Video comes and goes power Mac 150

[Trex]

I dug my old Power Computing PowerCenter 150 out to see if I could get a file off the old drive.  To my surprise it sprung to life. As it was going through the start up sequence the screen went dark a few times to match the monitor. After the last time the video didn’t come back on. I’ve restarted many times, tried to reset PRAM but can’t get any beep except start up. I can hear the HD reading and trying to start up but also can’t get any lights on the mouse and keyboard. After trying different monitors and keyboards/mice nothing changed. I tried one last monitor and bam! Video was back. Everything working like the old days - found my file got a thumb drive and reformatted it started to copy and it froze. Reluctantly I hit the restart button and I’m back with no video or keyboard/mouse

These Mac clones had vga ports and on the front the start button a restart button and a reset button which I think is the cuda but I’m not sure. I tried pressing it but nothing changed.

Anyone have any ideas? Might just have to pull the HD and put it in another machine.

[FBz]

Well, depending upon just how many years the thing has been sitting around… and because you might be yanking the HD anyway - it might have accumulated a great deal of DUST inside. Once you get the cover off, blow all the dust away and try booting it again before you yank the HD. No noticeable amounts of dust inside? Pull the HD (or if you’ve another suitable video card try that too). I’ve forgotten whether or not the video was “built-in” and I gave my Power Computing clone away such a very-very long time ago.

I’d ask how it smells but it doesn’t seem to stay on long enough to cook-up any dust.
(Might be a little battery leakage too.)

Good luck.

[Trex]

I had it stored in a box so it was pretty clean. I opened it up and again very clean inside battery is dead but not leaking. And the video in on the mb with this model. I was really hoping it wasn’t a video problem. I did push the reset button a few times trying to restart the machine I could never remember which one was which.  I was wondering if low power could cause the video to stop. I know PSUs go bad pretty frequently. Anyway thanks for your help

[FBz]

Sorry that it wasn’t a simple dust problem.

Next, I’d closely inspect the video area of the board (and all of the motherboard actually) for swollen or leaking capacitors. It seems that it was getting power enough before to spin up the hard drive so it may be a matter of current flow “to and through” to the video circuitry on the MB. However, if it is no longer spinning up the hard drive and video now seems to be not the only thing not functioning… then it may be your PSU. In which case ya might just wanna yank the hard drive as you mentioned previously… unless you’ve no qualms about attempting repairs on internal circuitry and a possibly defunct PSU. (A lot of time and work just to retrieve a file.)

I did check storage here and my Power Computing machine is gone.
A lone Motorola “clone” still remains.

[ssp3]

Did you put in a NEW BATTERY? Without a battery certain Macs will not boot at all.

[Trex]

I found a red button on the mb pressed it and a few restarts later the video came back and I was able to get my files. My next step is to get a new battery and I will - just have to find what kind it is. Thanks for everyone’s suggestions I know it’s an old computer but I’m still attached to it for sentimental reasons. And I must say I miss os9 it’s much faster than I remember. It also took a while for me to recall how the system worked been on Yosemite, maverick seems like forever.

[FBz]

Ahh, the infamous “red button” (akin to the CUDA on a non-clone?).
Glad now that it’s working and welcome back to OS9!