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Repair: AsanteTalk or MicroAsantePrint?

T

trag

68LC040
Anyone have any experience fixing these guys?   Mine just died (no LEDs lighting) after I unplugged and plugged it a couple of times.   Of course, it's been plugged in continuously for the last 20+ years, so i suppose it's entitiled.

There are no SM electrolytic caps inside.  One big ceramic and two radial electrolytic (470/10 + 2000/25?IIRC).  

Oh, and two diodes near the power circuitry (half wave rectifier?).  I'll need to check those when I dig in.

The AC adapter is reading 14.xx VAC.  Supposedly it outputs 12V, so it might be an overvoltage situation.   That would be easiest.  

I'm hoping that the total lack of LEDs is a good sign indicating a failure in the power circuitry and not something deeper in.  I can probably find replacements for the power circuitry, but not for the custom Asante chip and what looks like a big processor of some kind.

So agaain, anyone with experience, or just willing to kibbitz?

 
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Resurrecting this old thread - I have an AsanteTalk box that I have never been able to get working. All of the lights flash like they should (solid link) when connected to Ethernet but it never seems to work. I have observed the power up sequence and I recently installed netatalk on a raspberry Pi to have an AppleShare server available and that allowed me to run nbplkup to see what shows up on EtherTalk.  All of my Ethernet equipped Macs show up but the Asante never does. I have tried different switches and most recently an EN104tp 10 base t hub. 

I pulled it it apart and was thinking of changing the capacitors, just because but otherwise I think this unit just simply doesn't work. Anybody have any similar, seeming dead (but still lighting up) AsanteTalk boxes?

 
Powerup seems to be very important with the AsanteTalk bridge.

Connect everything, then first fire up your Appletalk server/MacIP gateway/Appleshare server as well as the machines on your Localtalk network.

Once both sides are up and running turn on the AsanteTalk.

That‘s the only way it works for me.

Appletalk and MacIP server is running on a Cisco 1841 for me.

All my localtalk Macs can see the Appletalk zone supplied by the Cisco that way. I got MacIP to work with OpenTransport but not yet with MacTCP...

Did you configure your Pi to publish an Appletalk zone and can your other Macs see that zone?

 
No zones are configured. My other Macs can see my netatalk server. 

I tried the power up sequence you noted multiple times without success. From what I read the Asante should still register itself on the Ethertalk side of the network which it doesn't seem to be doing. I think there is a problem with the device itself unfortunately. 

 
I never followed up, but the hardware guy at my office told me that it was probably the voltage regulator in my MicroAsantePrint.  I haven't done anything with it yet though, so I can neither confirm nor deny.   He has like a thousand years of experience though, so I'd lay odds on his being correct (he's also a great Little League coach).  

I don't think that applies to your device, Superjet, because your symptoms are different.    However, the AsanteTalk is a little different than the MicroAsantePrint, so you might want to check inside for caps to replace.   Bad power will make most electronics not work properly.

 
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superjer2000 said:
From what I read the Asante should still register itself on the Ethertalk side of the network which it doesn't seem to be doing.
Click to expand...
What do you mean by it "registering itself" on the network? So far as I'm aware all these devices do is act as bridges, IE, they just look for DDP packets coming in either side, grab them off the wire, and spit them out the other side. The device itself doesn't handle any of the higher levels of the protocol. It's not going to show up on the network unless you have an operable mac sitting on the far side of it, in which case you'll see *its* Appletalk chatter.

 
There must be some more to it otherwise the power-on sequence wouldn’t matter.

The manual also states that it’s actively looking for appletalk networks while it boots and won’t work if the network isn’t availabe at boot time.

I might fire up wireshark and see what it does while it’s booting up.

