Well, I have certainly got a lot of feedback to my article,
It Doesn't Get Any Worse. I received much
more than I figured I would, which is wonderful. I love reading
these stories, and here they are for you to read. I have chosen to
leave the names out, since some readers specifically requested
this, and I thought it best if I remain consistent and not mention
any names.
Anyway, here are the stories. These are all great stories, and
thank you to all who contributed them.
One reader writes:
I'm a senior graduate student in a science lab and I've become
the lab "computer guru" over the years. I've been owning, fixing,
and using computers ever since the days of the Commodore PET and
the Apple II, so I have a decent amount of experience in working
with computer internals.
When I joined the lab here, I inherited the upkeep of a number
of Power Macs and a few Win boxes. Over the years, I've done a lot
of upgrading and repair without incident - with one exception. I
didn't think anything of it when my boss wanted some more RAM in
his Power Mac 9500, so I merrily
ordered the chips and went to his office when they arrived. Heck, I
had installed memory in nearly every Mac model made. The 9500
couldn't be that bad, right?
How wrong I was.
Getting at the RAM sockets in the 9500 took me a good while and
quite a bit of grumbling/cursing. For those who haven't had the
pleasure, you nearly have to take the entire machine apart. I
installed the new memory, and at this point my boss came back to
his office, impatient that he couldn't use his computer yet. So I
tried to get the computer back together fairly quickly with him
watching over my shoulder.
Startup chime. Good. No video or hard drive activity after that.
BAD! That horrible sinking feeling hit me, and I started to take
the machine apart again to try and remove the new RAM.
Unfortunately, that didn't solve the problem. I was frazzled, and
my boss watching the whole ordeal was livid. He ended up telling me
to leave it alone, and before I could look at it the next day, he
took it to a repair shop where they couldn't make heads or tails of
it and ordered a motherboard swap. It's been a few years since this
unhappy incident, and I've done a lot of completely successful
hardware work since, but I still haven't lived-down the 9500
ordeal.
Happily, the motherboard swap worked for whatever reason, and
the 9500 is still plugging away in our lab now with a G3/400 in it.
My hunch is that I didn't get everything reseated 100% correctly in
my haste (alignment was a bear) or that one of the gazillion
questionably designed metal shielding tabs shorted something. I
never found out what happened, although I did install the G3
upgrade in the beast and pondered about a design where a CPU is
infinitely easier to get to and replace than RAM.
- And I've gotta say, that's why I still only have 24 MB of RAM
in my 8100.
Another reader writes:
I am Mac technician, though I am new to getting paid to be a Mac
techie, I have always been a Mac user. Sometimes you can get in
trouble if you think you know what you're doing, but don't check
first.
Luckily I have many old and new Macs at home to play with, so I
don't break the ones at work. :)
My funniest gaffe is trying to put the PDS ethernet card in my
Performa 5200. I figured it'd be
easy put it in, not knowing anything about this machine or its
specs. I looked online and could not find a take-apart for it, so I
just hacked at it. I stayed up all night taking apart everything -
every screw, getting the front off, everything to the metal cage
which is under the plastic case. I finally went to bed no closer to
the motherboard than I was hours before.
The next day at work, my boss laughed and said you just pull
this little handle and the motherboard slips out. He showed me on a
Performa 5300 and holy crap! I
laughed.
In my defense, my intro to Mac techie stuff came with my
b/w G3. If everything would be that
easy....
I install a lot of RAM at work, and when it came time to install
RAM in my own office iMac (rev.
A) it took hours. Taking it all apart, figuring out where the
RAM goes - what a pain. The new iMacs are so easy! Once you do a
few Rev. A it's no problem, but at first, it's crazy how many
pieces you need to take apart.
- The 5200 series is easier than it looks to take apart. However,
nothing beats the new iMacs and the blue G3 and G4 tower for ease
of installing RAM.
A reader in Oslo, Norway sent me this story about their Mac
Portable.
Here is a story about upgrading an old Portable. It is only the first chapter.
And it is not really about grading it up, it is rather a salvage
project. But I didn't know then. I put up an ad in the
"MacBørsen": Macintosh Portable wanted.
I don't know exactly why I wanted a Portable, but it started
when I spotted one briefly some twelve years ago, I think, in the
corner of some office at a news interview, a scientist, a prize
writer, or was it a prop in some film, I don't know, but it does
have something of Dart Wader's suitcase over it, were it only
black, not white, could be a streamlined sewing machine. Folded
down with the shopping-basket carrying handle it does not reveal it
is a portable computer. On the desk, LCD screen folded up,
revealing the typewriter style QWERTY keyboard, it says business
and science and perhaps a diagnostic tool for a space shuttle. I
just needed to have one. I have other Macs. I have a PowerBook 170 in perfect geriatric trim. I
have a Power Mac or two. But I wanted a Portable to write on.
