Lisa troubleshooting

[markr]

I have a Lisa 2 (XL I think). It booted-up and ran fine 5 years ago, but now, when I push the start button, I get two low beeps (memory?) and a screen that looks like a beehive and zig-zag lines. Any ideas out there?

here's a link to a screen shot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisafixstuff/

 

[chris]

From what I've seen, older computers are most often plagued by capacitor problems - I'd check the caps first. If they're bad, search the forum for 'capacitor' and you'll get a good few useful hits.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

There are some people online that probably have experienced that exact problem with a Lisa 2 and could tell you exactly how to fix it. I would wait a while and see if you can find someone with specific knowledge on this problem before you operate on a Lisa. Lisas are valuable enough that you really should step back and take your time and have an absolute plan before you start anything. That's my opinion though

But yes, I agree capacitors would be a probable suspect.

 

[Scott Baret]

Memory is not the culprit if you only get two low beeps. I had a bad board (which I had to replace with a spare I bought on eBay) and it was a low beep (an E-flat) followed by two high beeps (both B-flats).

 

[Charlieman]

Search for the "Lisa/Macintosh XL Do-it-yourself Guide" from Sun Remarketing. It is largely a reprint of Larry Pina's guide to basic Lisa repair.

Off the top of my head, I'd recommend pulling the RAM boards one by one. Depending on your OS version, you may need both boards to run, but you should be able to identify whether the problem lies with one of them.

 

[markr]

thanks all for the great and quick input. I'm far from a techy, so I'm proceeding very slowly... here's summary what I've found:

- as above, with both boards in slots recommended by Sun (Sun Memory Upgrade board in MEM 1, Apple 512 board in MEM2) I got the scrambled beehive screen and 2 beeps. On/off switch would switch on, but off was diabled (had to pull the pwr cord).

- I pulled the Apple board out of MEM 2, no change.

- I pulled the Sun board (Apple replaced in MEM 2): it tries to run tests but quickly I get 3 beeps and hard drive error 82. Lisa 2/XL Owner's guide says this is "Bad response from disk" error. However, I have a screen image (though it shows three horizontal bands of same image) and the on/off switch is fully functional.

- reveresed the placement of the boards: Sun to MEM 2, Apple to MEM 1 and got the same result (error code 82, etc..)

that's it for now... new screen shot at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisafixstuff/

Thx again for the input, greatly appreciated!

 

[markr]

an update: rambling about, I found an error 82 chat on http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com/msg00167.html. 82 is "no hard drive response"... James suggested flipping the flywheel of the hard drive with the eraser end of a pencil immediately after booting. I tried this several times and finally got it to run. It sounds like my old '60 36hp VW, but it runs past the checkouts and gets me to the desktop, files open!

I now have two issues (that I know of) left:

- first, the biggest: my monitor still has those three vertical bands of the same image... hence, I have three screens, three cursors, etc... still looks like the Lisa Screen shot on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisafixstuff/

- secondly, my floppy drive is frozen. I removed it from the cage, and could move several parts... but am not sure if it's electrical or a moving part I'm not aware of is frozen.

However, progress is made... thanks!

 

[barana]

hehe u r a retro man - a die hard one at that! a combi with a bastard engine AND and apple lisa!

 

[barana]

oh yeah about the hd, if it is a profile there is a guy who makes a profile-compactflash board, google profile emulator. -can't help u if it is a widget.