I just ordered my first Quadra are there any things I should look out for or any maintenance items.? What kinds of upgrades, games, operating systems, or setups do you guys recommend?
Just ordered a Quadra 950, any known caveats or advice?
- Thread starter jajan547
- Start date
The logic board of the Q950 is usually pretty safe. No surface mount electrolytic caps, so no recapping needed there. I have heard the the power supplies are prone to issues, so you may need to investigate recapping the power supply at some time in the future. For now though, I'd say that it will probably just fire up and run beautifully as is (mine certainly did).
Please post photos when you get it!
Please post photos when you get it!
I surely will, I need to track down the Hard Drive cover bracket, that's about it.
Well it arrived all in mainly one piece except the side panel seems to have suffered broken tabs, anyone know where I can find a spare side panel?
So my Quadra 950 arrived yellowed and missing the blanked out bezel. This I thought was my only issue but it later appeared that the clips and screw post on the original side panel had been broken off with a mix of shipping and age related damage. This bothered me greatly, the yellowing I knew I could fix (and while the end result below isn't perfect, I'm happy with it) but the missing bezel and damaged side panel I knew would be difficult. Thanks to @360alaska I was able to modify his existing CD-ROM bezel to make a sort of blanked out bezel with strange protruding rectangles. This was later fixed with my updated revision which is flush and posted here as well as the first revision in the 3D printing section and I've also included @360alaska's original models as well for convenience sake. Eventually through a seller somehow within four hours of me I was able to track down a new side panel and blank bezel, they weren't cheap but I figured this machine deserved to be pretty again. I then removed most of the yellowing, popped in the panels, and well the rest is history. Out of curiosity I reached out to the the seller I bought this Quadra 950 from and asked him some history about it if he knew about it, and to say the least it's been through some environments and paths (I've included a screenshot of what he told me about it below as well). Pictures are below and the machine works great.
Attachments
I have some parts of Quadra 950. Show me a picture what you need and I can look for it
Don't suppose that floppy bezel is still available is it? I have a Q950 and i'm lacking that, the PSU bracket and floppy drive.
The guy I bought parts from hasn’t posted them yet PM me and I can send you his contact information so you can snag it. He has literally all parts.
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Fans in the PSU are notoriously noisy and the key switch is of very poor quality. Be careful with the switch and I highly recommend replacing the fan. Cable routing in these blows. Careful of the plastic tabs on the cover as with any vintage Mac.
These machines support NuBus standby power, even with the key switch in the off position the system is still powered. Make sure to unplug and discharge the PSU before you mess with anything inside the machine, otherwise there's a reasonable chance you damage it.
Of course, there's also the usual barrel battery inside which is prone to leakage, and the same issues with weak RAM slots that many other Macs face, although these typically have metal fingers as opposed to plastic.
There are two SCSI controllers and three SCSI connectors, two internal. EVERY device must have a unique ID, even external devices and both internal busses all share the same IDs under Mac OS 7 & 8. I am not sure if A/UX fixes this or if Mac OS 9 on the PPC 601 board makes any difference.
The PSU connector looks a lot like ATX but it absolutely is NOT. Do not be tempted to try it, you're probably going to do a bunch of damage.
These machines support NuBus standby power, even with the key switch in the off position the system is still powered. Make sure to unplug and discharge the PSU before you mess with anything inside the machine, otherwise there's a reasonable chance you damage it.
Of course, there's also the usual barrel battery inside which is prone to leakage, and the same issues with weak RAM slots that many other Macs face, although these typically have metal fingers as opposed to plastic.
There are two SCSI controllers and three SCSI connectors, two internal. EVERY device must have a unique ID, even external devices and both internal busses all share the same IDs under Mac OS 7 & 8. I am not sure if A/UX fixes this or if Mac OS 9 on the PPC 601 board makes any difference.
The PSU connector looks a lot like ATX but it absolutely is NOT. Do not be tempted to try it, you're probably going to do a bunch of damage.
Wondering where you found one, and if I can ask how much you paid for it. The ones on ebay are getting way too high for me to afford.
In total I got mine missing an expansion cover and a broken side panel for $500, finding a new side panel and expansion cover was another $150. In total after shipping and everything I’d say $650-$1000 is the range you’d probably be looking at. If you really want to track one down for cheap look at Buyee.com they occasionally pop up and shipped I’d say from Japan is around $350 tops. Or if you find a battery bombed one I have a sealed replacement Quadra 900 board (basically the same thing slightly lower clock speed) I would be fine working out a deal for.
I do not know how I missed this but anyway did you got the parts or still need something for Q950?
I went on a road trip recently to go get mine. $300 from a member of another forum, and I bought some other goodies for it as well. Shipping is insane on these machines.
System works fine, but came with no keyboard/mouse/cables and the side panel is slightly broken. Front is pretty yellowed but otherwise clean.
On eBay, if you watch around a LOT and act fast and have 8 of your fingers crossed and sit cross legged for a week you might get lucky enough to find one for around $400 + shipping. The last two non-working machines I saw sold for $290 and $457 respectively. A tested working machine sold for $700, and there's a gentleman with a collection of several who is basically extorting $1200+ after tax and shipping for some pre-built machines in a decent configuration. Accessories not included in any, of course.
Looks like I allready donated parts … so the floppy drive and psu what is leftI still need all the parts i listed originally
