Restoring a Quadra 700 (warning: photo heavy)

[AlpineRaven]

Thanks both for the kind words.

I've just done the oscillator swap, replaced 50Mhz oscillator with a socket and 66.66 Mhz oscillator:

View attachment 32580

View attachment 32581

View attachment 32582

By doing oscillator swap - have you run any other issues?
Cheers
AP

 

[MacKilRoy]

By doing oscillator swap - have you run any other issues?
Cheers
AP

A Quadra 700 which has been clocked differently than it’s stock clock speed will fail to run Apple A/UX operating system. Generally that would be the only drawback.

I believe overclocking it changes the returned Gestalt value, resulting in some oddities like described above. There may be other issues relating to booting or installing certain Mac OS versions as a result.

 

[jessenator]

By doing oscillator swap - have you run any other issues?

Thankfully the biggest issue with everyday operations on a Q700 is just overclocking too much. 33 was my limit before losing features, system stability, but your mileage may vary.

I can't speak to A/UX in depth. I managed to get version 3 completely installed on mine, however I was unable to keep it running after several bootings due to a degenerative spinning HDD malady. I'll be happy to proven wrong with other examples, as I'm simply one witness.

The Gestalt ID problem is more a concern for 040 Macs where a) board resistors' effects on gestalt and frequency/driver value are interconnected (475/605) and b) where board resistors change the gestalt only, but that in turn changes memory timings from ROM and prevents POSTing or booting at higher frequencies (650/800)

I haven't looked into the 63x/64x Macs, but they appear to follow a derivative process that of the 475/605.

MacKilroy is correct though, that these unused gestalt IDs fail in operations where the system enabler doesn't have those IDs.

The gestalt does not change on a 700, as far as I've used it.

 

[djhaloeight]

Machine looks great! I always loved the looks of the Q700.

 

[joshc]

This machine is on its way to a new owner in Germany who I'm sure will get lots of enjoyment out of it.

My Quadra journey continues with a different machine which I'll be posting about shortly.

 

[bamdad]

does anyone have a link for the 66MHz oscillator (and preferably the socket) on mouser or some site in EU?

 

[bamdad]

does anyone have a link for the 66MHz oscillator (and preferably the socket) on mouser or some site in EU?

to respond to my own question i found this (the 66.666 one).

if anyone could confirm this is what i'm looking for i'd be really grateful, otherwise i'll just order it and give it a shot.

 

[CuriosTiger]

I recently scored a Quadra 700, a few weeks ago I had some time to give it some love. Here's what I did...

This Q700 really wasn't in bad condition to start with, and already worked, so my main focus was to clean everything up and improve anything I could as I went along.

To start with, I fully disassembled it - the case and logic board had some dust bunnies, nothing awful but it needed a clean.

View attachment 32233

View attachment 32234

The internal case came out well after a quick brush to remove the dust:

View attachment 32235

The front switches and clear plastic LED piece for the front power LED were removed and dumped in hot soapy water:

View attachment 32236

The black side strips that run along the length of the machine were cleaned, they were rather dirty!

View attachment 32237

The rear I/O panels and NuBus slot openings were cleaned out

View attachment 32238

View attachment 32239

Some photos of the case before cleaning:

View attachment 32240

View attachment 32241



The top lid before cleaning:

View attachment 32242

Washing up liquid and a scrub is all I'm going to do on this.

View attachment 32243

Came out really well...

View attachment 32244

Same treatment for the front

View attachment 32245

Front vents were cleaned/rinsed out:

View attachment 32246

All the other little bits were cleaned and dryed

View attachment 32247

The logicboard was brushed down and lightly swabbed with IPA:

View attachment 32248

View attachment 32249

Starting to put things back together, looking quite sparkly and new really:

View attachment 32250

The floppy drive was definitely the dirtiest part of the whole machine...

View attachment 32251

I already knew it read disks OK, so I thought it worthwhile giving it a full clean - but I also knew it wouldn't eject disks, so there's something going on there.

The drive carrier was a bit dusty, not too bad.

View attachment 32252

That was rinsed and dried off, looks great now

View attachment 32253


So.... onto the floppy drive.

Before:

View attachment 32254

After some initial brushing to remove the worst dust:


View attachment 32255

Removing more bits revealed more dust...

View attachment 32256

Going further, lets clean it up...

View attachment 32257

Yep, broken eject gear. Same old same old. I don't have a spare replacement right now - so will have to return to this another time.

View attachment 32258


New grease applied - I was probably a bit liberal with it but I can always remove access afterwards

View attachment 32259

Everything back together. Can't fully test just yet because of that missing eject gear but what an improvement!


View attachment 32260


Back to finish off the rest of it...



SCSI2SD installed, and the original activity LED hooked up to it:


View attachment 32261


Looking rather smart, albeit more yellow than my 6200, but still nice and clean now and ready for BUSINESS:


View attachment 32262

And most importantly, the original HD activity LED works great...

View attachment 32263

A few days ago, I did a few more things:

Replaced the dirty and noisy original PSU fan with a new one.

Stock fan:

View attachment 32264

Replaced with a Noctua NF-A8 PWM:

View attachment 32265

I also ordered some new RAM, to bring the total from 20MB to 68MB (including 4MB onboard):

View attachment 32266

Things remaining to do:

- Clean out power supply and recap it

- Remove the original oscillator and replace with a DIP socket/new 66Mhz oscillator to crank clock speed from 25Mhz to 33Mhz

- Get a new eject gear for the floppy drive

Nice cleanup. I did a similar one on my Quadra 700, although I haven't tackled the floppy drive yet, and I probably ought to recap the PSU.