmas story...

That's too bad, but hopefully you paid just pocket-money for it as they are truly plentiful. I frequently see good, correctly functioning G3 iMacs for very little money, and a short while ago was offered 2 which otherwise would have gone to the dumpster.

 

[bobcaryh]

Yeah I only paid $35 for it which the seller refunded me so im not out anything. It's my own fault, I had it all apart becase i grew tired of putting the board back in everytime so i just had all the wires and parts hanging out. It must have touch something that was hot because the ribbon cable started smoking and caught on fire, there was also a black spot on the motherboard. I didn't take any photos since it smelled so bad I just tossed it. I suppose I could find a new motherboard for it,but by the time i do that i could just get another one on ebay.

 

[MacTech68]

Reminds me how everybody was tossing 128K, 512K & Plus machines beginning in the late 90's

 

[bobcaryh]

So my saga of the iMac G3 continues.

The one that caught fire had the guts removed and is now a hanging lamp over my retro computer workstation.

The seller sent me another one, I guess he has a room full. This one works great. Only thing is the front monitor bezel got smashed in shipping. The power button doesn't push anymore and i have to stick a screwdriver under to hit the button.

I am starting to think a vintage iMac just wasn't meant to be for me.

Not sure what I will do,I don't feel like transplanting it so I may try to put something over it or move the computer part out and into another enclosure, I don't know anymore. I hate to just toss it in the trash even though i was fully refunded. It works, just has a busted case. I thought it just making it for my 4 year old to learn on and destroy, I dont know.

I'm an RN working 16 hour ICU shifts and between being at work, and trying to sleep I am delirious most of the time. Who knows what this one may become lol.