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M1030 Portrait Display Not Communicating With IIfx

Concorde1993

Well-known member
I picked up a Portrait Display around the same time I purchased my other IIfx. Of course, there's problems:
(1) The Portrait Display does not show an image at all when connected to its Portrait Display video card (only the front LED indicator light and the fan inside the monitor work)
(2) If I connect the Portrait Display to my High-Res video card, it displays........something (albeit very lousy). Picture rolls and there's tons of sweep lines - can't really make anything out. Haven't tried it with my 8.24GC card since that's in the OrangePC IIfx

Before opening up the unit and blaming it on caps/picture tube/wires/etc. is there any other troubleshooting I can do? Are the 13w3 cables notorious for going bad? I only have one available for the moment.

I did see some adjustment pots in the rear behind a plastic cover - can they be turned with a regular screwdriver or do I need a special tool for that?
 

Phipli

Well-known member
(1) The Portrait Display does not show an image at all when connected to its Portrait Display video card (only the front LED indicator light and the fan inside the monitor work)
Are you sure it is a Portrait card and not a TPD card? Sometimes they use the same PCB with the same silkscreen, but are not cross compatible.

What speed is the Clock on the card?
 

Concorde1993

Well-known member
A couple of things:
(1) It turns out I don't have the Portrait Display card at all, but rather the Mac II monochrome video card (820-0285-A). This card appears to be incompatible with the Portrait Display based on the lack of image and total black screen
(2) The Portrait Display works perfectly with the 8.24GC card but only in my OrangePC IIfx (this IIfx has a fully recapped board and a Sony power supply from my now sold IIx)
(3) On my other IIfx, the Portrait Display shows a greyscale image with the 8.24GC card and nothing else - no Welcome to Macintosh boot screen, no blinking floppy icon - nothing (this IIfx was recently purchased and has all original caps and an untouched ASTEC power supply). Installing the 8.24GC card in another NuBus slot made no difference. Could it be that the motherboard/power supply on this IIfx are not strong enough to handle the demands of a Portrait Display monitor? My 13" RGB monitor works perfectly with just the High-Res card on this uncapped IIfx.

Pic of the monitor on the uncapped IIfx:
#1.jpg
Pic of the monitor on the OrangePC IIfx:
#2.jpg
On another note, does anyone know what this holder may have been for? It appears broken in some spots:
#3.jpg
 

Phipli

Well-known member
On another note, does anyone know what this holder may have been for? It appears broken in some spots:
This is for the old Apple microphone. Those stupid holders are stuck to about 50% of period monitors.


On my other IIfx, the Portrait Display shows a greyscale image with the 8.24GC card and nothing else
Daft thing, have you tried zapping the PRAM?

Try running a hardware test, Apple's, Snooper or TechTool.
 

beachycove

Well-known member
Certainly some late 80s/ early 90s cards need the monitor settings stored in pram, to which end you are meant to hold down a key on booting to force the machine to cycle through the options until everything is right. I can’t remember whether the 8.24GC requires that or not, but it is worth looking up.
 

Phipli

Well-known member
Certainly some late 80s/ early 90s cards need the monitor settings stored in pram, to which end you are meant to hold down a key on booting to force the machine to cycle through the options until everything is right. I can’t remember whether the 8.24GC requires that or not, but it is worth looking up.
You're thinking of SuperMac cards primarily.

But you can retain some settings if you, for example, swap cards between boots without starting with the slot empty, and there is a remote chance it might confuse things. However unlikely.

Otherwise I'd verify the voltages, swap the PSUs over and see if the fault follows.
 

Concorde1993

Well-known member
Zapping the PRAM on the uncapped IIfx yielded nothing (still get a bright grayscale screen on startup). I’ll try swapping power supplies but I doubt it’ll help.
 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
Have you got a IIsi? Portrait is about the only useful** resolution its Vampire video can manage to support.

**By useful I mean anything better than 640x480, which seems useless for anything more demanding than gaming 0r processing words the wrong way on half a page. :rolleyes:

IOW, Portrait rocks! ;)
 

Concorde1993

Well-known member
Have you got a IIsi?
Nope, just a pair of IIfx units and a Quadra 950. I had a IIcx at one point, but that was sold years ago (GE power supply was going bad and I didn't want to bother fixing it).
IOW, Portrait rocks! ;)
I concur. I was viewing some old WP docs on my OrangePC IIfx and I can understand the appeal of these monitors. I've wanted one for many years and was finally able to obtain one that didn't look like holy hell (the only flaw on this Portrait is a small crack in the bezel on the bottom left hand corner). CRT is very bright with no burn-in. Eventually I'd like to find the color version of this monitor.
 

Concorde1993

Well-known member
I got the Portrait Display to work with the uncapped IIfx (with caveats, of course):

(1) Initially, installing the Sony PS from my OrangePC IIfx made no difference. I still had a greyscale image with no cursor or welcome screen. I then moved the 8.24GC card from NuBus slot #5 to slot #2, and voila, I got the blinking question mark icon and the cursor. I then powered up my Seagate ST-225N and got the boot screen and desktop. Everything worked perfectly (or so it seemed....)
(2) I then went back to the ASTEC PS that came with the uncapped IIfx. I moved the 8.24GC card from NuBus slot #2 to slot #3. Back to the greyscale image sans cursor and icons. WTF?
(3) I turned off the computer, and placed the 8.24GC back to NuBus slot #2 with the ASTEC PS still installed. Success! Got the Happy Mac, boot screen, desktop, you name it - everything on the Portrait Display works as it should.

Final thoughts:
(1) I know this IIfx board needs caps. Would failing caps cause these types of abnormalities with a power hungry card like the 8.24GC? My High-Res card doesn't seem to care what NuBus slot its installed in when running my RGB monitor - then again its not as sophisticated as a 8.24GC
(2) In my OrangePC IIfx, I had the 8.24GC card installed in NuBus slot #1. That computer has never been picky with slots and I can install the 8.24GC anywhere I want (if I remove my SoundBlaster card from the OrangePC ISA port to make room)
(3) Does the Portrait Display require so much power/signal from an 8.24GC card that it would cause a NuBus slot to appear dead or malfunctioning? Again, this is the first time I'm using such an unique monitor with an even more unique connector (13w3)

Pics of the monitor running on the uncapped IIfx:
#1.jpg
#2.jpg
#3.jpg
#4.jpg
I also took the liberty of removing that stupid worn out Apple microphone holder. Its replacement is part of the Apple logo that fell off my 22" ADC monitor (first time an Apple logo has ever fallen off any of my machines). I think it looks better:
#5.jpg
 
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