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Mac II, Performa 6400/200
Posted by: littlecloud92 on 2011-06-08 20:58:07 Mac II Initial state (as acquired): Something was rattling inside - turned out to be just one of the floppy slot blanks - now returned to its proper location Does not power up from either the keyboard or the power switch Does not appear to have leaky caps Original factory batteries - not leaked Original 40MB HDD - 5.25" half height Quantum ------- Chimes when 3.6v applied to PSU sense line Appears to be booting from its HDD No video - tested the Toby card in my 7100, no output either. techfury90 on IRC mentioned that it could be an issue with the DB15-VGA dongle, but I don't have an Apple monitor to test it with. Still a Sad Mac xx( A little history... Insidious creatures just biding their time to set up my logic board up the bomb, and send it on its way to destruction... What's this? Seems to be a beverage cup warmer that doubles as a data-storage device! Performa 6400 Initial state: Boots with chime but no video, every other time Original HDD - bad - click o' death Original FDD - appeared to be bad (no motor activity whatsoever on insertion of disk, but see below) Sonnet Crescendo G3/300 in cache slot - removed (what's the point of putting a G3 in everything?) ixMicro TwinTurbo 128 M2 ------- Battery puke on mobo - refer to pics Lots of blue deposit - looks like copper precipitate to me Did some casual (read: I'm lazy!) swabbing with isopropyl alcohol on the bigger spots of deposits - it now boots every time and the floppy is also working perfectly! (Will do a more through rinse on the affected area of the board at a later date) Is now a Happy Mac 🙂
Posted by: Byrd on 2011-06-08 22:43:34 (what's the point of putting a G3 in everything?) Erm because is makes many older Macs run like greased lightning? And the G3 runs cool, it's compatible ... etc. Nice old II you have there, perhaps with a bit of TLC/cleaning it might fire up again.
Posted by: theos911 on 2011-06-09 03:09:12 (what's the point of putting a G3 in everything?) Depends: Some people feel that replacing a CPU takes away from it still being an old mac. I usually do RAM and HDD but leave the cpu alone. (And also b/c accelerators are expensive) Keep in mind that at some point these machines were actually in use and not part of a collection. In '92(Though this upgrade came later) it was actually cheaper to upgrade/repair your machine than to replace it. **(Unlike nowadays, where rather than fixing something they send you a new one) There are indeed a few exceptions: I would love to have a g3 in my duo if it ever becomes possible. Or, even a L2 cache for that matter...
Posted by: highlandcattle on 2011-06-09 03:55:05 Ship that g3 to me ,if you don't want it }🙂
Posted by: classic on 2011-06-09 07:00:43 Sonnet Crescendo G3/300 in cache slot - removed Your saying you have the original cache card installed? Or is it cacheless? I can see your 6400 is running 7.6.1 As far as I know, the L2 G3 processor is one of the few that can run that version of the Mac OS. My vote: Re-install.
Posted by: Gil on 2011-06-09 09:25:23 Off topic: how did you get a desktop picture on 7.6? I thought that capability didn't arrive until OS 8.
Posted by: protocol7 on 2011-06-09 09:40:20 Off topic: how did you get a desktop picture on 7.6? I thought that capability didn't arrive until OS 8. Maybe Décor.
Posted by: LC_575 on 2011-06-09 13:29:44 I have one of those 6400's myself. Nice Mac, arguably better than the 6500. Mb will probably be fine after giving it a good cleaning to get rid of the battery deposits. A dishwasher run may be a good idea too. The FDD in my 6400 is a bit worn too - it struggles to eject disks. I'm thinking that the drives in these cases may get rather dusty for some reason, and need cleaning more often than other macs. This problem may also go away after cleaning. AFAIK you need at least OS 8.0 to run a G3, so keep that Sonnet card out for now.
Posted by: protocol7 on 2011-06-09 13:33:04 AFAIK you need at least OS 8.0 to run a G3, so keep that Sonnet card out for now. Depends on the cache enabling software you use. I had my G3 card running fine in 7.5.3 with XLR8 MACh Speed Control.
Posted by: kite210 on 2011-06-09 14:48:04 I run my 8500 just fine with a Sonnet Crescendo G3 @ 300mhz, with System 7.5.5, although I use 9.2.2 as the main OS.
Posted by: littlecloud92 on 2011-06-11 01:08:25 Update on the Mac II! Since a picture supposedly speaks a thousand words, I'll let these 3 pictures save me from having to type up a 3000-word post 🙂 IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!! Contents of the disk.The 5 folders/files at the bottom of the disk's window were put in by me, the others were what was already there. Anyone played any of those games? I should really check for resident viruses glares at nVIR* before launching and checking out apps!!*
Posted by: Theretrogamingroom on 2011-06-11 06:12:10 How did you get it to work? I can see that you got an Apple Monitor. Was the display adapter the issue? Or was it something else?
Posted by: littlecloud92 on 2011-06-11 08:13:13 It was the video card being an ass. It's too ancient to know about VGA and LCD, and thus proclaims its ignorance by showing attitude. :disapprove: As techfury90 said, something about the monitor sense pins in the db15-vga dongle not being to the video card's liking.
Posted by: Cory5412 on 2011-06-11 09:54:05 If it checks out clean of viruses and can run any of those programs, Crystal Quest used to be one of my favorite games on the old Macs when I was but a wee fifth grader, or whatever. Good work getting it cleaned up and finding the right display for that video card. Old Macs are sort of funny like that. There are a few VGA adapters you can kind of force to work, they're the ones with all sorts of selectors that basically create the correct sense pins for you, at which point you do sort of just have to hope your monitor can see whatever signal the Mac is then going to choose to output.
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