Yes by all means, zap that PRAM and if no-go afterwards… then CUDA, baby.
Pay little attention to what follows here (but some) as it may just be a lot of blabber… Tax Day here for me / and up since 4 a.m. I am now going to take a looong nap!
As you did at least get a chime with two sticks of RAM in, that does sound promising. Don’t know what the bare minimum of necessary RAM is for that machine. (If you listen carefully you can hear me whispering Syntho’s name here, three times in a row like “Beetlejuice”.) Syntho said “a single stick of RAM”. (But also: “has to be big enough”.)
And yet while I have never attempted this (and some may actually scream at the mere mention of this) I might try to “clean” all of the RAM slots with a pipe cleaner, slowly, saturated with some liquid contact cleaner or 91% isopropyl alcohol. Of course, with all power bled from the machine and unplugged (press that power button many times with the thing unplugged) AND maybe even with the logic board removed from the machine. Don’t think that simply spraying contact cleaner into the slots themselves would do the trick alone. But you
could try that before resorting to insane pipe cleaner routine. AND if you do use pipe cleaners… only
very lightly,
very slowly and
very carefully in each RAM slot. Static IS ALWAYS the enemy and cleaners must be moist. DO THIS ONLY AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Possible dust, smoke, fur balls and tarnish / oxidation after all of these years… inside those slots. And then there’s always the multiple contacts on each RAM stick to consider and to clean as well. (Card slots too.)
As for the questionable-function video card. Which card is in it now? And if someone (like Syntho, refinery, PowerFinnrich or other 9600 owners here) would care to speak up about which particular video cards might work, I can check my stock here to see if maybe a replacement could be offered for what you now have.
LowEndMac notes that the 9600’s shipped with the ixMicro TwinTurbo video card (which I believe I have in my 9500 along with some “other” basic ATI card). So there may be some “extras” of that type around here.
*This is where we normally discover that you’re not located in the U.S. and shipping becomes a concern.
Uh-ohh, reading back through all of this, you mentioned a PSU for £150 (so you’re U.K.). Any other members here in the U.K. with a 9600? I could still send a video card but an external SCSI HD or CD drive is priced right out of that equation.
“If there's one thing I hate reading about on these forums, it's about a sick 9600.” -Syntho
Go ahead, say his name three times, out loud in quick succession.
That single chime
screamed “not quite dead yet”!!!!
