Problems with my centris 650
Hi.
Not too sure if this is in the correct forum - couldn't find one regarding old hardware/systems.
Anyhoo, I recently purchased an Apple Centris 650 (another ebay jobby), which I found to be working correctly when it arrived.
The third time I switched it on there was a bit of fuss, and now all I get is the mouse cursor on a psychadelic background. I get the beep/bong thingy, it says welcome and starts to boot, but then just the retro-vomit background. No menu, no icons, just the cursor.
Can anyone assist? I'm completely stumped. This is my first Mac which I purchased to ease myself into the medium.
Thanks.
Not too sure if this is in the correct forum - couldn't find one regarding old hardware/systems.
Anyhoo, I recently purchased an Apple Centris 650 (another ebay jobby), which I found to be working correctly when it arrived.
The third time I switched it on there was a bit of fuss, and now all I get is the mouse cursor on a psychadelic background. I get the beep/bong thingy, it says welcome and starts to boot, but then just the retro-vomit background. No menu, no icons, just the cursor.
Can anyone assist? I'm completely stumped. This is my first Mac which I purchased to ease myself into the medium.
Thanks.
Comments
Originally posted by dysfunksional.monkey
Can anyone assist? I'm completely stumped. This is my first Mac which I purchased to ease myself into the medium.
Yikes, this was probably a mistake then. Do you realize that your Mac is eleven years old?
That machine will barely run a tiny handful of software titles made in the past 5 years or 10 years for that matter. You're going to have trouble just finding good software for it. On top of that, the current OS and software paradigms used today are incredibly different from what will run on that old Mac -- it's hardly a good choice to ease yourself into the word of Macs.
It's like buying a PC with Windows 3.1 to transition into using Windows XP.
*sigh*
Anyhow, try rebooting while holding the shift key. That will force the Mac to boot with "Extensions Off" which is similar to Window's Safe Mode. If that works, we've narrowed it down to an extension conflict/problem.
I have a suspicion, though, that there could be a hardware problem. It wouldn't be unlikely with that age.
I'm moving this to the Genius Bar. Hopefully someone else will have some more advice there.
The hardware is not a good start for the mac. Like buying a low end 486 to experience Windows. CPU upgrades are of limited use and cost more than a better computer. No AGP slot for the graphic card, no PCI slot for USB &FW cards. No USB mouse will work not even a PS2 port, say goodbuy to scroll weels. No support for modern hard disks.
I would say that paying more than 20 dollars for anything less than a Blue and White G3/300 is a waste of money. The B&W has native OS X support, decent IDE, native USB and FW as well as PC100 DIMM memory and a decent ATI 128 PCI card. Below that things taper of OS X support IDE USB etc.
A 7300 with a 200 Mhz CPU is good in OS 8 and 9 and can be used for webbrowsing older versions of Office or to run SETI
A nubus powermac I would not take for free and that goes for the 6800 as well. A centris could be used to learn UNIX like free BSD or net BSD if you can get hold of a bigger HD for free, but it will not ease you into what the macintosh is about
The whole idea in purchasing was to mess about with older apple hardware/software for a short while, get some experience with apple - its differences to windows etc., then slap gentoo onto it and use it as a print server for the apple lazerwriter I came across a couple of months back. Seems to be in good nick and works a treat on other machines, so would come in useful.