Mac II No Video Out

[bunnspecial]

I have a Mac II around here that I've worked with on and off for a while. I suspect it needs a recap(or rather I'm sure of it), but thought I'd ask and see if there's something else I could try.

Basically, when I first received the computer it was dead as a doornail. I was advised to replace the PRAM batteries, and while I was a bit skeptical of that working, I ordered two new batteries with solder leads and replaced them.

After doing that, I'm able to get the board to chime. It will also play the chimes of death if I remove the RAM. I THINK it's accessing the HDD, although it was supplied to me with a 10K laptop SCSI drive and adapter so I don't have an access light and can't really hear it clearly one way or another.

The problem, though, is that I can't get any video output. I have a decent stash of NuBus video cards ranging from the basic Mac II color card up to a couple of Radius 24x series ones. I've tested and confirmed all the cards I'm using work in both my IIci and Quadra 700. I've also tried every slot on the Mac II LoBo to rule that out.

Just in case, I've also swapped RAM. I've tried it with known good 1mb sticks pulled from an SE, as well as other combinations too numerous to list.

I did wash the board, although I don't see any obvious leakage or other stand out issues.

Does anyone have any ideas of places I could look or things I could do aside from throwing new caps at it? I'm not set-up to do recapping at home, so I'll have to send it off and don't want to send off a board on the assumption that that's the only thing wrong.

 

[Unknown_K]

If it chimes you are probably in luck.

Remove the HD and put an 800k system disk (II's didn't come with superdrives) into the floppy drive and see if the system seeks it and reads it on bootup.

I don't have a Mac II but the pics I seen on the web show a couple SMT tantalum capacitors and a few coax ones (neither leaks). IIx machines have a bunch of leaky caps and IIfx machines don't.

Without a working boot disk you should get a screen on a known working Nubus video card.

 

[Juror22]

Check the video first, Unknown_K is quite correct.  Even without a working startup disk (either HD or floppy) you should get a startup screen with a flashing '?' from a known good video card, cable and appropriate monitor or adapter.

I have two Mac II's a IIx and a IIFX (all recapped) and you will need to replace the caps in any of these, but a IIFX.

Mac II's have the same leaky caps that you find in SE/30's and in the classics.  It is not a question of if, but rather, when they they will leak - you will need to have them replaced soon, or they WILL ruin your board.

 

[Macdrone]

old mac II video card radial caps go bad.  Super easy to replace.  Fixed 4 so far in the last few years.

 

[MJ313]

Some Mac II's have the leaky lytic caps, some have tants. It depends on the rev.

 

[bunnspecial]

Thanks guys.

This is a plain Mac II, not a IIx or IIfx(I wish!).

As I said, I know the card itself isn't an issue as I've tried a bunch of different cards and confirmed them all good in different systems. In all cases, I used the same card and monitor combo when testing.

I'll try the floppy disk suggestion.

 

[Elfen]

2 Things.

1) Like Macdrone stated, the cas on the video board goes bad and they too need replacing. The II and IIfx usually have tantalium caps for the most part..So it Bongs and Chimes as it should. You are ahead of the game on this.

2) You did not mention what kind of Monitor you have connected to the Mac II. This can make your Mac look dead if you have a VGA Monitor and using a Mac-2-VGA Adapter and the adapter is set wrong for it. The basic set up is 640X480, sometimes known on some adapters as "LC" for the LC Series computer. This will get most boards to light up the screen.

Turn it on without any drives on it. This way the Mac II goes through its RAM Test and then gives you a flashing Disk Icon you should see on the screen. If you do not see this, then you need to try the next setting on the adapter.

Do note that there are some monitors out there, mostly LCD ones, that will not work with the Mac video adapter. Best to get a multi-sync CRT or LCD Monitor for this.

 

[bunnspecial]

2 Things.

1) Like Macdrone stated, the cas on the video board goes bad and they too need replacing. The II and IIfx usually have tantalium caps for the most part..So it Bongs and Chimes as it should. You are ahead of the game on this.

2) You did not mention what kind of Monitor you have connected to the Mac II. This can make your Mac look dead if you have a VGA Monitor and using a Mac-2-VGA Adapter and the adapter is set wrong for it. The basic set up is 640X480, sometimes known on some adapters as "LC" for the LC Series computer. This will get most boards to light up the screen.

Turn it on without any drives on it. This way the Mac II goes through its RAM Test and then gives you a flashing Disk Icon you should see on the screen. If you do not see this, then you need to try the next setting on the adapter.

Do note that there are some monitors out there, mostly LCD ones, that will not work with the Mac video adapter. Best to get a multi-sync CRT or LCD Monitor for this.

I have used several different DB-15 Apple CRTs that are known good.

As I said, I have-in many cases-installed a card and monitor combo in my IIci, tested it there, and then moved the card and monitor as a unit over to the II. I have half a dozen different NuBus cards and probably 8-10 working DB-15 CRTs from 12" to 16." All of my cards test good in other systems(IIci, Quadra 700).

 

[Elfen]

The only thing left as per this "new" evidence, is cap goo trace rot leading to the NUBUS slots. The other possibility is the MMU.

In a worst case scenerio you can run the Mac II as a headless server. You need to set to the System on its drive on a separate machine and have. and set up something like Timbuktu to do a VNC-type screen control to it without a video card. The problem here now becomes having an Ehternet Card for the Mac II and if it will work. If the Nubus Card slots are crapped out, then your only option in this is using the slow AppleTalk.

Check if that MMU is a true Motorola MMU (forgot what that number is) or is it a HMMU(sp?) by Apple. The HMMU in some cases can be upgraded to a true MMU if the board can support it, not all Mac II boards can support a true MMU.

You got my scratching my head on this one.

 

[bunnspecial]

Thanks-I'm out of town at the moment, but will try to post some photos of the board and of course give it a close look when I get back on Monday.

Someone contacted privately and said that they had an NOS board with tantalum caps that they had done nothing to other than open it and remove the batteries(based on that I'm guessing that it has sockets rather than soldered batteries) and offered it to me for a very reasonable price. If I can't fix this board, I'll definitely take them up on that very generous offer.

 

[bunnspecial]

Just wanted to follow up that I'd received the replacement NOS logic board, and it's working great now!

I just need to get a permanent HDD installed(I grabbed the one out of my IIci when I was playing with it last night) and then decide on an OS.

I'm actually really tempted to try A/UX.

 

[Unknown_K]

What are you doing with the dead II board?

 

[bunnspecial]

What are you doing with the dead II board?

I'm not QUITE ready to give up on it-will probably give recapping it a shot and see if I get somewhere.