Macintosh IIfx Project

[Saint Pablo]

Hey everyone! This is my first post here on these forums. Exciting to see a non-Discord method of interest and hobby sharing in 2026.

Anyways - this is my project for however long it takes me.

I bought this Macintosh IIfx on eBay for ~$400.

Here are a couple of first thoughts:

• Case seems to be in fairly bad shape - multiple cracks + broken clips + the inside metal shroud is rusty af.
• Motherboard luckily seems to be in near perfect condition, with the exception of a few broken component clips for (what I think is) the HDD enclosure.
• There are OBVIOUSLY damaged RAM SIMMs in this machine.

I bought this listing in particular: https://www.ebay.com/itm/407183257267

The description mentioned the hard drive enclosure was loose in the case, which may have caused damage to the components inside. However, from the listing pictures there didn't seem to be any obvious component damage... yet! That changed when it was mailed to me, it seems.

As I said, luckily the board itself didn't seem to take any damage, but I have at least 3 RAM SIMMs that need to be replaced. No obvious capacitor leakage, and also it looks like all batteries have been removed.

I'd love y'all's initial thoughts on this project. Where should I start, and where should I watch to score replacement components? I know the RAM for this particular model tends to be difficult to come across...

Any help/direction/thoughts in general y'all can offer would be greatly appreciated.

 

[eric]

Hopefully get a partial refund for the shipping damage - those RAM sticks are going to be expensive/hard to replace. I'm starting on my own IIfx build as I've finally got all the parts I need to start (I should start a thread too!)

Also, welcome! We have Discord too but you can be on one or the other or both, we don't judge!

 

[Saint Pablo]

Hopefully get a partial refund for the shipping damage - those RAM sticks are going to be expensive/hard to replace. I'm starting on my own IIfx build as I've finally got all the parts I need to start (I should start a thread too!)

Also, welcome! We have Discord too but you can be on one or the other or both, we don't judge!

Please do! I was not alive when this machine came out - and I only recently started using Apple computers maybe 5 years ago. But I have strong interest in computer history and am technically skilled!

Anything you can share - or I can learn from would be most appreciated!