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| What did I do to my Apple IIGS? Pink and green boxes on boot |
Posted by: derFunkenstein on 2025-09-22 07:28:16
I always get so very excited about my latest acquisition, such as my recently acquired Apple IIGS. It was working great, although it only had 768k of RAM and I was booting it off of a Floppy Emu. I thought "hey it'd be cool to get a RAM expansion and a SCSI card" so I bought one of each - a GGLabs RAMGS/8 and a clone of a Cirtek SCSI card that I found on eBay. The RAM went in first because I didn't want to mess with trying to figure out boot at the same time as testing memory. And then I installed the SCSI card with my external BlueSCSI attached and a GS hard drive image I got from the BlueSCSI folks on the SD card.
But I installed the SCSI card backwards in the slot. I didn't immediately recognize this, but on boot it just said "check startup device" and then I looked at the BlueSCSI and the light would flicker on very quickly and then off for a couple seconds. I quickly shut off the machine and flipped the card around the right way, and restarted the IIGS. Now all I get is the photo below.
There's very little online about this exact thing that I can find, but one of the posts suggested it might be the RAM. So I pulled out the GGLabs card and get the same result. Another said it might be the ROM. This is a ROM 1 version.
It won't even boot into the self test when I hold the requisite keys.
So I'm stumped and I'm just beside myself because it's my own stupidity that did it. Anybody have any ideas? Is it possible I killed the ROM chip? Did the memory do something weird? Did inserting the SCSI card backwards murder my logic board?
BTW I also got the GGLabs RGB to YPbPr and ran it into a RetroTINK 2X Pro and my goodness, it looks great. Look at how sharp those artifacts are. 😀 |
Posted by: magnusoffalkirk on 2025-09-22 11:29:02
have you tried pulling the scsi card out to see if that's the problem? Can you getinto the control panel? Other than there isn't much I can suggest. Maybe someone will bd more helpful. |
Posted by: derFunkenstein on 2025-09-22 11:38:52
Hey, sorry, I should have specified. Yes, this happens with no card installed. I pulled the SCSI card when I removed the RAM. I cannot get to the control panel via Ctrl + Open Apple + Escape. |
Posted by: Arbee on 2025-09-22 13:00:28
Does it do the "bonk" sound when you turn it on? From the picture it looks like you probably ruined the motherboard, but if it bonks then it might be fixable at least. |
Posted by: derFunkenstein on 2025-09-22 13:15:40
It does not make the bonk sound at startup.
Well, crap. That's not what I wanted to hear, but it does seem to be my worst fear. |
Posted by: superjer2000 on 2025-09-23 16:37:35
That looks like the screen you get before the computer resets. It's weird that it booted the first time and stayed on but then wouldn't boot the second time. I wonder if the CPU is getting the reset signal to kick things off. Not sure how that looks on the IIgs but if you have a scope I'd start there. |
Posted by: nathall on 2025-09-23 22:35:06
It’s probably dead, but try powering up without any ADB devices (keyboard, mouse, etc) plugged in. |
Posted by: derFunkenstein on 2025-09-25 13:21:15
Unfortunately booting it without ADB or anything else connected (other than video) did not resolve it.
I'm intrigued by superjer2000's suggestion. I don't have a scope but I'd love to find time to learn. If the reset signal comes from booting the ROM, then the post I found indicating a bad ROM chip could be on to something. Maybe I just need to find a replacement ROM? Looks like ROM0 to ROM1 is a straightforward replacement based on this (https://www.tindie.com/products/garrettswrkshp/rom0-to-rom1-upgrade-for-apple-iigs/). |
Posted by: derFunkenstein on 2025-09-27 20:46:28
I found some other posts on a Facebook group where someone did the same thing with an A2Pico and also fried their GS. So I’m not alone but I’m feeling stupid. |
Posted by: nglayton on 2025-09-28 08:27:09
FYI - Don't feel too bad, we have all done something similar. For myself, I killed my childhood //e by trying to hot plug the disk drive controller card. Who knew you had to turn these things off before working on them. In my defense, I thought it was off, but I should have pulled the power cord and like a fool I paid the price.
I assume..... you also tried reseating the CPU and ROM chips? |
Posted by: derFunkenstein on 2025-09-28 10:20:01
Yeah. Both were socketed. Popped them both out and reseated with no change. 🙁
Thanks for checking though, I realize now that I didn’t say it. |
Posted by: derFunkenstein on 2025-09-30 11:44:49
Solution, kinda. I ended up sourcing a new system and I made a "best of both worlds" kind of thing where I took the port covers and best looking case pieces from the old one and transplanted the new one. It works. I'm afraid to put the Cirtech repro back into it. I think I'll just boot off the Floppy Emu for now. 😀
I did get bold/stupid and swapped the ROM (both are ROM 01) and CPU from the new one into the old, and it didn't make a difference. I really effed it up. |
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