Re: IIgs repair help

[taob@ionews.io.org (Brian Tao)]

In article <1993Nov12.143419.10176@alw.nih.gov>, Jim Owens writes...
> 
> Right now there is a IIgs with a problem.  It is due to go into a
> Kindergarten classroom in January.  This poor machine will not recognize
> any floppy drive.  Instead, when it is turned on it immediately clicks
> while the light on the box flashes on and off rapidly and the light on
> the floppy drive flashes at maybe half the rate of that on the cpu box.

    If the power LED on the GS (the one located on the right side of the
"lip" of the case) flashes on and off, you definitely have a problem.  I
think Vulcan internal hard drives had a modification where that LED
doubled as a drive access light, but I doubt that GS has a Vulcan.

> A coworker's nephew had a similar thing happen to him and he claims to
> have fixed it by accessing using the Control Panel to reset something in
> the PRAM.  I was instructed to start the IIgs with the Option key down
> to get the Control Panel.  It didn't work, so now I am taking the
> manuals home to see if I can decipher what the nephew meant.  It
> occurred to me that if it is a parameter RAM problem, perhaps the
> battery is dead, but I don't know what happens if that is the case.  Any
> suggestions will be gratefully accepted.

    If the battery is dead, the screen will come up as white text on a
medium blue background and border, and the clock will be reset to 12:00
(you can check in the Control Panel either by holding down the Option
key at startup or hitting Control-Apple-Escape).  The nephew is probably
referring to the "Slots" menu in the Control Panel.  You can pick which
device to startup with using the last option in "Slots".  The 3.5" drive
corresponds to "Slot 5".  THe 5.25" drive is "Slot 6".  Make sure the
floppies are daisy-chained in the right order too.  I think the 3.5's
must be last in the chain.
-- 
Brian Tao:: taob@io.org (Internex Online, 416-363-3783, 27 lines, v.32bis)
::::::::::: 90taobri@wave.scar.utoronto.ca (University of Toronto, 9T4)