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IIci arrived - questions!

S

shifuimam

6502
The monitor for my IIci just arrived about an hour ago. After some frantic searching for the video cable, it's up and running! I am definitely very excited. :D

So now I have a few questions:

Where the heck is the power button on the machine itself? After flipping the switch on my power strip a couple times, the button on the keyboard worked, but does the IIci have a dedicated power button? I couldn't find one.

Can I install OS 8.1 without any hacks since it has a DayStar 040 Turbo installed? Should I even try, or should I stick with System 7?

What problems (if any) should I expect if I get a DA-15 to VGA adapter and try to hook up a modern LCD?

 
Facing the machine, the power button is on the back lower right. It has a slot in it for a coin or flathead screwdriver so you can turn it and prevent the machine from powering down (or force it to power up on a power cycle -- my IIci server is set up like this).

You may need WishIWere or a similar Gestalt hack tool for 8.1, but it should be fine with the '040. I would not run 8.1 on an '030, even if you get it to work; it's just not happy.

Built-in video should work okay with an LCD panel, but you might have to do some DIP switch fiddling for a happy resolution.

 
... it has a DayStar 040 Turbo ... should I stick with System 7?
Click to expand...
Why not System 6, which is possible on this machine with your 040 card? That to me would be by far the most interesting setup.

 
Well, I have a Classic II and an SE/30 if I want to run System 6. My clamshell iBook and Pismo PowerBook both dual boot Tiger and OS 9. I figured I could give OS 8 a go, since I haven't used it much.

 
It was a bit of a frustrating struggle, but I finally got OS 8.0 installed. Something is wrong with the floppy drive or floppy controller. I swapped out the drive with another one that is supposedly tested and working, and I can't get either drive to properly read floppies. It wants to initialize the floppy and, if I tell it, it then ejects the drive and says the initialization failed.

I ended up using a copy of the Apple Legacy Support CD from Macintosh Garden to boot the machine to do the necessary resedits.

It's running pretty decently, tbh. The monitor is in decent shape, although I fully intend on using an LCD with it. I have seen photos of people with modern LCDs hooked up to IIci machines. I've also seen comments about multisync LCDs not working with these machines. What do I need to get an LCD working? Only reason I want to is because of how huge the CRT is. I just don't have room for it!

I'd really like to get the floppy working, though. It's problematic that the only boot option I have other than the internal drive is CD (it wouldn't boot off a Zip disk).

 
I am not sure about the floppy drive other than the caps may be an issue on the motherboard. I dont remember you mentioning if thats been done. LCDs are an easy addition. The video adapters from DB15 to VGA are still pretty easy to find. I get my 15 inch LCD's at Goodwill for a dollar or 2 (distribution center by weight) and so far I have not found one that doesnt work with my older machines.

 
There's a thread somewhere on here on how to clean up your floppy drive; how to take it apart and what parts to grease.

 
Good to know on the LCD.

The sound is not working, and with external speakers at max volume it is very faint. Some searching indicates that leaky caps are the likely culprit, so I'm going to replace the caps around the sound controller and clean up the board. Maybe that'll fix the floppy issue, too.

The original drive definitely needs to be cleaned, so I'll take it apart and get to cleaning it. We've got gun grease, which I read somewhere can work well to lubricate the parts.

 
Before you worry about the sound chip try the recap. Its a 50 50 shot for me lately. Sometimes the caps being replaced fixes it sometimes not.

 
Be sure and upgrade that from 8.0 to 8.1 when you can. 8.0 is notoriously buggy.

 
I'm installing 8.1 right now.

The floppy drive was a bust - I cleaned it thoroughly, made sure the read heads weren't damaged and still contacting both sides of the disk, oiled the mechanical pieces and made absolutely sure that all the mechanics are working.

Any time I put a disk in the drive, OS 8 tells me it needs to be initialized. If I click to do so, it ejects the disk immediately and says that there was a problem. A few times I've gotten it to get almost done initializing, and it fails at the very end.

Formatted floppies that I know for a fact have good content on them (verified with my SE/30) also show up as uninitialized. This has happened with two floppy drives and two cables. My next shot is going to be to use the SE/30's floppy, since at the moment that machine is dead (something crapped out in the horizontal sync circuitry).

Is there a floppy controller on the system board? If so, where is it? I want to make sure there's nothing wrong on that end of things.

 
Hi,

It sounds to me that a full recap is necessary (it's better to replace all of them at once rather than a few at a time I've found).

Before doing that, however, have you tried cleaning the logic board? Cleaning can temporarily resolve some bizarre and otherwise unexplainable problems.

There's many ways of doing the cleaning. I use the dishwasher method, but you can choose a method that works best for you.

If you are unable to do the recap yourself, uniserver has a recap service. He does a good job, and I recommend him.

c

 
I can do the recap myself, so that's not a problem. There's definitely visible corrosion on several areas of the board, so I'm going to give it a thorough cleaning with some rubbing alcohol. That should be safe, shouldn't it? My dishwasher has some issues, and I don't trust it to get the board clean without causing damage, so I need to do it by hand.

My SE/30 died last night (bad horizontal sweep), so since it's currently out of commission I ganked the PRAM battery and the floppy drive. It has a very solidly working floppy, and I've not had any problems with that one in the IIci. The guy I bought the other module from recently (eBay) is sending me a couple more to try, so hopefully I'll get another working drive soon.

OS 8.1 is installed and running smoothly. I installed After Dark 4, but it will not work. I can demo the screensavers, but the hot corners don't work and it doesn't activate when it should while the machine is idle. Any ideas?

NuBus network card should be arriving in a day or two!

 
Yeah get that re-cap done. I don't know why everyone thinks alcohol is the best for cleaning up the electrolyte. Electrolyte wants water much more then alcohol. After I twist off all the caps, ill go over each spot with a damp paper towel, it always does the job for me.

 
Finished recapping the sound area (didn't have enough caps on hand to replace the others yet). Sound works, except it's SUPER quiet on the internal speaker. Is it always like that? I know my SE/30's internal speaker was impossibly quiet...

 
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