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Back when I used to regularly dual-boot OS 9 and OS X, I periodically had to reinstall one or both systems due to disk corruption. I tentatively concluded at the time that it might be because OS X used disk journalling, whereby every modification written to the disk is also logged for disaster...

I alluded to this issue already in a thread about using large displays with this class of machine, but the problem has expanded enough to justify its own thread. The symptoms: If the machine is booted with a maximum-sized display attached to the GeForce 6600 (the regular one, not the low-end...

In the course of attempting to find a local company that, years ago, I'd found still offered custom Nubus slot covers/brackets, I ran across a couple of websites that weren’t that one, but may nevertheless be of minor interest to some people here. First, a company that nowadays mostly sells PCB...

I have a GeeThree brand G4+ Stealth Serial Port adapter I would like to install in my MDD G4. However, I originally bought it for the G4 tower I had before that one, so it has the flavour of mounting plate that’s designed to sit behind the cutout for a modem jack, not the flavour of mounting...

I recently tried to fire up a Mirror Drive Door G4 that hadn’t been powered on in a very long time. Alas, it booted to a blank white screen with a grey circle-with-backslash, a shape familiar to most of us from “No Parking” signs and the like. (Weirdly, the shape was repeated five times across...

I have a Power Mac G5 tower (model ID PowerMac7,3) with a Radeon 9600 XT video card. Whenever the room is not uncomfortably cold, if the video signal it puts out is above a certain average brightness, that signal cuts out unpredictably, as often as every couple of seconds in the worst case. On...

Some time ago, I made a foolish impulse purchase of a second Power Mac G5 – my original machine was a dual 2.0 GHz model, the new one is a dual-core 2.3 GHz model. It arrived with a big cut through the power cable, so I couldn't even try to boot it until I sourced a modern replacement. Once...

I have two Power Mac G5s, one of which is a Late 2005 dual-core model and as such has a video card that will do 2560x1440. I also recently acquired a new monitor with a native resolution of 2560x1440. Unfortunately, the new monitor has HDMI (well, and DisplayPort) inputs, as new monitors often...

I have a Power Mac G5 dual-core 2.3 GHz. Alas, when I first turned it on, it went CLICK and the power supply is now utterly stone dead. (Not even the little wire that's used for soft power switching has any voltage on it.) I can't find anything apparently wrong with it, and deep repairs on a...

I have recently acquired a PowerBook 540c. As so many of us have found, the case plastics are so feeble as to not reliably stand up to disassembly of the machine, even when great care is taken. I am strongly motivated to have more durable replacements fabricated. Many threads here in the past...

Hi all, I looked through the archives here for any mention of 500-series PRAM batteries (it turns out that they are actually full-on 50-mAh backup batteries, not just a feeble thing for for keeping the PRAM alive), and apart from learning that they are very unlikely to leak or to stop working...

I bought what turned out to be a matched pair of extremely basic Farallon AAUI adapters, unlabelled with any kind of model number either inside or out, off eBay a year or two back (maybe they just wanted rid of them so gave me two for one?), and was dismayed that I could not get them to work...

And if it does work, does it then allow the machine to run at the higher speed? Seems like it maybe ought to, but it also seems like the logic board in the 520 might not be capable of 540 speeds. Depends how cheaply they made the things, really.

As you may have seen in my post in the Compact Macs subforum, a friend helped me recap two Macs over the past few months. The Classic II was a dismal failure, but the 840AV seems to work… Sort of. It tends to freeze up when I tell it to shut down. That’s under a freshly installed OS 8.1. I’m...

Hi all, In two days of work spread over the past couple of months, a friend and I have recapped two of my Macs. I haven’t tried the Q840AV yet and if I do I will be posting about it in the appropriate subforum, but I have just gotten the Classic II reassembled. Unfortunately, it (the Classic...

I ask purely out of academic curiosity, as my Quadra 840av has either 48 or 64 MiB in it now, don't recall which, which I am in no danger of getting close to the edges of either way. 128 megs is as big as a _single_ 72-pin SIMM can get, so why doesn't this machine support anything over 32MiB...

Hi all, It seems to me that (beyond the stuff common to all vintage machines like leaky electrolytic caps) there are three common points of failure in old PowerBooks -- batteries, 2.5" SCSI drives and shatter-prone case plastics. I've seen options, if occasionally pricey ones, to deal with the...

Hi all, The various threads here about 128MiB 72-pin SIMMs working in certain machines that were never intended to use them got me thinking. What, precisely, about the Classic II prevents it from using SIMMs over 4MiB? I know that 30-pin SIMMs were available in up to 16MiB capacities. Is there...

Hi all, I am the …proud? owner of two fully functional ROM 0 IIgses. I want to sell one and the board out of the other so as to swap in a ROM 3 board and be able to net-boot the latest system — but I can't find any other ROM 0 units for sale, so I don't know what to ask for them. I'm hoping...

I will be receiving one of these SCSI-to-GPIB (IEEE-488) adapters in a few days. Only cost $20 plus postage too. Trouble is, it's over 20 years old and not even IOTech still knows anything about it, much less has any drivers for it. (Even if they did, I doubt they'd work under System 7.) Has...