Re: disk drive and ram problem

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Toastmaster wrote:
 ....

> remembered why i buried it. For some reason, when i plug in a 5.25 disk
> drive and give the box power, the drive light comes on and the drive
> motor
> spins and spins and spins (and spins some more) if i try to boot a disk
> any-
> way, the drive makes horrible 'chunking' sounds, responds with "UNABLE
> TO
> LOAD PRODOS"
 ....

    The drive may need to have its R/W head cleaned. You can do this
using a Disk Drive Head Cleaner Kit from Radio shack.

    Every once in a while a 5.25 drive will require a speed adjustment.
If your drive case has no access hole, you can remove the case to get to
the speed adjustment screw. Copy II Plus (run from your 3.5" drive) has
a VERIFY--- SPEED option which can be used to set correct speed. Or, you
can use a flourescent light and speed stripes on the drive wheel to get
a pretty good adjustment. 

 
> -it gets worse...
> 
> after breaking into the box in an effort to fix the disk problem, i
> really screwed some-
> thing up. I was mostly checking for shorts and/or cleaning card
> connections, etc. but
> when I reassembled and booted up, the computer locked on the "Apple
> IIgs" screen
> it would not respond to ctrl-reset or anything else. I took out my AE
> ram card (1.5 meg?)
> and it boots fine. Of course now it only has like 128k which is not
> enough to run
> my 3.5" applications. oi. Anyone have any ideas as to why my ram card
> makes things lock up?
> (i never had any problems with it before) it might be worth it to note
> that the IIgs is rom 01
> and there are no other cards except the AE ram card. i really want to
> restore the old apple
> to it's pristine state, i guess it's not as invincible as i thought....
> any help would be _greatly_ appreciated (i have more questions, but...
> :)

     You do not mention removing the motherboard. If you did, two
suspects would be  1. a bent portion of the case shielding contacting
the motherboard where it should not;  and  2. a Speaker lead caught
between the motherboard and some part of the case which is shorting some
motherboard trace.


     Since the problem appears to be with the memory card, one try is to
pry up and re-seat each socketed IC on the card. This should reestablish
good pin contact. If any chips had pins making poor contact, this may
fix the problem. Wipe the card contacts with alcohol.

     When re-installing the card, check the Mem Expansion Slot socket
and remove any dust, shards of metal, etc.. Be sure the card is
correctly oriented and line up the card contacts with socket contacts.


Rubywand