Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Dishwasher results
A couple of weeks ago I put 18 logic boards in the dishwasher (normal wash with detergent, air dry for several days). Before washing, none of them would show a happy mac; most displayed a scrambled or checkerboard video pattern. The results were that 16 improved to show happy Mac: 2 classics with bad sound, 2 SE/30's with bad sound, 8 classic II's with bad sound, and 4 classic II's that seem to be ok! I discarded 1 classic that was still scrambled after the wash. Also, 1 SE/30 turned out to have a bad #1 SIMM socket and will probably be discarded.
My conclusion is that dishwashing is pretty effective at restoring old logic boards that fail, presumably due to leaking capacitors. But it is less effective at restoring the sound circuits that commonly fail. Replacing certain caps is a known fix for the sound problem, particularly on the SE/30. The reason for doing the wash now was to decide if I had enough working classic II Macs to make that model my donation system this spring. The answer is no, so I will be donating SE FDHD units once again.
In other updates, I found the problem with the 6100 at the school: the ethernet dongle had bent pins at the AAUI end. But I put a 500M scsi drive in there, and it seems to have failed, so next visit I will install a different drive. I updated a 6200 in my wife's classroom. Part of the AR update is QuickTime 5 or 6 (I always use 5). But it seems that Zoombinis doesn't like that version of QuickTime. So I will attempt to downgrade the 6100 to QuickTime 4 since Zoombinis is more important to her than AR.
I did go back to RD&S one more time, to help them move. They didn't get a new workshop, just a free but rather lousy storage area. Less than 100 Macs made the move to storage, and more than 100 were destroyed. I'm going to suggest some ideas to them on how they can continue to function from the storage area, but I suspect they will do nothing until they get a new workshop (if ever).
My conclusion is that dishwashing is pretty effective at restoring old logic boards that fail, presumably due to leaking capacitors. But it is less effective at restoring the sound circuits that commonly fail. Replacing certain caps is a known fix for the sound problem, particularly on the SE/30. The reason for doing the wash now was to decide if I had enough working classic II Macs to make that model my donation system this spring. The answer is no, so I will be donating SE FDHD units once again.
In other updates, I found the problem with the 6100 at the school: the ethernet dongle had bent pins at the AAUI end. But I put a 500M scsi drive in there, and it seems to have failed, so next visit I will install a different drive. I updated a 6200 in my wife's classroom. Part of the AR update is QuickTime 5 or 6 (I always use 5). But it seems that Zoombinis doesn't like that version of QuickTime. So I will attempt to downgrade the 6100 to QuickTime 4 since Zoombinis is more important to her than AR.
I did go back to RD&S one more time, to help them move. They didn't get a new workshop, just a free but rather lousy storage area. Less than 100 Macs made the move to storage, and more than 100 were destroyed. I'm going to suggest some ideas to them on how they can continue to function from the storage area, but I suspect they will do nothing until they get a new workshop (if ever).
Saturday, January 10, 2004
End of RD&S?
I went to RD&S yesterday, possibly for the last time. They are not saying what is going on, but it appears they have no new location and are closing down. As many as a hundred Mac CPU's have disappeared, probably to the recycler. Many working monitors and laser printers have been placed on the discard pile. Refurbishing and donation work has pretty much ceased. I rescued 8 printers (mostly ImageWriters) and 6 Macs (mostly compacts).
Between RD&S and the classroom computers at my wife's school, I've neglected the donation computers and they have been piling up. So without RD&S I should have time to resume giving away Mac/printer combinations to students at the school. Eventually I will have to choose between keeping the rental storage unit, or cutting back on the amount of equipment I keep around. But for now I just need to get back into the mode of giving away several Macs a week.
Between RD&S and the classroom computers at my wife's school, I've neglected the donation computers and they have been piling up. So without RD&S I should have time to resume giving away Mac/printer combinations to students at the school. Eventually I will have to choose between keeping the rental storage unit, or cutting back on the amount of equipment I keep around. But for now I just need to get back into the mode of giving away several Macs a week.
Thursday, January 08, 2004
Blogspot pop-ups?
I'm pretty annoyed at blogger/blogspot, as they seem to have decided to put pop-up ads on my blog. The first time a user visits the blog each day, he seems to get a pop up ad. Of course I know how to block pop ups on my own browsers, but I don't want anyone who reads my blog to be subjected to this.
The ads began shortly after I added the tag commenting feature, so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what part of the tag system was triggering the ads. I have concluded the tag system is not at fault, and the popups are coming out of blogger/blogspot.
I might move the blog if this situation persists. Any suggestions about where to put it, please email or post a comment.
The ads began shortly after I added the tag commenting feature, so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what part of the tag system was triggering the ads. I have concluded the tag system is not at fault, and the popups are coming out of blogger/blogspot.
I might move the blog if this situation persists. Any suggestions about where to put it, please email or post a comment.
