When you turn on your Macintosh, several memory and system diagnostic tests take place. If any test fails, the Sad Macintosh icon appears. The Macintosh SE and newer systems will have two 8-digit hexadecimal numbers displayed under the icon.
Most hardware failures display a Sad Macintosh error will do so before the floppy drive or the hard drive start spinning. If a Sad Macintosh appears after the disk starts spinning, the first digits of the error code are usually "OF" and often indicate corrupted software. If you get this error code, try restarting the Macintosh with the Option and Command keys held down to rebuild the desktop file. You also may be able to fix these problems by reinstalling the system software. Also, try using the start-up disk that came with your Mac and run the First-Aid program. It sometimes will correct the error. Often it is necessary to update your disk driver to correct the problem (common problem in Sys7.5).
Macintosh SE and later systems:
Error codes 0001 through 000E indicate hardware failures.
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xxxx0001
xxxxxxxx Rom Test Failed
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xxxx0002
xxxxxxxx RAM Test failed
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xxxx0003
xxxxxxxx RAM Test failed
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xxxx0004
xxxxxxxx RAM Test failed
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xxxx0005
xxxxxxxx RAM Test failed
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xxxx0006
xxxxxxxx VIA1 chip failed
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xxxx0007
xxxxxxxx VIA2 chip failed
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xxxx0008
xxxxxxxx ADB failed
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xxxx0009
xxxxxxxx MMU failed
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xxxx000A
xxxxxxxx NuBus Failed
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xxxx000B
xxxxxxxx SCSI chip failed
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xxxx000C
xxxxxxxx IWM chip failed
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xxxx000D
xxxxxxxx SCC chip failed
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xxxx000E
xxxxxxxx Data bus test failed
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xxxx000F
0000000B Unassigned error
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xxxx000F
0000000C Coprocessor protocol violation
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xxxx000F
0000000D Format exception
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xxxx000F
0000000E Spurious interrupt
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xxxx000F
0000000F Trap 0 to 15 exception
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xxxx000F
00000010 Interrupt level 1
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xxxx000F
00000011 Interrupt level 2
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xxxx000F
00000012 Interrupt level 3
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xxxx000F
00000013 Interrupt level 4
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xxxx000F
00000014 Interrupt level 5
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xxxx000F
00000015 Interrupt level 6
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xxxx000F
00000016 Interrupt level 7
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xxxx000F
00000017 Coprocessor BRA or SET on unordered condition