Mac IIfx

[nick3012]

Well, I dug out my IIfx after finding it buried underneath some old junk. I haven't tried to power it up yet but before I do I have a couple of questions.

Should I replace the PRAM batteries? If they are bad, would they cause the machine not to power on? They aren't corroded, but I'm sure they're toast.

How important is the internal SCSI terminator? I took out the HD to put in the Q950 and I don't remember removing the terminator, but it's not there.

The good thing is, all the ram slots are populated, if I had to guess I'd say the machine has 32 megs of ram. I also need to find the video card, which I think I also put in the Q950... gotta find the Q950 to find out though, that'll probably take a couple of months.

Thanks!

Nick

 

[Unknown_K]

You need working batteries to boot, they can be found on ebay if needed. Some early units needed the black SCSI terminator, others like mine did not.

 

[nick3012]

Well, I blew out the case and cleaned it up. Then I removed the RAM and the ROM to make sure they were seated properly. I got this machine and never did anything with it. The first couple of times I used it, it would randomly freeze. I never did anything with it and just stuffed it away. Well, after removing the RAM, I noticed one of the contacts on one of the 4 meg strips had a loose contact. It was actually partially on pin 1 (it was pin two that had the loose contact). So, I took out the other three modules in bank A, replaced the back-up batteries, put the thing back together, gave it a second floppy courtesy of a 7100 and a hard drive from the same 7100. Plugged it in and got the startup chord! It started to load the OS off the HD and I turned it off. I couldn't see anything as it doesn't have a video card. But that's a major plus that it booted! I also found (I think) the internal terminator. It was connected to the last SCSI connector but it's a pass through connector that's silver. So, I'm not really sure if that's the right one or not. Next step is finding it's video card (which I think is in a IIci somewhere) and getting it up and running. Then it's going to be try and find a 4 meg ram strip for it to replace the bad one....

-Nick

 

[nick3012]

Well, now it's interesting. The machine will not power-on from the keyboard power button. It will power on with the back panel power button. I've tried three different keyboards and the same results. I tried them on a different machine and they all three worked on the other machine. The other oddity with this is that when you shut it down, it comes up with the "It's now safe to turn off your Macintosh" and the restart button. The only way to then turn it off is by unplugging it. I did a fresh install of 7.1 and it still did that. I bought two new batteries for it today, so I'm hoping that will help some.

Any ideas on what's up with that?

-Nick

 

[Unknown_K]

Does it have the stock Mac II power supply?

 

[nick3012]

I believe it does. I've never replaced it.

 

[techknight]

someone might have switched/replaced it before you acquired it?

 

[Dennis Nedry]

I would suspect bad capacitors on the logic board. These cause strange power issues like you're talking about. They're fairly easy to replace with tantalums. Thoroughly cleaning the board may temporarily fix these problems.