I Have Some Questions About The iivi, iivx, and 600 Family, Plus My iivi Journey.

jajan547

jajan547

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So to elaborate I had a Macintosh iivi imported from Sweden from a friend. Unfortunately it's faceplate was damaged in shipping but I'd located a 600 faceplate and swapped the iivi logo in it's place. I was still missing the blanked out bezel and thanks to @slomacuser quite recently I was able to locate it (Thank You!). I knew when I got the iivi the system had some weird issues it would power on, LED worked, fan would spin, even soft power worked. However I got no video or audio (yes it has been recapped and so are all the other boards I'll talk about) and yes there was some corrosion but that was easy to fix. After trying and trying I said I'll send this out because I was fed up with it but I still want it saved and brought back to life to make the machine as original as I can. So off to Amiga of Rochester it went and still currently is. In the meantime I figured it'd be worth while to search for a backup just to use it. I located a seller in Germany with two boards for sale and bought both. Upon arrival neither worked and were both in need of a recap, and so I did. Now what do you know same issues as the other board, great. So after going through both and reflowing the EGRET on both two times for each (ridiculous I know) both power on and work, one had some scratchy sound issues but that was sorted with a bit of cleaning. So now I had two working iivi boards (yay!), or so I thought. Turns out these were iivx boards a nice upgrade but not what I wanted. So I reached back out to my friend in Sweden and asked once more if he could locate a iivi board, he did. The board arrived in very nice shape but I recapped it anyway. When I went to power it on it was dead as a door nail. After testing all traces and vias near the EGRET I located a bad via near the "E" in the EGRET silkscreen, this via connected to a trace leading to R40 on the bottom of the board. With a quick bodge it sputtered to life and had no issues at all. Great right? Well once again it wasn't a iivi board, this time it was a Performa 600 board. So once more I reached back out to my friend and asked if he could locate an actual iivi board (now to note all of these boards look alike and it's very difficult to tell them apart). Well turns out he had a friend in the United Kingdom who was able to buy the only iivi board for sale and eventually he'd transferred the board to my friend in Sweden. This board had been recapped with through hole caps with the legs cut short and soldered to the pads. Not pretty but hey it works. I asked my friend if he could test it and sadly it had the exact same issue as the original iivi board; fan spins, LED lights up, soft power works, but no audio or video output. He's currently letting it soak in IPA and will be testing the caps tomorrow to make sure they check out okay. So now on board number five what is it with this family of Macintoshes? Was the iivi short lived because of such issues? Is this a ROM issue and if so how do we know? I've looked through every Service Guide available but when you work your way down to "Replace logic board and retain customer Simms" you get a bit annoyed. I'm not going to give up on this little iivi I know most would be okay with the 600 or iivx board but I want this machine original (well as much as possible). Does anyone have any experience with these elusive little machines or any ideas what could be going wrong? Is this just something about the iivi as the iivx and 600 are repairable it seems? Or is this some chip that's gone bad or a trace issue?

Photo below of my iivi and the various boards I have for it. Currently it has a iivx board in it and two SCSI drives. (CD bezel shown, blank is on the way)

tempImageV4AAhf.jpg

tempImageT8cIPn.jpg
 
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retr01

retr01

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I get it, @jajan547. I believe many of us Tinkerers are in the same boat when we deal with various 20, 30, or even 40-year-old Apple computers that we pull our hair out as we want them to work like a charm.

The thing with old computers is that sometimes we have to accept the reality that because of age, the logic boards may not be as in tip-top shape. Sometimes we overlook something. A chip fails here and there that we do not know. A cap over there and here is not working right even though it looks fine. The timings between the components get off and cause errors. The software throws an exception. We use the wrong version of a program that we do not realize. The list goes on.

Working on those marvelous old Apple II, Macintosh, Amiga, Atari, and others is a journey that we give TLC and look forward to getting restored just like it was back when it was new.

