Re: Focus Card Problems

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

"Michael J. Mahon" writes ...
> 
> noone@nowhere.net wrote:
> 
> >I'll add my experience here.  I can't run my focus in slot 7 because it
> >will fail to boot.  At first it will work fine, then for no apparent
> >reason it will stop booting.  I can reformat it and it will again boot
> >when in slot 7, but eventually it will fail to boot.  I use mine in slot
> >5 now with much greater reliability.  It should be noted that I never
> >loose the data, but it stops booting.
> >
> >David\\Julie Wilson wrote:
> >>     I've got a problem with a FocusDrive card. First, I bought one back in
> >> April. Attached a known working drive to it. Stuck it in slot 7 (in a
> >IIgs).
> 
> Hearing about all this intermittency and slot-sensitivity indicates to me
> that there is a serious margin problem with (at least recently produced)
> Focus cards in IIgs's.  Perhaps one or more chips on the Focus card
> are slower now than when the design was created.  Or perhaps the
> design was always marginal, but fast components masked the problem.
> 
> Someone (Tony?) should try to get to the bottom of this.
> 
> -michael
 ....


     It does sound like a Focus hardware problem. Sandy mentioned:

>>
Tony said he boots the cards to add Appleworks GS.  It works on his
unaccelerated machine.
<<

That is not much of a test. With no acceleration, you have no test when
operating with an accelerator. If the machine is not at least moderately loaded
otherwise, you have no good sample of operation in a typical noise environment.

     In any case, there is no good reason the Activity LED should not light
when there is Activity. (Could be a defective LED or a bad solder connection.)

     Something users with glitchy/intermittent Focus drives can try is (with
power OFF) pulling the card and cleaning the card contacts with alcohol.

     It's probably a good idea to examine the solder side of the card under a
magnifier for suspect solder points-- places where the solder looks dull or
globby or the eyelet is not completely filled. Heating these points with a
pencil iron and adding good quality rosin core solder will establish good
connections and may fix problems.

     If a system has an accelerator card and/or is fairly stuffed with Slot
cards, then, fattening power supply leads and adding motherboard power jumpers
to Slots 3 and 7 should eliminate a lot of noise. This could fix some Focus
problems. (See http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/Csa2POWER.html . Also see the "I
Did the IIgs PS Mod" article by Marvin Miller in GS WorldView at
http://www.apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/gswv/index.html .)



Rubywand