YABMP (Yet Another Broken Macintosh Portable)

[bigmessowires]

I'll be interested to see what you find. A friend of mine is experiencing similar problems with his recapped Portable. It refused to boot from SCSI, would usually boot from floppy but then immediately crash with a variety of Sad Mac codes. He replaced the hybrid module and also added a battery eliminator, and now it boots OK from floppy but SCSI still doesn't work at all. A ZuluSCSI gets enough power from the SCSI connector to turn on, but he hasn't yet had time to do troubleshooting beyond that. If your Q20 fix works then I'll suggest he check that on his machine.

 

[bigmessowires]

The +5 volt is about 3,5 volt and the +12 volt seem to cut out as soon as there is a load.

Can you provide external power to your Blue SCSI, so it's not drawing power from the Portable? That might be an interesting test.

 

[LaPorta]

Another possibility can always be that someone hot-plugged a SCSI device in the past and it blew the SCSI chip…if one knows how to test the chip.

 

[Kalle]

Replacing the Q20 mosfet (IRF9Z30) with a new equivalent (IRF9Z94NPBF) restored the lost +5 volt to the SCSI power.

 

[Kalle]

As stated above, the SCSI power is working, however I still have intermittent crashes and freezes. System 6.0.8 works the best and is almost usable, the Portable freezes when waking from sleep, mouse pointer is working but no response from Finder. System 7 and 7.1 is a real hit and miss, with no real pattern to freezes and lockups. Programs usually run fine but at quit the whole system usually locks up. Apple Personal Diagnostics run just fine and reports no problems, might not be the most comprehensive program to stress test the system. As for now System 7 is unusable, both system installs are clean Portable systems.
Sad Mac Codes I have gotten so far are:

03021300
00001FFA

00000010
0000CD37

00000014
0000CD38

0000000F
00000003

From what I can gather I might still have some power issues.

There is no difference between running on clean battery power or battery power with the power brick attached that I have been able to detect.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

//Karl

 

[Kalle]

Bus errors in System 7.1. SWIM or PMU chip problems? RAM perhaps?

 

[Kalle]

I think I might be on to something. I believe the culprit might the BlueSCSI and possibly an issue when it's waking up from disksleep. The machine would always lock up after a period of not using it, it would also freeze up when waking from sleep. I'm currently running from the original hard drive and the machine has been rock solid for the last hour, whereas running from my BlueSCSI i'd be glad if I got more than 5 minuted of usage.

 

[LaPorta]

Can’t speak to the BlueSCSI, but my Portable runs great from a SCSI2SD 5.1 without any issue. Differences between the two?

 

[Kalle]

Can’t speak to the BlueSCSI, but my Portable runs great from a SCSI2SD 5.1 without any issue. Differences between the two?

Good to know, not sure if there are any differences.

I just tried booting from an external BlueSCSI (another BlueSCSI card) connected to the external DB25 port and the system seem as stable as running with the original hard drive. Makes me wonder if I have some settings messed up. Termination power is on that is pretty much it, flaky/damaged BlueSCSI card?

 

[Garrett B]

If you’re using a BlueSCSI v2, you need an .ini file to get things working properly. Here’s the info from the GitHub repo:

• Requires some special configuration. Go to https://ini.bluescsi.com and click Mac Plus to download a special .ini configuration file, place it in the root of your SD card.

 

[Kalle]

If you’re using a BlueSCSI v2, you need an .ini file to get things working properly. Here’s the info from the GitHub repo:

• Requires some special configuration. Go to https://ini.bluescsi.com and click Mac Plus to download a special .ini configuration file, place it in the root of your SD card.

I have the .ini file, thanks.

I just updated to the latest firmware for the BlueSCSI and so far it seem to be working better however I do need to test the machine more extensively to be able to draw any conclusions.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I believe the culprit might the BlueSCSI and possibly an issue when it's waking up from disksleep

This is a known issue with the BlueSCSI and the ZuluSCSI as well. I believe it’s actually related to whatever command the OS uses to tell the drive to “spin up”. It will likely also freeze if you wait long enough that the system “spins down” the drive, and then if you go and do something to that will make the drive spin up again.
I’d try contacting Eric Helgeson over it and provide your log file.