Mac IIci startup problems

I think that crowd hangs out on Low End Mac Google Groups.

Very likely the PRAM battery is dead. It's a half-AA size battery, 3.6V. Can still be bought at Radioshack for an arm and a leg, or online for much less at a place such as Mac-sales.com. Same size as in my G4 now. If I recall correctly it's located kind of in the middle center of the computer but you may have to remove some things to get to it. If desperate I could go down to the basement and haul out my old IIci to look.

Should it be the power source you can try a trick a colleague of mine used back in 1991. Connect computer and monitor. Turn on monitor, then turn off, then turn on computer. The monitor capacitor stores a charge that may kick-start the power source.

blarrer,

Start by totally disassembling the unit. It takes less than 2 minutes to totally disassemble those models. Check connections and look for any battery or capacitor leaks.

One of our IIfx motherboards had some corrosion on the board. Cleaned it up and life was good again.

Connections may have deteriorated or something. Start there for now.

Jim

I see that two responses happened at the same time. In addition to the power on, off, on trick, you can do a warm boot. The real problem is that you are not getting a chime. Power tricks work after the chime. Re-seating the RAM helps but if it was RAM alone, you would have heard the death chimes. Those old computers will sometimes quit giving the startup chime and yet still start. Lack of a chime does not mean that the computer is dead. Right now I think you need to verify your power source. Does the IIci power supply work in the IIcx?

My conversations about PRAM batteries has recently involved more recent computers (G series). In those a bad battery can manifest all kinds of undesirable behavior and poor startup. My G4 had a bad battery and wouldn't start. Press button, lights flash, then nothing. Replace battery, started right up. That said, I used a weak (note weak, not dead) battery on a G3 for a year before replacing. The main issue was it would forget about the monitor and I might have to start twice to get the monitor to work.

If that battery is an original battery it is about 20 years old and stone dead. It may not even be conducting electricity anymore and I'm not sure if a break in the circuit will let the computer operate.

You may also need to reset the PRAM which can be corrupted by a weak battery.

[Texas Mac Man's PRAM, battery, PMU tutorial|https://sites.google.com/site/macpram/mac-pram-nvram-cuda-pmu-battery- tutorial]

[Apple's PRAM reset directions|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238]

Message was edited by: Limnos

blarrer,

PRAM batteries can evoke deep emotional responses. If your machine is worth the $10, buy one. On the other hand, I have used a platinum G3 DT for over a decade with a dead battery. I may have even taken it out for a while as a test. The worst I have ever had to do is zap the PRAM when adding a SCSI card last night.

With over three hundred legacy macs and counting, we have long since given up on buying PRAM batteries. A warm boot (or keyboard restart) is all it takes to get past a dead battery if all other components are nominal.

Without redundant parts and machines, you do not have a definitive means of comparing and contrasting what works and does not work. The main difference between the CI and the CX is the onboard video so swap all the other parts you want for testing purposes.

Happy testing,

Jim

It sounds like you have the fairly-common issue with IIci power supplies - see here http://www.shobaffum.com/iici/faq.html (bottom of the page) for some details and a possible workaround to get it started.

My IIci works with no PRAM battery installed so I don't think it's that, it doesn't even seem to need the double-boot trick that some machines do to get them started with a dead battery - OS 7.6.1 seems fine without it, I've been trying to get A/UX installed and working recently but have failed so far, maybe that's a battery issue but that one's another story for another day I guess...

The repair costs will be more than finding a replacement at a recycler. What big city are you near? Last time I asked that question, the person needing help was just a few miles from my daughter. Good excuse to mail my daughter a care package.

I'm greatly considering taking it to the repair shop in town.

An Apple Store? Half of them may not even have learned to talk yet when that computer came out. Honestly, they only deal with stuff less than 4 years old. Certainly getting parts for anything that age will be totally up to you since they won't find it in their standard Apple parts catalog. I went to an Apple Store about getting a fan for my G4. Was told maybe they could find a fan for $60, then add some for labor, total cost about what I paid for the computer used. I went to a re-used computer store with my old fan in hand, the guy took it, lubricated it, gave it back to me along with another for free. I put the original back in and it has worked since.

Nice to hear that there are still some old timers out there willing to help out. We have been to Calgary a couple of times but no trip planned any time soon. If you had a reason to come to Spokane we could fix you up with replacement parts.

Jim