Macintosh Portable - No Sound?

[martona]

I have a pretty peculiar problem: the internal speaker is extremely faint. If I turn up the volume all the way and put my ears close to the case I can hear it working, but it's super soft. I replaced the speaker with another one (bought off the 'bay) and it didn't make a difference. The motherboard is very clean, the capacitors (as far as the eye can tell) show no signs of problems, i.e. no bulging, etc.

Any thoughts, other than recapping? My soldering skills are nowhere near good enough to attempt replacing SMD caps.

 

[nvdeynde]

No or very low sound is typical for bad capacitors. The board has to be completely recapped.

It's a 22 year old Mac Portable so it's normal the capacitors need to be replaced.

Look for green dirt on the PCB near the small SMD radial capacitors.

It's also perfectly possible to you don't see any obvious leakage on the PCB, nevertheless an ESR tester will prove they are all faulty.

I recommand not the use the board anymore until you replace the capacitors as otherwise you can make it beyond repair.

 

[martona]

Thank you!

Is there anyone on the board who does recapping for a fee? Like I said, I'm very concerned about making things much worse.

 

[bd1308]

I'm beginning to embark ont just this task on my two portables myself. Once I get those done I might be able to re-cap others for a fee. I'll let you know once I finish mine.

 

[martona]

I found a very nice older gentleman who's done a superb job recapping the Portable. And now it has sound!

Good luck with the project BD1308. Shoot a PM my way if you're ready for more work. "My guy" doesn't really like cap replacement projects and this was more of a favor than anything else. And I have loads more old hardware, my 128k and 512k would be next up.

 

[nvdeynde]

And I have loads more old hardware, my 128k and 512k would be next up

For these it's time to recap the Analog board. I also replace the axial capacitors on the logic boards.

Good Luck

 

[bd1308]

I'm just now beginning on this --- strange how life seems to get in the way of important things like recapping Mac Portable caps. I just got married and my wife is encouraging me to fix the stuff in our storage unit.