IIci - Bringing back my 1st Mac

[IIciNov90]

I had another go at my IIci withy the other power supply. This time it did not boot up when I plugged it in. However... it booted PERFECTLY!!! from the keyboard YES!!!

I was able to repeat this several times. Still no sound but it looks like I still have a good Aztech power supply.

BTW, my IIci boots in what has to easily be less than 30 seconds and that is with no cache card installed on an old 13" RGB.

Now I just need to replace those electrolytics to maybe get my sound back...

plaz

 

[beachycove]

I am not so familiar with the IIci as you, but the IIsi, its close cousin, has a documented tendency to fail in the sound department due to a poor speaker connection rather than because of bad electrolytic capacitors. I would suspect the latter, but it would be worth checking the former by fiddling with the speaker plug and perhaps spraying a little contact cleaner on it just to see what the effect would be.

 

[IIciNov90]

Thanks for the idea and your interest, I went back and once again successfully booted the IIci from the ADB keyboard! I tried my spare IIci speaker and I also closely examined the contacts both on motherboard and all of the points in the speaker's plug and also where the speaker's leads connect to the cone itself. It is all shiny metal - no oxidation, discoloration, or corrosion. The other speaker was identical. As before, I could only just very faintly hear the sound when it was turned up to the max. It looks like new caps for me.

Brian

 

[IIciNov90]

Progress!!

I managed to successfully remove all of the radial style electrolytic CAPs today. The 2 really little ones came right off as soon as the solder melted. It was tougher on the larger ones than the 2 smallest ones because there was GLUE under the larger ones. Thank goodness I had one of those tweezer style soldering irons to use for this. The pads all look good though. I cleaned all of the flux residue off with isopropyl alcohol. The glue residue does not come off with the alcohol but it is in between the pads so it won't have much bearing on the final outcome if I can't get it to come off completely. Next I will remove the large axial lead style (the 470uF and the 220uF) CAPs. Those are the easy ones.

Then finally I will solder in the Tantalums.

May we all hear startup chimes in the future!!!

Brian

 

[IIciNov90]

Success!!!

Cleaning up all of the flux after all of the soldering took the longest. The soldering itself was not too bad. There were one or two pads that had corroded a bit from the CAP leakage and it was hard to get them to take new solder - hence the massive fluxing. I carefully put it all back together and then plugged it in. No spontaneous startup like early on which is a good thing. I then hit the power key on the Extended Keyboard II and heard the beautiful sound of a Mac II variety startup chime. A sound I have not heard in just over 11 years.

My son who is 14 and doesn't remember much about when he used to play McGee and Keywacks was amazed at how well it ran games. I fired up Crystal Quest and lots of other old favs and they worked great!

In another 10 years or so maybe the price will come down enough so that I can replace the 470uF and 220uF CAPS with tantalum as well. They exist now but cost about $80 each.

Also, even though it works perfectly, I would love to find a "primitive" 640 X 480 platinum (beige) LCD to take the place of the heavy 13" RGB. Any good leads for an LCD of such a modest spec?

I need a torx case cracker now - maybe I will take on my SE/30.

thanks,

Brian

 

[olePigeon]

I am seeing more and more barebones LCDs on eBay that include the D/A board (the expensive part.) Many are 640x480. You'd have to build your own enclosure for it. They're also around $150.

 

[yuhong]

System 7 seemed somehow "tuned" to run really well on the IIci.

Yep, it is the first Mac with the new universal ROM that has 32-bit QuickDraw, Gestalt, and more built-in.

Most importantly however, it added support for booting into 32-bit mode.

This support was necessary because the decision to boot into 24-bit vs 32-bit mode was made very early based on a value in PRAM when the Memory Manager in ROM was initialized as part of starting the Mac boot process.

Older ROMs did not have that support and can only boot in 24-bit mode.

 

[KC13]

I'm packing up to move at the end of the month and have decided to lighten it up this time. In the back of a pile of junk (where does it accumulate from? LOL!) I dug up my IIci. It was a screamer in the day, with a DayStar '040, a 24AC video card etc. Well, It fire up at first go, but minus the chime. No sound at all after testing. This system was my favourite back in the day, so it stays. It and my 840av. All my other systems will go to friend collectors. It will be sad to see them go, but many moves later, I'm tired of hauling them around.....

 

[Dennis Nedry]

All it needs is new capacitors on the logic board (permanent fix). At least wash the logic board (temporary fix), it might work. We have tutorials around here on how to do those things.

Are you saying that it boots fine, but just has no sound? This is very common with the IIci, there are a few little capacitors near the sound ports that go bad.

 

[KC13]

Hi Dennis,

Yes, the IIci boots and works just fine. The only thing AWOL is the sound. I've inspected the motherboard and see no evidence of leaking caps. As long as it works, I'll let it sit. I have a couple of spare MB's, so after I move, I'll swap them and work on the one in it now. At the very least, it will need a new battery. Hmmmm, where did I put the trusty soldering iron.....

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Capacitors can still go bad without leaking. They are very likely to be the problem. There is also a slight chance that the sound output port is dirty. I'm pretty sure that there is a little switch inside of it that turns off the internal speaker when you plug something into it. I haven't seen that switch ever get stuck, and I have almost 100 very old Macs, but it's possible I suppose.

 

[IIciNov90]

Ha! my old thread bounced back to near the top!

At first glance my board looked clean albeit dusty. When I removed the board and dusted it off and held it to the bright light I could then see crusty deposits around the solder joints on the sound chips and other chips adjacent to the Caps. It is almost like the electrolyte wicks, fumes, and then corrodes the solder. I'm not sure if it is the degraded capacitance or if it is the corrosion of the solder contacts that is responsible but neither are good.

The guy who sells the surface mount tantalum capacitors on this board is a very good deal. If things ever slow down for me enough I will probably do the same for my SE/30. As for resoldering, one of those claw type soldering irons is very useful to have.

My IIci is still running great. I found it unexpectedly running the other day after a power outage surge when coming back on must have been enough to fire it up. The Lunatic Fringe AD screensaver module was running...

plaz

 

[LC_575]

There is also a slight chance that the sound output port is dirty. I'm pretty sure that there is a little switch inside of it that turns off the internal speaker when you plug something into it.

That's more likely to be true than you think. My LC's headphone port will nearly always "stick" after removing headphones that have been plugged in for a while. Sound however, is still there, but the Mac still thinks that a headset is present. Poking around in the jack with a toothpick usually fixes the problem, which is most likey a bent contact.