So, finally, I got an email from some guy somewhere far away, he
had one I could get cheap on the condition I picked it up. Sending
it was too expensive. (It is heavy, everybody knows.) But it was
500 kilometers away. So I replied, and offered to pay the postage
in addition to 300 kroner. Postage was about 200kr. It was too much
altogether (more than $50) but then again, I wanted it. And I knew
it was not working, but otherwise in mint condition. And so it was.
I picked it up at the post office, prepaid (it is all about trust
in that price range), but not more than I could survive happily to
loose.
So, first thing (opening the box was no less exciting than with
a new machine), I connected the power supply from my PowerBook, I
pressed one key on the keyboard, and the thing came to life, I
thought, with a glimpse of something and a chime, and strange
sqeaming noises. The glimpse was not of a happy Mac but a sad one,
and my world fell a little bit to pieces I think. I have handled
disk-icons, flashing question marks, and freezes and crashes and
bombs galore, but this was sad. Then it all muted and faded
out.
I bought a new battery. I call it a Kawasaki motorcycle battery,
though it is not. But it is a similar, yet slightly smaller
lead-acid sealed battery that fit in the compartment with some
wires, and it was willing to provide power. I started and restarted
the thing, holding down keys in all the combinations from the book,
and a dozen others. Nothing nada njet, other than the sad Mac, the
grueling chime and error codes that was not to be found anywhere in
the world. It was not only dead, it was trying to communicate me
something fro another dimension.
I turned it of. I was sad. Just as sad as the sad Mac. An
invention to make the unhappy mac'er even unhappier? What cruel
constructor!
I downloaded instruction manuals and repair handbooks from the
global community. It gave bleak pleasure now. I tried everything,
connected an external disk station, disconnected the hard disk,
made special little startup-disks tailored for the Portable in
System 7. But no. I had the feeling I was trying CPR on a comatose.
I did in vitro autopsy on the thing, disassembled every part after
the manual, and surprisingly, it consists of no more parts than any
entry-level Fisher-Price toy, and it all snapped back on together
in a few seconds, no screws or anything. Cool, I thought. But then,
sad Mac and the outlandish chime again. Repair manual says "Replace
logic board". That's like saying to the mother of a sick child,
"Get another one".
So I have now put up a request for a new Portable-brain, with a
small town dealer on the west coast, another 500 kilometers away. A
new logic board together with an original carrying case, some
replacement ram, an original power supply, and some decade-old
pro-writers software. It was on their list. The software, that is.
I have not heard anything for two weeks now. They haven't answered
my last email with the request for a logic board.
Busy pushing new titanium-books, I guess.
To be continued....
- The Mac Portable is probably the fussiest Mac ever made. I have
yet to see one that boots to the desktop. Sometimes they work with
the PowerBook 100 series AC adapter, sometimes they want an
original battery and power adapter, sometimes they just don't work
at all.
Here is a story about replacing the video circuitry in an all in
one:
How about...
Replaced Analog/video board in a 5400/5500.
Neglected to attach anode cap to CRT. Powered up computer. Made
very loud not so good snapping sound. Very bad indeed."
- When replacing the analogue board in a 5000 series all in one,
make sure you attach the anode cap.
I also got some great advice for those who are thinking about
installing RAM in a Rev A or B iMacÖ
There's a useful trick to this. Assuming that the iMac is face
down when you're putting that logic board back in, reach down under
where the CD-ROM tray is supposed to be coming out. Wiggle the
front of the tray around a little while you're putting the logic
board in place and viola! there you have it. The front cover of the
CD-ROM drive tends to get hung up when you're putting the unit back
in.
Those old iMacs are still easier to get into that the old
PM 8100/Quadra boxes. I
still can't get those things back together. :-)
- I will be sure to try this when I next upgrade my mom's
iMac.
Another reader emailed me with several stories:
We used a Quadra 605 for the
family computer until 1998, when my mom purchased a Compaq (I call
them Comcraps, but that's just me). She gave me the 605, but the
monitor fizzled (it was an Apple Color Plus Display, a model that I
particularly like, I even got another and put it on my 8100 last
year). I replaced it with a spare PC monitor we had (the PC was a
broken 486 so it wasn't getting much use out of the monitor). It
required this monitor adapter that stuck out two inches from the
back. Well it worked okay for a while. The quality of the VGA was
pretty bad and there was this soft blur to everything that got on
my nerves. Well, one time I was setting my computer up after taking
it on a trip and I plugged in the monitor and adapter etc. and
turned the computer around. When I turned it around the monitor
adapter and the end of the monitor cable stuck out about four
inches and it hit the wall. I had turned it around fast enough to
bust the motherboard. Very aggravating. I knew that the motherboard
was busted but my mom wanted to go take it into CompUSA and get it
checked out. They charged $99 to tell my mom the motherboard was
broken. Then they told her it would cost $200 to repair. Needless
to say we didn't repair it considering a 605 cost about $149 from
certain retailers at the time.
