Classic II bungled recap

[gsteemso]

Hi all,

In two days of work spread over the past couple of months, a friend and I have recapped two of my Macs. I haven’t tried the Q840AV yet and if I do I will be posting about it in the appropriate subforum, but I have just gotten the Classic II reassembled.

Unfortunately, it (the Classic II) now displays the well-known “fat jail bars” when booted (four white bars and three black ones, centred and all of equal thickness, and possibly some extra black at the right and left edges). It does not play a startup chime. Can anyone point me at a probable trouble spot or spots to try and chase down the cause?

We had to replace 13 SMD caps in this wretched thing, of which two had leaked badly enough to completely dissolve the pads on the board, so we had to find other places on the board that were electrically connected to where those pads should have been and run bodge wires from those points to the replacement caps. I have a feeling I’ll be at this for weeks if I have to try to verify all 30 connections with no clear starting point.

The jail bars:

 

[techknight]

the newly-electrified traces probably accelerated the electrolysis effect on the ones that had the goo trapped underneath the solder mask. So, i would start checking crappy looking vias/traces. 

I see this all too often. Go good after recap shortly fail because the current flowing produces the electrolysis effect on the goo that remains behind even after a wash. 

I had hapain send me the same mac portable board 2 or 3 times before I finally got it right. 

 

[Paralel]

Sorry to hear your Classic II is being such a pain in the ass.

 

[gsteemso]

Could be worse, at least I haven’t apparently destroyed anything yet. On closer inspection it turned out that 3-5 or so of the caps were only making contact on one side. See, it turns out that when you order polymer SMD caps, they have hardly any contact showing at the side, it’s almost entirely underneath… which is tricky to reach with a soldering iron, especially at my intermediate level of skill. It still doesn’t work, but I figure it’s only a matter of time. Too bad about all the melty plastic edges from the soldering iron brushing them, but nothing important is in harm’s way.

 

[unity]

Put some solder on them first. Then some solder on the pad. Then set them in place and with just a touch of the iron they will solder right up.

 

[uniserver]

can maybe you post a picture of the main board, maybe there will be sometime tell tale, we will notice.

there have been a couple threads on this,  a couple guys had success with either replacing the onboard ram,  or removing the 2 ram chips closest to the caps and fixing a damaged trace.   

 

[uniserver]

your ab looks weak too,  might need to do the caps on that ab.  witch is totally common with these.

 

[Elfen]

Put some solder on them first. Then some solder on the pad. Then set them in place and with just a touch of the iron they will solder right up.

I use some SMD/SMT Solder in a syringe. Squeeze out a bit on the trace, put the cap on it and add some heat. It solders right up without problems.

I was about to ask about the video being dim, but I think Uniserver has the right idea in getting it recapped too. My Classic II video is bright and rock solid.

 

[gsteemso]

The video is at least not jumpy or flickery, but you’re right, it shouldn’t be anywhere near that dim.

UPDATE: I just tried it again and now there is no video at all (doesn’t even light up). Can hear the hard drive seeking to see if it is present, but that’s all it does, and still no chime. *sigh* Just when I thought I was getting somewhere…

 

[gsteemso]

In addition to planning for an analogue board recap, I have purchased an already recapped logic board from one of our comrades here. I haven’t the patience to fix corroded traces on the board. Not very impressive of me, I know, but I want it working sooner rather than later so’s I can work on the iFARCE (infamous FPU And ROM Custom Expansion) card that I’ve been failing to make time for.

 

[uniserver]

cool well i have a classic II here with no main board in it.. so if you want to sell me your botched one.. maybe i can get it to work, or maybe it will look nice filling the hole

pm me if interested… sorry you did not get er.

 

[gsteemso]

cool well i have a classic II here with no main board in it.. so if you want to sell me your botched one.. maybe i can get it to work, or maybe it will look nice filling the hole

pm me if interested… sorry you did not get er.

Sorry mate, the seller took it in partial trade. If another one turns up cheap I’ll point you at it though.

 

[uniserver]

Alright sounds good,  I am fresh out of classic II main boards. they are nice because they have an ASC on there.