6100/66 help

I'm trying to boot up my old 6100/66. I have tried it on an AppleColor RGB monitor and a Portrait Pivot 1700 monitor, but nothing shows up on the screen. If the battery were dead, it wouldn't boot up at all, right?
The green light comes on and I can hear the machine whirring away.
How do I troubleshoot this?

In my experience the 6100 Powermacs are one of the models where if the PRAM battery is dead it will not boot up. Replace the battery ($4.99)...and it should startup ok.

HTH,

- Nick

3.6v Newer Technology Lithium 1/2 AA PRAM Com... (3.6VPRAM) at OWC

Thanks much, I've got one on order and I will give it a try.

KatMac said:

Thanks much, I've got one on order and I will give it a try.

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Please let us know if it solves the problem!

- Nick

Please let us know if it solves the problem!

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Hey Nick, how come you didn't recommend your Alkaline battery and scotch tape method of replacing the PRAM battery?

chscag said:

Hey Nick, how come you didn't recommend your Alkaline battery and scotch tape method of replacing the PRAM battery?

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Wow...you remembered that one! Ha ha!

I would have suggested something like that...but that temp. PRAM battery was for a "weird" Apple Powermac 4400...which used a "brick"or box shaped PRAM battery...and was 4.5volts...so you could stack three 1.5 volt AA batteries together to get a temporary PRAM battery.

The more common round cylindrical PRAM battery that Mac's used for a long time is/was 3.6 volts. Might have to get real creative making a 3.6 volt temp. PRAM battery (kind of a weird voltage number).

Maybe I'll have to think on it & see what combination of "off the shelf" batteries would work. Then we would have a good way for folks to test their system to verify if their problem is a dead PRAM battery.

- Nick

Or...You can go to Radio Shack and get a 3 AA holder...I did that on a Starmax..had the same brick battery. And for the KatMac ... some of theses older Macs will not lite a monitor with a dead battery.

Thanks! The new battery did the trick.
Next question, how do I wipe out all my personalized settings, etc. so I can post this Mac for sale?
(When the AOL screen comes up, all my screen names are listed. Things like that.)

KatMac said:

Thanks! The new battery did the trick.
Next question, how do I wipe out all my personalized settings, etc. so I can post this Mac for sale?
(When the AOL screen comes up, all my screen names are listed. Things like that.)

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Awesome that the battery did the trick! I have a 6100, it had a dead PRAM battery...and a new one did the trick as well.

As far as the hard drive. Do you have an OS install disk (I'm assuming your running OS 8 or 9 on it)? If so boot the computer from it, open a program called Disk Utility (or something like that)...over-write the hard drive with 1's or 0's (if you have that option)...then reinstall the OS.

Regarding selling the computer. I hope you're not expecting to get very much for it. This computer is 15 years old, you may not even get any interest. Personally I wouldn't pay more then $10 bucks...I actually got mine for free. These old computers just aren't worth very much.

When I suggested getting a new PRAM battery I thought you were keeping the computer not selling it. That PRAM battery probably cost you close to $10 bucks with shipping...that's basically the 100% of the value of the computer! it might have been better to have sold the computer with the old dead battery. You still might have gotten $10 for it.

In any case...good to hear the battery helped.

- Nick

Just saw an Apple system go for $300 on eBay and the buyer paid $175 shipping too, so you never know.
This is the whole shebang, with printer, scanner, modem, mic and more. I will give it a shot and see what happens.

KatMac said:

Just saw an Apple system go for $300 on eBay and the buyer paid $175 shipping too, so you never know.

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I've seen a lot of "Apple Systems" go for $300 and a lot more $$$....the problem is I'm almost 100% sure that this $300 Apple System wasn't a Powermac 6100!

- Nick