The next horror story was when I was installing a G3 upgrade in
my little brothers 6115CD. The damn thing didn't fit. I thought I
was going crazy when I looked at the instruction manual and it
showed that the processor and heat sink were on the same side as
the PDS pass through. But the card I purchased had the processor
and heat sink on the opposite side. I took it back to the dealer I
purchased it from and had him try his hand at installing it. He ran
into the same problem. Apparently this was an older model that
didn't work and wasn't supposed to work in the 6100 series. We sent
it back to Sonnet and I have yet to hear from my dealer about the
replacement. As a matter of fact, I was planning on getting it
refunded today because I'm fed up with their inability to get
anything done. So much for that upgrade...
The next story that isn't really horrible is my Quadra 700 I
purchased online with 20 MB of RAM and a 350 MB HD for $27
including shipping. Well I got it and set it up, there was just one
little problem, this used to be a computer used on a university
network so it was littered with all kinds of crap. It had OS 8.1,
but most of the system was picked clean and there were gobs of
AppleScripts which did very bizarre things that I couldn't quite
figure out. I would have just reinitialized the HD and started from
scratch but I couldn't find my 7.1 floppies. I had to copy
AppleTalk files from my LC II to floppies and then install it on my
700. I then networked it to the LC II and copied some files over. I
then had the brilliant idea of networking it to my little brother's
6115CD and installing OS 8 from his CD-ROM drive. Does that sound
overly complicated? I think so.
My last horror story is my favorite one. This isn't really a Mac
story, but I think it's something that anyone would appreciate. My
grandfather had given us a 486DX4-100 MHz PC in '96. It was okay.
It was the first computer I owned with a CD-ROM drive and it was
much faster than my Quadra 605. I loathed the interface and the
overall design of it. There was one upgrade option though and that
was the 586 upgrade from Evergreen Technologies. We purchased it
after we asked the brilliant (sarcasm) clerk if it would work with
our system. I went home and installed it. I started up the PC and
nothing happened, just this beeping from the PC speaker. Uh-oh. I
put the original 486 back and restarted only to hear the same sound
and nothing on the display. That's when I professed my extreme
dislike with some "colorful metaphors". I called up Evergreen
Technologies Technical Support and asked them what was going on.
After talking with them for three hours he finally asked me to read
him the model of my motherboard. I did. He said that the
motherboard was incompatible and that Evergreen claimed no
responsibility as stated on some scrap of paper. We were a teensy
bit peeved. We went back to Circuit City and they refused to repair
it but they did refund the upgrade. Aren't they wonderful people?
Now the PC sits next to the couch in my room, it's a really big
tower with six 5 inch drive bays and two three inch drive bays. I
think it makes a nice stand. I might use the case to install a Mac
motherboard because I've heard of ATX conversions but I'm not quite
ready to mess with that now without someone to actually help me do
it."
Another reader writes with his story about installing RAM in two
older Macs:
"RAMMIT! ======= From the files of "A little knowledge is a
dangerous (or just potentially annoying) thing":
I remembered reading somewhere that some Macs could accept RAM
in nonstandard configurations. After I'd slept awhile that
translated, approximately, to Postulate 01. "Any Mac will be happy
with any kind of RAM."
So when my Color Classic ("Cee-Cee", for a girl after whom I
secretly lusted in high school) balked at a 4 MB SIMM
(installed singly or with a 1 MB SIMM) it was, naturally, the
SIMM's fault. After all, Cee-Cee worked fine with a pair of
1 MB SIMMs in her twin slots.
Later it occurred to me that an even number of RAM chips were on
the motherboards and SIMMs of other Macs. This led to Postulate 02.
"Macs don't like odd numbers of RAM chips." The 4 MB SIMM I'd
tried in Cee-Cee had nine chips and therefore was unacceptable.
Umm...what about those 3-chip 1 MB SIMMs that worked fine
in Cee-Cee? Shuddup. I hadn't postulated that far yet.
Well, when I acquired a Quadra 610 and popped the top to
discover that only one of the two RAM slots was filled - yet the
610 worked perfectly - I was forced to reconsider Postulates 1 and
2.
After rereading the requirements for the Color Classic (and
pestering Adam via e-mail) and for the Quadra 610 I finally got it.
Cee-Cee wants a matched pair of SIMMs. The Quadra 610 doesn't much
care: one 4 MB SIMM; one 32 MB SIMM; a pair of 4 MB
SIMMs; a pair of 16 MB SIMMs; a 4 MB and a 32 MB SIMM paired
up - it was all gravy to the 610.
This led to Postulate 03. "Some Macs are like cats and some are
like dogs."
In finicky fashion Cee-Cee now wears a matched pair of nine-chip
4 MB SIMMs to complement her built-in 4 MB, tho' she
disdains the last 2 MB, as do several other catlike Macs.
Meanwhile my as-yet unnamed Quadra 610, like my scruffy terrier
Scraps, gratefully scarfs up whatever I give it. Currently that's a
32 MB and a 4 MB 72-pin SIMM, since I happened to have one of
each."
Sometimes installing RAM in different Mac models can get
confusing. As this reader has mentioned, the Colour Classic does
need paired SIMMs, while the Centris and Quadra 610 don't.
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