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From: clark@randvax.UUCP (John Clark)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc,comp.sys.mac.hardware,comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: BROKEN-MAC STARTUP-DIRGE..WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Message-ID: <2934@randvax.UUCP>
Date: 30 Mar 91 00:14:53 GMT
Organization: RAND Corp., Santa Monica, Ca.
Lines: 23

On startup, my Mac plays an ominous, rising-chord tune for a couple of
seconds, then promptly goes inert.  The screen, which shows the usual
blank grey pattern for the first few seconds after powerup, goes black,
and the system won't recognize the mouse, keyboard, floppy drive, or hard
disk.  The hard disk access light blinks for an instant just at the onset
of the failure.

The interrupt key instantly replays the same notes, as often as the key is
pressed; the reset key restarts the machine, to repeat the same dismal
sequence.  Floppies have to be retrieved with the paper clip (the
button-down trick at startup doesn't work; the system never sees the
drive).

Any ideas what this means?  A hardware failure?  A RAM chip fault,
perhaps?

[Hardware is a vanilla IIcx, 8M, Apple internal 80M HD, Apple HiRes 13"
color.]

Thanks!

John Clark
clark@rand.org