• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

Mac IIcx restoration project help wanted

D-50 Dude

Active member
Hello! Let me get down to business. I purchased an “untested” Mac IIcx from eBay in filthy shape. It cleaned up nicely (still needs a small bit of retrobrite). At first I thought it wasn’t working (the green power light was on but there was no chime (or so I thought) but it turns that it’s just extremely quiet (I had to put my ear up to the speaker to hear it). Since I don’t have a DB-15 to VGA adapter yet, I can’t connect a monitor yet. I’m already well aware of the fact that the logic board needs re-capped (my guess is that’s what’s causing the quiet audio) but at least I know it’s “working”.

Here’s where I need help. While it does work, the power supply is making a very irritating high pitched sound (higher than that of a CRT) and my guess is that isn’t normal. I’m aware of the dangers of working on power supplies. If it helps the model is an Astec AA15830. I know that the IIcx shipped with different power supply models.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    1.9 MB · Views: 12

joshc

Well-known member
Another thing you could do is get a spare PSU to test with, they are not that hard to find and were shared among the following models: IIci, IIcx, IIvi, IIvx, Power Mac 7100, Quadra/Centris 650, Quadra 700. OEM manufacturers of these units were Astec, Delta, GE, LITEON.
 

D-50 Dude

Active member
Are any one of those OEMs more reliable than another? Also, when it comes to the monitor, I think I’m just gonna get an original Apple High-Resolution RGB monitor instead of fiddling with adapters.
 

joshc

Well-known member
Are any one of those OEMs more reliable than another?
Hard to say. They're all old so I think most of them will be due for new capacitors by now. I do have a suspicion (partly based on my own experience with them) that the Astec units were the poorest quality of the lot.
 

D-50 Dude

Active member
Alright. On an unrelated topic, it came with a SuperMac Spectrum/8 Series iii video card. Is that card decent?
 

D-50 Dude

Active member
So a new problem has arisen. I got all the SMD caps done perfectly. The thru-hole caps are proving to be a total pain in the rear. No matter what I do, they will not solder in place. I’m literally pulling my hair out. Any advice?
 

D-50 Dude

Active member
Ok, nevermind on the capacitor problem. I got it sorted out. And great news! The computer chimes and displays the blinking question mark floppy. The video card is behaving weird however. When you turn it on, the image is all scrambled then it goes to this one screen that after a bit says “press the space bar”. When you do that, the computer resets and displays a screen that has the Supermac logo and then goes to the normal floppy screen. Also, the image is extremely off-centered (adjusting my monitor didn’t help).
 

Attachments

  • 34487DAC-8503-4D07-83EB-1F923DA8AD3A.jpeg
    34487DAC-8503-4D07-83EB-1F923DA8AD3A.jpeg
    712.6 KB · Views: 9

D-50 Dude

Active member
Hmmm. Might have to look into that. Also, irritatingly, the floppy drive died, well sort of. The head and the thing that spins the disk are good, but the load/eject mechanism is toast. I was trying to get my Disk Tools disk to load and after several attempts, the drive made this terrible scream-like noise and would no longer load or eject disks. Because I’m dumb, I made the mistake of trying to disassemble the load/eject mechanism, and now it does absolutely nothing. Although like I said, it isn’t completely dead since when you turn on the computer, the head does it’s calibration process.
 

Johnnya101

Well-known member
Simple fix, the eject gear most likely crumbled into dust. Take apart the drive, clean and grease first, then focus on the eject part. You will see the issue. When you put it back together from whatever you did, the eject gears don't do anything because a gear broke.
 

D-50 Dude

Active member
Anyone here on the forums I could send it to and pay to repair it? I’ve had terrible luck when it comes to working on small mechanical things.
 

Johnnya101

Well-known member
I mean, I guess I could do it, but I have never aligned anything before if it came to that (usually doesnt). If you have no takers, let me know and I can try my best at it. I can do a cleaning + lube + new gear + test, and I have a parts drive if needed.
 

D-50 Dude

Active member
It’s been awhile since I last posted about this project, but it’s coming along nicely. I do have some questions though. First, I got SimCity 2000 installed and while it’s playable, it’s quite sluggish. Is this due to the 16 MHz CPU speed or the video card? Second, speaking of video cards, what would be a good option? The card currently inside, is a SuperMac Spectrum/8 Series III.
 

Phipli

Well-known member
It’s been awhile since I last posted about this project, but it’s coming along nicely. I do have some questions though. First, I got SimCity 2000 installed and while it’s playable, it’s quite sluggish. Is this due to the 16 MHz CPU speed or the video card? Second, speaking of video cards, what would be a good option? The card currently inside, is a SuperMac Spectrum/8 Series III.
The card you have is excellent - I'd stick with it. Replacing it with something better would be expensive. The weird spacebar thing on first boot after PRAM reset is normal with those, it is cycling through available video modes to find one that works for you. When you see a good picture, hit space. The manual is online.

SimCity 2000 will run slowly on a 16MHz machine sorry, but have you installed the graphics drivers? They'll speed up some graphics routines.
 

Phipli

Well-known member
Manual here :
 

Attachments

  • SuperMac_Sopectrum_8_Series_III_Users_Manual_1989(1).pdf
    10.8 MB · Views: 3

D-50 Dude

Active member
I was afraid it was the processor. I did install the video driver and the OS feels noticeably smoother when it comes to window animations. Honestly, while I really like the IIcx, the system I really wanna get is a Quadra 700. In other news, I figured out a relatively easy method to get games and programs from a modern Mac to 68K based Macs. If anyone is curious I’ll explain it.
 

Phipli

Well-known member
I was afraid it was the processor. I did install the video driver and the OS feels noticeably smoother when it comes to window animations. Honestly, while I really like the IIcx, the system I really wanna get is a Quadra 700. In other news, I figured out a relatively easy method to get games and programs from a modern Mac to 68K based Macs. If anyone is curious I’ll explain it.
I'd be interested :) I use a CD burner or FTP and an ethernet card usually. Other people use ether a linux based appleshare or share from a build of Mini vMac with networking.
 
Top