beachycove
Well-known member
I have recently moved and much of my mac gear is in storage. I still have a couple of machines handy, however, one of which is a Classic II. For reasons that need not detain us here, it happens to be a favourite.
Now, it has not been used in a while. Last time I tried it some months back, it would not boot up -- the machine booted to a screen, but it could not find a drive. So as we have a hurricane blowing through the area today, and I am accordingly sort of limited in my daily doings, I dug the old Classic II out again today to see if I could make some progress.
I first removed the hard drive to try it in another machine (a Quadra), and the drive proved to be just fine. This made me go back to reassemble the CII again and try booting. I found that the machine again booted to no drive, but left it for a while. Eventually the drive could be heard spinning up, and the machine even booted partially, and then stopped. It then rebooted, all on its own, several times.
I figured it was time to test the voltages -- which in my case meant that it was time to learn how to test the voltages as well. Never done this before, but I can report that I survived this electrical/ educational ordeal and that on pin 6 of the floppy port, I got 4.72v and on pins 7 and 8, I got 11.91v.
Houston, we have a problem.
I then did as instructed and adjusted the voltages via the little Philips screw in the pot in the middle of the analog board. To get the 5v line up to 5v was no chore -- the voltage went up nicely -- except that this made the 12v line go up to 13.1v. Obviously something needs to be put right.
The analog board in question has not been recapped. Will a recap likely suffice, or do I need to be thinking about other, more mysterious components as well? I would like to keep my little Classic II going if I can.
Now, it has not been used in a while. Last time I tried it some months back, it would not boot up -- the machine booted to a screen, but it could not find a drive. So as we have a hurricane blowing through the area today, and I am accordingly sort of limited in my daily doings, I dug the old Classic II out again today to see if I could make some progress.
I first removed the hard drive to try it in another machine (a Quadra), and the drive proved to be just fine. This made me go back to reassemble the CII again and try booting. I found that the machine again booted to no drive, but left it for a while. Eventually the drive could be heard spinning up, and the machine even booted partially, and then stopped. It then rebooted, all on its own, several times.
I figured it was time to test the voltages -- which in my case meant that it was time to learn how to test the voltages as well. Never done this before, but I can report that I survived this electrical/ educational ordeal and that on pin 6 of the floppy port, I got 4.72v and on pins 7 and 8, I got 11.91v.
Houston, we have a problem.
I then did as instructed and adjusted the voltages via the little Philips screw in the pot in the middle of the analog board. To get the 5v line up to 5v was no chore -- the voltage went up nicely -- except that this made the 12v line go up to 13.1v. Obviously something needs to be put right.
The analog board in question has not been recapped. Will a recap likely suffice, or do I need to be thinking about other, more mysterious components as well? I would like to keep my little Classic II going if I can.
