Macintosh IIfx questions

[Brutus75]

Hi Guys,

I recently acquired a Macintosh IIfx in really good shape (no exploding batteries and all the caps are the original tantalums, so no leaky caps). It would not boot at first and smoke suddenly appeared followed by a loud snapping sound. It turned out the the FPU had been put in the wrong way round at some point. A bit of the fpu socket melted and the fpu itself cracked. I managed to pick up another fpu and replaced it. I powered on the IIfx and no smoke but no sounds from the built in speaker and no video. I then plugged in a Mac IIcx speaker I had and heard the sad mac sound. After some research I cleaned the ROM and ROM slot and the RAM and RAM slots and tried again. Success! it gave me a happy Mac sound but suddenly followed by the unhappy Mac sound. I removed the memory from bank B and tried again. It booted from the hard drive! I shut down and swapped the memory around... sad Mac. I put the original memory back in and a happy mac.... added the bank B memory again and a happy mac followed by a sad mac. So it seems I now have a functioning Mac IIfx .... but I have some bad memory and a bad speaker so I have two questions for you guys:
1) where can I get a suitable replacement speaker?
2) where can I get Mac IIfx memory as it seems to be the only Mac that used the 64 pin memory? I can't run much on 4 megs unfortunately.

Thanks for listening

 

[jmacz]

For the speaker, someone had mentioned these which seem to be a direct match for the speakers used in the Mac II. I believe the IIfx is the same. I bought a set and it worked in my II.

6pcs Round Speakers 30 ohm, 0.25 watt, 2.25 inch, Combined Shipping | eBay

30 ohm (30Ω). 0.25 Watt (1/4 Watt). 6 Speakers per order. Photos of my products are provided for initial reference only and may look different on your monitors with different settings.

ebay.us

For the memory, there was someone who made new ones on 68KMLA but I think he finally sold out and not sure if he’s going to ever make more. His username is hyperneogeo.

 

[Brutus75]

Thanks for the info

 

[David Cook]

but I have some bad memory

That's a reasonable conclusion and would not be unusual.

However, I've noticed that the IIfx can be very fiddly with memory slots in its old age. I've taken out and then immediately reinserted the memory sticks a couple of times in order to get them working again. It seems like the slots or SIMMs can warp a little with time and not make firm contact.

A second issue is oxidation or corrosion. Use a magnifying glass or microscope to examine the memory slot contacts to ensure they are clean. In the extreme example below, capacitor juice wicked up the slot contacts and corroded them.

https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/new-tool-to-remove-capacitor-and-rust-corrosion-the-dental-scaler.4820/#post-42010

Again, I think your conclusion is reasonable. But, it is worth examining the slots closely to avoid frustration if replacement SIMMs also don't work.

 

[wottle]

For the speaker, someone had mentioned these which seem to be a direct match for the speakers used in the Mac II. I believe the IIfx is the same. I bought a set and it worked in my II.

6pcs Round Speakers 30 ohm, 0.25 watt, 2.25 inch, Combined Shipping | eBay

30 ohm (30Ω). 0.25 Watt (1/4 Watt). 6 Speakers per order. Photos of my products are provided for initial reference only and may look different on your monitors with different settings.

ebay.us

For the memory, there was someone who made new ones on 68KMLA but I think he finally sold out and not sure if he’s going to ever make more. His username is hyperneogeo.

Man, I wish I had found that before. I had a similar experience with a Mac II (I thought it was completely dead, but it turned out to be a bad speaker so I couldn't hear the boot chime). Also, a bad graphics card meant no video...

If you are OK with a les original option, I created this adapter for a 40mm speaker I was able to get from Amazon: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6408076

I, too, have been looking for IIfx RAM. Unfortunately, the maker of the new ones does not appear to be making any more. I've asked but have not gotten any response on that three.