Vail/Elise III

[System7]

I just got a LC III from Scott Baret today in the mail. Has 36mb RAM, Stock Quiet 80mb HD and a pretty good condition case. It is missing a fan and floppy bracket, but those should be easy to replace. This is my first real pizza box, and I love it. So small, low profile, and I have the original monitor, KB/M Combo that went with the LC III. Made in June 1993. Heh, its birthday is soon. :O

Some other quick things I noticed about the LC III:

Mine has a TDK Power Supply. Also, I see solder pads for a RESET Switch. Would it be a PRAM Reset Button that was excluded from the final design?

One quick question:

Will it run stable without the fan? To me, from what I see, it doesnt need it. The PSU looks like its 40w. Did not make any heat. I would prefer no fan noise, its just so quiet!!!!!!!

I will install 7.5 for now, until I get my 7.1 Worldwide Language Dev CD.

EDIT: My Broken IIci floppy bracket worked.

 

[Scott Baret]

Glad to hear the IIci floppy bracket was a good fit!

As far as fans, I'm not sure how it would fare over time without one. I too enjoyed listening to relative silence when I was testing the machine prior to shipping. If you're handy with connectors I recommend pulling one from an original LC, as the brand they used in there (which I don't recall off the top of my head) was quieter than the Elina Fans commonly found in later LCs. There's also a DC Pico that works in the LC but I have never used one for an extended period of time so I can't comment on their noise. (Note that you'll need to re-do the connector if you pull from an original LC, as it had a different assembly than the LC II/III/475).

 

[register]

I would not recommend to use the LCIII permanently without a fan, especially in case you want to clock it to 33 MHz, add a math. coprocessor and put something into the PDS slot. Consider to buy a low noise fan of appropriate size and rating combined with an electronic fan speed controller. Look for a balanced version. Apple used balanced fans in some LC475s. It might seem to be a little overkill, but you will benefit from this mod any minute you use the machine. The price range for fans of this kind is from 1 to approx. 50 bucks.

 

[LCGuy]

My LCIII has an Elina Fan, which I actually find to be fairly quiet, in fact its quieter than just about all the hard drives I've used in the LCIII, apart from a 40MB ProDrive LPS. Its the original fan that was installed in the machine when it was built (i know that because Dad bought the machine brand new in 1993 ), and I really don't mind it...maybe I'm just used to it after having used the machine for nearly 17 years.

Personally I wouldn't use any LC series Mac without a fan, lest the power supply or hard drive overheat. These Macs are 15 - 20 years old and could die at any moment, making them run cooled entirely by convection (when they're not designed to be run that way) will only make them run hotter, and therefore reduce whatever is left of their life span, and is really to be avoided. The machine has a hard drive in it anyway, which makes a fair bit of noise...surely the noise made by a small fan isn't that much of a price to pay to save your Mac from overheating?

 

[Gil]

Personally I wouldn't use any LC series Mac without a fan, lest the power supply or hard drive overheat.

Forget the hard drive or power supply, have you checked out the '030??? I had mine running a few days ago with the top off, and i just *lightly touched* the top of the 68030 (I know, I know) and it almost burned me instantly! With no heat sink, those things get HOT!

 

[System7]

Here is a picture of it:

Also, I tried a Intel P3 CPU Fan on the LC, it did not work. (Wired differently?) If someone could give me the pinout of the 3 pin connector on the logic board, that would be very useful!

 

[Scott Baret]

As I recall the LC fans only use two pins for fan connection. They probably used the three-pin connector to save money since it was a more common part.

 

[joshc]

My LC III has a Sanyo Pico Ace 15 60x60x15mm fan, with two wires (1 blue, 1 red) going into a 3 pin connector. Most replacement fans you find will be 60x60x20, so they won't fit correctly.

Forget the hard drive or power supply, have you checked out the '030??? I had mine running a few days ago with the top off, and i just *lightly touched* the top of the 68030 (I know, I know) and it almost burned me instantly! With no heat sink, those things get HOT!

Well, one way of solving this is to install a chipset heatsink, one that isn't too tall so that it fits in the case. They can be mounted to the chip using 3M thermal adhesive tape. This creates a bonding between the chip and the heatsink, sort of an alternative to thermal paste/grease.

 

[Temetka]

Holy giant image Batman!

Looks good though.

I had an LC475 that I upgraded to a full '040. A simple Pentium slim style HSF took care of any heat and no case fan. That thing ran cool. Sold it to a fum member years ago. Can't quite remember who it was though.

 

[bsod]

For some time I had two of my LCIII's inside a drawer, with an opening for cooling. I had to lift the case (with Lego bricks) in order to make some space for the hot air to circulate. And I had them with the top case open .

They don't generate that much heat... but again, I have my Mac collection in my basement, which is kept at a constant temperature, regardless of the weather outside .