Blank Board Serializer for an old G3

Question

Blank Board Serializer for an old G3

Hi all,

I have a Power Mac G3 (blue/white case), 400MHz processor, 512MB RAM and, as far as I know, a B revision logic board.

As far as I can see, the serial number of the system is missing from the board - no OS picks up on the one printed on the back of the system. I downloaded the Blank Board Serializer tool and burned it to CD via Disk Utility on 10.4 (no USB boot support). The image labelled V.3 with a part no. of 693-6430, starts to boot, however I am thrown out to OpenFirmware with an error: "No PMU or SMU found". I tried another version, labelled V.1, p/n 063-7167, in this case the system essentially throws it out - it reads the CD on pressing the C key (the system doesn't have the boot menu outlined in the text documents provided), however it stops immediately after, and the system starts to search for another boot device - presumably a duff image rather than hardware trouble.

I would like to know if there is a version of this tool available for my machine that (seemingly - aren't CUDA and PMU considered the same thing or similar?) lacks what is outlined above.

Thanks

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.4.11), also with Mac OS 9.2.2

Posted on Sep 3, 2016 7:58 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Sep 3, 2016 1:29 PM in response to Dr. Power User

Yes, just different names for essentially the same thing.

Have you tried this as a long shot?

Does it boot into Open Firmware with CMD+Option+o+f ?

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42642

reset-nvram (press Enter)

set-defaults (press Enter)

reset-all (press Enter)

No idea if it'd help, but might look for...

MacTest Pro (G3) 7.5.2.cdr

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Answer 2

Sep 3, 2016 2:40 PM in response to BDAqua

Hi,

The OpenFirmware commands don't work - I'm getting the same error when trying to boot. I've also tried using the original memory configuration but to no avail.

If it's any help, the error code -2539 on all errors that appear (I didn't boot into OF to begin with, the system threw me into it after failing to get going from the CD), one on the PMU/SMU, and two to do with something about some sort of environement variables - I seem to be the only one with this error, I can't for the life of me find anything relating to this particular error at all!

Could you provide a link to that MacTest image? I can't find it anywhere, all the Google results that come up are those fake torrent sites that insert my original search string into a fake file listing. Does this diagnostic set provide a test for just the CUDA? It'd be good to see where the system is really going wrong, rather than just no for an answer and nothing else.

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Sep 4, 2016 9:09 AM in response to Dr. Power User

Only -2539 error I can find has to do with Printing, & likely the base ROM has same numbers for completely different things.

You might ask for clues on that Diagnostic tool on my site, none of my G3s are running to test what you ask at this time...

http://x704.net/bbs/

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