I agree with you, @jajan547, that the service manuals are super annoying. Remember, Apple was in control, and the authorized Apple dealers were on the hook. Dealers had to follow this and that as mandated by Apple or else. Now, 20, 30, and 40 years later, we have a lot more freedom to do crazy things that most Apple dealers back in the day would not dare to. Now, we can view the service manuals as a guide. Ultimately, we have to help each other with much more mundane and technical stuff beyond those. Fortunately, Apple provided very technical books that explain the processes and the nitpicks. We can use those and visualize the methods of how those Apple II and Macintosh computers operated step by step so that when we troubleshoot, we know what to look for and catch the culprits. Schematics are out there, too, for most Apple products.

As for the details of what happened back in the day, such as the IIvi being short-lived, we can look to the many archives of magazines like MacUser, MacWorld, InfoWorld, etc. Even we could tap into various libraries and find information from newspapers, books, etc. Unfortunately, we have to research to find out. Many people who knew have passed on, but piecing together information is still possible.

You got this, @jajan547! Your IIvi can live because you are willing the IIvi to. Don't give up. :)(y)

Cheers!
 
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retr01

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I checked the release and end dates for the IIvi and IIvx. As I gather from madeapple.com, it looks like both of those Macs had short lives. The IIvi was introduced on October 19, 1992, and discontinued four months later on February 10, 1993. Then, the IIvx was released to the market on October 19, 1992, and stopped one year later, on October 21, 1993. :oops:

In the 1990s, Apple was in a mess until Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. They had so many hardware products to deal with, track, and support that their budgets and spending ballooned with insufficient revenue. They confused consumers with so many models of the Mac. I found this cartoon in one of the books from 1999, "Apple Confidential." I think that pretty much spelled out the troubles at Apple back then. :rolleyes::D

Apple_Confidential_1999_front.jpg
Apple_Confidential_1999_cartoon_p132.jpg
 
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jajan547

jajan547

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retr01 said:
I checked the release and end dates for the IIvi and IIvx. As I gather from madeapple.com, it looks like both of those Macs had short lives. The IIvi was introduced on October 19, 1992, and discontinued four months later on February 10, 1993. Then, the IIvx was released to the market on October 19, 1992, and stopped one year later, on October 21, 1993. :oops:

In the 1990s, Apple was in a mess until Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. They had so many hardware products to deal with, track, and support that their budgets and spending ballooned with insufficient revenue. They confused consumers with so many models of the Mac. I found this cartoon in one of the books from 1999, "Apple Confidential." I think that pretty much spelled out the troubles at Apple back then. :rolleyes::D

Click to expand...
HAha yeah they made some machines and decisions that really confused a lot of people. I wish I could figure out the issue with iivi boards because it has to be a common occurrence at this point. I can make ROMs I guess but I should at least get video or sound or something.
 
Mr. Fahrenheit

Mr. Fahrenheit

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I have a IIvi, a IIvx, and a P600. All 3 work just fine.

Perhaps you have a power supply or other issue relating to the case you’re trying these in ?
 
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MacKilRoy

MacKilRoy

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jajan547 said:
Power supply is confirmed working and I know it’s fine. It’s just a weird issue and it seems the iivi are only the ones seriously affected.
Click to expand...
The IIvi logic board is identical to the IIvx and P600. Only difference is cache and the speed of CPU dropped in (and oscillator). Otherwise, 100% identical.
 
retr01

retr01

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jajan547 said:
That was on eBay did you buy it
Click to expand...

LOL! No. I saw it, and I thought I'd share it. Interestingly, some consider the IIvi and IIvx as one of the worst Macs. However, despite its bus being slower than the IIci, some people like it. Those are the last of the Macintosh II family.

Apple was famously clever with advertising. They even groomed the sales folks at authorized Apple dealers to talk smoother than the average car dealer. :ROFLMAO:
 
jajan547

jajan547

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Update friend recapped the board and it won't chime, it powers up to a grey screen every time so definitely life and more progress than the other. Any ideas on the grey screen issues, things to note EGRET was reflowed, caps double checked, VRAM and RAM Simms are installed and known good as well as the PSU? Really hoping this is the one. If anyone knows where to look next please do comment.
 
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