 
Gorgonops said:
What do you mean by it "registering itself" on the network? So far as I'm aware all these devices do is act as bridges, IE, they just look for DDP packets coming in either side, grab them off the wire, and spit them out the other side. The device itself doesn't handle any of the higher levels of the protocol. It's not going to show up on the network unless you have an operable mac sitting on the far side of it, in which case you'll see *its* Appletalk chatter.
Click to expand...
When I was searching for AsanteTalk troubleshooting, it appears that the AsanteTalk registers itself on the AppleTalk network.  Here's an excerpt from another thread here:

$ nbplkup
gateway:ADSP 40215.94:128
10.1.3.1:IPADDRESS 40215.94:72
10.1.3.1:IPGATEWAY 40215.94:72
gateway:netatalk 40215.94:4
gateway:Workstation 40215.94:4
EVO:DceDspRpc DynEpt 638.1 41384.136:136
EVO:DceDspRpc DynEpt 114.1 41384.136:129
EVO:DceDspRpc Endpoint Mapper 41384.136:130
EVO:AFPServer 41384.136:131
083D86B6F0E990040330A5CA083D@EVO:Microsoft¨ Windows 2000ª Prt 44318.148:2
083D86B6F0E990040330A5CA083D@EVO:Microsoft¨ Windows 2000ª Rtr 43497.215:2
Asant?Talk 94AFE828:AsantTalk 40000.15:252
10.1.3.2:IPADDRESS 40000.16:72
porter:Macintosh Classic 40000.16:253




This time, I tried plugging it into my Duo 230 which is running System 7.5.x  The Duo seemed to recognize that there was an AppleTalk network connected as when the Localtalk box was plugged it a dialog box came up and indicated "Your AppleTalk network is ready for use" but still no joy (or AppleShare server).  The AsanteTalk Ethernet lights keep blinking away showing there is activity.  The LocalTalk network seems to be recognized by the Duo, but there isn't any bridging of the two going on and 'nbplkup' still doesn't show the AsanteTalk box.  I've unplugged it and plugged it back in multiple times (and tried a different power adapter.)

 
OK - NEVER MIND.  It's working.  I don't know why, or how.  Maybe it just needs a lot longer than I thought to boot and register.  I finished that post above, went back to try to reset the PRAM on my Duo (another post indicated their AsanteTalk started working after they did that) and low and behold in the Chooser, there was my AppleShare server.  nbplkup now also shows the AsanteTalk.  I feel a bit bad now that I bent the metal case opening it the other day but I guess it will just sit under a desk anyways.  (Well on top of the desk for easy access to the power cable.)

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ nbplkup
                    AppleServer:AFPServer                          65280.17:128
                    AppleServer:netatalk                           65280.17:4
                    AppleServer:Workstation                        65280.17:4
           AsantéTalk 94A8C686:Asant?Talk                         65485.175:252
                               :ARA - Client-Only                  65485.176:2
                      <Unnamed>:  Macintosh PowerBook              65485.176:252

 
Interesting. I remember running nbplkup and doing tcpdumps when I was troubleshooting my Farallon bridge and I don't *remember* it registering itself as a separate entity than the device(s) behind it, but perhaps it just slipped my mind. I did remember that I wouldn't see anything until/unless the device on the Localtalk side actually "woke up" and started broadcasting, I'm guessing the same applies to the AsanteTalk. (IE, it won't register if it's just sitting there idle.) Anyway, it's good that it's working now.

 
Well I may have spoken too soon. Looks like the box only works when all of the planets are in alignment. I've tried it since with a IIci and an LC II and no luck. It would be great if there was a modern alternative to this box. Looks like there were some investigations but nothing came of it. 

 
Well, I just recapped it (two radial caps, a 2200uf and a 470uf) and no difference.  The box is definitely doing something on both the LocalTalk and Ethernet side of things, it just doesn't seem to be bridging the two (except for one time).  When I plug in power to the Asantetalk with everything else powered up, the Ethernet lights start to flash quickly and on the Mac that is connected via LocalTalk with the Chooser open, the cursor turns to the watch for a moment once the Asante finishes flashing.  But the server I have on Ethertalk doesn't show up in the Chooser and another Mac connected via Ethertalk can't see the machine with the AsanteTalk.

 
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