Performa 6400/180 not booting up

A dead or dying PRAM battery can cause some Mac models to make all the proper boot noises but not give any video. The KB article is here. The 6400 is not listed in the article, but there are reports of Macs not listed presenting the same behavior as the listed one.

However, it's been my experience that, even with a dead battery, the computer will often boot from a CD, so I'm not sure if that is the operative issue here.

Have you checked all RAM and cards for full seating? If you have any PCI cards installed, remove them one at a time and see if the computer wakes up.

You could try zapping PRAM at startup, however, it's probably the battery. Check this site for battery part numbers and sources. Mac PRAM, NVRAM, CUDA/PMU & Battery Tutorial

Cheers, Tom

The $8 battery is the likely suspect if there is no video (black screen). In any large ciy, a big computer store will have it. You did not mention exactly what appears after the chime. Black screen? Screen lights up but nothing is ever seen? A flashing "?" is seen?

You may look at(for more info about 6400):
http://www.zone6400.com/

Darrell,
We still do not have a clear description of the symptoms. You say the screen is black with a CD in the drive. Is it black with no CD in the drive? Sceen lighting up or not is the critical question. The hard drive has no effect on the screen lighting up or not.

If you have a black screen when there is no CD in the drive, replace the battery. If you have a raster (a grey screen) when there is no CD in, maybe the battery is usuable but replace it anyway if it is more than two years old or if the store sold you an old battery.

If there is a click from the hard drive, that can mean either the drive is OK but is not mounting or the drive has some physical problem. We should always assume the drive can be fixed until we have exausted the possibility. Incidentally, 6400 and other early PowerMacs with IDE hard drive were unreliable at mounting the hard drive when OS 8.0 hard disk driver was copied to the drive. Even a replacement drive may not be formatted for Macintosh and/or using a reliable driver so let's guess this is the most likely culprit for the clicking sound.

Disconnect evrything from the 6400 except the monitor, Apple ADB keyboard and mouse. Be especially carefull to disconnect external speakers and any SCSI cable (a fat cable with a huge connector). This strip down routine is very critical. Don't think I haven't been in your position 50 times.

If the original CD for the 6400 can be found (read the label carefully for the "6400" designation), boot from it by inserting it, restart and hold the "C" key on an Apple ADB type keyboard (third party brands of keyboards may not boot the CD). If the CD will not boot after one minute, restart and press and hold hold these four keys within two seconds: command (also has the Apple outline logo on it) + option + shift + delete. Hold for at least one minute. Is there any light to the screen? If it is black, and the battery is new, restart holding these four keys: command + option + P + R. Hold the keys while you listen for a repeat of the startup music chime. If you hear no chime, watch for a blink of the screen raster light. Don't hold for more than four repeats. Then release all four keys and hold the "C" key to boot from the CD. If you successfully got the repeats but it still does not boot from the CD, restart holding the command + option + shift + delete keys again.

If you don't have the original 6400 CD, you can try to boot from a retail (has a huge orange "9" on the white label) OS 9 CD. If you have an OS 9 CD that came with a new computer, it will not have the orange 9. Get a retail CD.

I hope it's not something so simple as the monitor cable. Did you try the monitor on another computer?
Also, if you are using a PCI video card, reseat it. If you are using the built-in video, I think it is 1MB VRAM so it may not work with all monitors and especially with a large monitor. Try a 15" or smaller.
If you are using a monitor with VGA connector and the computer has the old Apple connector, change the dip switch settings of the VGA-to-Mac adapter. It may require a restart after each change.
Reseat the processor card. I would have expected a power-off response if there were a processor issue but maybe no video with power is possible.
You are on the right track to get everything simplified, especially PCI cards and RAM. I think it should power up and have video with no RAM in the slots since there is 8MB on the board itself.
While you're at it, remove the L2 cache module if one is installed.
Still we don't know why the hard drive is making a clicking sound but first you need video.

I don't believe DiscWarrior 3.x has OS9 boot capabilities. My copy only has OSX 10.3 System on it. You could download the OS8 disc tools and make a boot floppy. Look for it here:
http://www.info.apple.com/support/oldersoftwarelist.html#system
Scroll down until you see these links:
Macintosh/System/Mac OS_8.1_Update/Disk_ToolsPPC.img.bin
Macintosh/System/Mac OS_8.1_Update/Disk_Tools_PPCInfo.txt