Apple Performa/Powerbook FAQ

Apple Powerbook 150 not powering up, apparently there is a small recess near the power button on the back, within this recess is a RESET switch (push with pen tip).

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If you get an Apple machine that comes with an MPEG card, and the MPEG cable supplied doesn't fit, it is because Apple have used the wrong MPEG card. Please contact Apple for correct part.

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Claris E-Mailer on the new series of Performa machines is a trial copy. You may have problems getting E-Mail off the net. In that case, there are several fixes.

• Increase the memory partition in the ‘info box’ (single click then Apple key ‘I’.
• Get the Apple Internet Status to dial first rather than have the E-Mailer make the connection.
• Get Netscape up and running and visit Claris’s web page and get hold of a newer version.

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For early models in the Performa range (Performa 200's, 400's, 475's, etc...), if they are having odd problems with the colour on their monitors, not recognising printers etc., then try this. Go to Control Panels under the Apple Menu and select either 'General' or 'Date and Time' (depending on system version). If the date says that it is now 1956, then you have identified the problem. New CMOS battery.

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Loading Pagemaker for the Mac has one insidious bug that will trap the unwary like flies in amber. To initialise the OLE extensions you must first launch something called Adobe Table which is installed into the same application folder. I haven't contacted Adobe, but it seems like you have to do this each time you want to launch Pagemaker or you get the error " Pagemaker cannot install because the OLE Extension has been improperly loaded. " It seems that Tables sets them up for use, without which you just will ***NOT*** get the darned thing going.

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If anyone has problems printing from Mac's to the Epson Stylus 500 printer, try disabling any anti-virus software. I have recently found that Virex would not co-operate with the Stylus printer at all. The print job would just hang after printing a little or no page at all.

Epson commented there may be problems printing when software operates in the background.

If the colour printed from the Mac is incorrect, try removing Colorsync from the system folder, I found that there was no blue tones when colorsync ran on system 7.1

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Sometimes just choosing 'reinstall system software' off the Performa CD doesn't work. It can ignore 3rd party extensions which may be causing problems. The main solution to this is to initialise the drive, and install all software. This is drastic and wipes the drive. The solution is to restart from the Performa CD by placing the CD in the drive, holding down the 'B' key and restarting. The CD icon should now be above the icon for the hard drive. Next, go to the hard drive, go into the system folder and put the file called 'Finder' into the wastebasket and empty it. Now rename the System folder to something like 'Old stuff'. Try not to use the word 'System' in the title.

Restart the Mac, again with the C key held down. If you go to the system folder that used to be, you will find that it has lost the System icon off the folder.

Go to the CD and choose 'Install System Software'. A completely new version will be installed onto the hard disk. Also, the customer has their old system folder intact including any programme files, fonts and extensions which they can add incrementally later

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I can't put away my Performa CD from my desktop because everytime I drag the CD to the trash, I get an "Error -50". Can anyone tell me what this error means?

-50 = "Error in user parameter list" is the cryptic comment I've got in my error list, which will point to the CD being assigned a user number the Mac can't understand. This usually means a broken driver, so for starters try trashing and reinstalling the CD software. It's at version 5.1.5 now from memory; so it's worth getting the new software from Apple.com.

If this doesn't work, a clean system install plus the new drivers will do the trick.

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To boot an Apple Computer from a CD-ROM, either,

• If the machine is already running, hold down Option, Command, Shift, and Del keys and reboot. The option key is sometimes called Alt.
• If the machine is switched off, Pressing 'C' on start-up.
• If the machine is running, double click on 'hard disk', double click on 'system folder', double click on 'control panel', double click on 'start-up disk', click once on the CD-ROM icon, then close the window. Restart the machine.

This may sound stupid but you must have a bootable CD in the drive before trying these.

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Problem : Claris Impact will not let the user save to hard disk

Solution : The hard disk is probably over 2GB. Claris Impact has trouble with drives over 2GB, so partition the drive into smaller drives using Drive Setup on the Performa CD. WARNING, this will delete the user information so make sure you have backups.

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If you have a key set as a HOT-key, ie 8 for telephone answering, then the key will not work in any other program. The solution, either remove the HOT-key or change it to something else.

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Some programs may refuse to run if the system font is set to anything but Chicago. To change the system font, use the Appearance Control Panel and change the font from Charcoal (the new default) to Chicago, then restart the computer.

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The desktop printing extension is unnecessary with Mac OS 8. If it is present in the Extension Folder it may cause a system crash when you start the computer.

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On Clarisworks 4, it won't let you enter any date higher than 1999. Go to the Apple menu, Control Panels, Date and Time. Click on Date Formats, put a tick next to Show Century, then click on Ok. Restart the computer and it should now work Ok.

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When trying to install the OCR software that comes with the Epson GT scanners, the instructions tell you to disable all the Extensions, Reboot the machine, then install the CD. The problem was it wouldn't then detect the CD Drive.

There is an extension listed for the CD-ROM drive. Enable that and reboot the machine, you should then be able to install the software.

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The Powermac 5500 is sold as an "internet ready" machine. There is a connection in the back for what appears to be a modem cable. Unfortunately on some machines this isn't a modem, just an ethernet card.

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