Quadra 610 Death Chime

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Quadra 610 Death Chime

I have a Quadra 610 which has been working for 11 years. All of a sudden it has started giving me the Hawaiian Death Chime after the start-up bong, the screen does not display anything. Knowing a fair bit about Macs I took off the case, cleaned out some dust (not much), checked the battery (fully charged) and uninstalled some memory. No result, it still refuses to start-up. It happened before but then it started up on the second time and seemed to run perfectly, for a good two hours. The machine hasn’t been abused it has been set up for most of its life on top of a table (not on the ground). Any hints on what the Death Chime means generally or solutions to get it running again would be greatly appreciated. It would be a tremendous shame for it to be dead forever.

Quadra 610, Mac OS 8.6 or Earlier

Posted on Feb 11, 2006 10:10 PM

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Answer 1

Feb 11, 2006 11:01 PM in response to bpazolli

Hello! First I'd try the command-option-p-r key sequence holding all down until you hear the second chime however the death chime is usually indicative of hardware or ram failure. Tom

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Answer 2

Feb 12, 2006 2:59 AM in response to bpazolli

bpazolli,

Somewere in the ancient past, Apple had a Tech Info Library Article about death chimes. I can not find it but it will be similar to these links:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58183
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58442
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=30617

They are not specific to the Quad 610 but they are instructive.

The book "Mac Secrets" also discusses death chimes. For me, the chimes have almost always been because of bad ram.

Do you have other ram chips that can be traded out? If memory serves me correctly, the Mac IIci 030 generation needed four matching ram chips but the Quadra line - 040 generation only needed two matching chips.

Carefully cleaning the contacts or removing and reinserting the RAM chips a couple of times might restore contact. You may have just witnessed a chip dying for some unknown reason - power surge or something.

Question, where did you come up with the name 'Hawaiian' for the death chimes? Are you familiar with the 'sound of breaking glass' death chime? That is what the latest G3 mini towers do when I test RAM chips from recycled PCs. What tones are you hearing?

Jim

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Answer 3

bpazolli Author

Level 1

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Feb 12, 2006 3:03 AM in response to Thomas Bryant

There was no second chime and it didn't solve the problem. Thank You. I was hoping that the fact that the screen dosn't show anything would help, maybe VRAM.

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Answer 4

Feb 12, 2006 6:45 AM in response to bpazolli

Unexpected Sound ("Breaking Glass" or "Musical Beeps") Heard When You Turn on Computer
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14438

Cheers, Tom

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Answer 5

Allan Jones

Level 9

78,266 points

Feb 12, 2006 8:40 AM in response to bpazolli

"...checked the battery (fully charged)..."

If you checked the battery on the logic board with the computer attached to wall power, you may not have seen valid results. The battery is not rechargeable--it simply sits there until line power is interrupted and then starts powering the PRAM until power is restored. With the battery mounted in the computer and the computer unplugged (that puts the battery in a "load: condition) you should still read at least 3.2V.

Do you have any floppies that are set up as emergency startup disks? Or have you installed a CD-ROM drive where you could use a system disk to try a startup? Seeing if you can remote start might help narrow down the problems.

This one is a long shot but worth trying at this point: put blocks under the case's feet to lift the case one to two inches (2.5 to 5CM) off the work surface. I have a 6100/60 (same case design with generally poor cooling) and I must have it elevated to get a start. However, I do not get the death bong when it fails--it gets about half-way through the boot and then tanks with a frozen cursor. Air exits from the bottom of the case, so extra space "down under" means better airflow.

Allan

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