-> Advice needed: Apple ][e trouble...

[dreamer@ods.sol.net]

IR>A friend of mine has a ][e that worked fine until about a week ago.  Now
IR>when she turns it on, she gets a screen full of characters and the drives
IR>won't read any disks and the keyboard is non-responsive.  I suggested she
IR>unplug it and take out all the cards, etc. and reseat everything.  She is
IR>trying that and will get back to me.  I realize my description is
IR>somewhat vague, but do these symptoms indicate anything familiar?  I'll
IR>be happy to collect more data on the problem if anyone wants to help me
IR>give fixing it a shot.  Thanks.

Sounds like the advice you gave is sound.  However, I would suggest that
you tell her to push down on EVERY socketed chip on both the motherboard
and all the cards.  Sometimes, due to heat and such, chips tend to
"climb" out of their sockets, causing trouble.  I run a BBS, and my //e
is going all the time, and every once in a while I have problems like
what you just described.  Doing this fixes things.  Usually it's either
the 80 col. card or the processor, if you want to try those first.
Also, she can do the self-diagnostic by holding down CTRL-OA-CA and
hitting reset.  (It may just be CTRL-CA, but I hold 'em both down to
make sure...heh.)  You'll either get a "System Kernel OK" message, or
some weird message that looks something like (I'm going by memory, so
don't hold me to it) ROM 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.  Do this without the cards.
If you get the "OK" message then you know it's one of the cards.  Oh, do
this test more than once for each configuration.  It's been my
experience that the test doesn't detect a problem 100% of the time.
If you can rule out the motherboard, you can run the test with each
card, one at a time.  Tedious, but it works.  I'm sure that whichever of
the 0s in the error message isn't a 0 (IE: it'll be a 1) indicates where
the problem lies, but I'm unaware of a decoder that tells you where to
look in any manual.  Perhaps someone else has seen it.

Of course, while you're doing all this futzing, be sure the computer is
off and you're grounded, or you'll be VERY unhappy...I HATE it when that
happens!  ;)

Give what you would like to receive,
Glenn
Lord Wilderness

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