840quadra's Performa 575 and 840AV back from the basement

[840quadra]

Been a LONG time since I posted in this area, but my recent work within my home has caused me to move some of these machines a few times, and had me asking "Will they Boot?"

Thankfully the short answer is yes.

840av
Before I booted this machine up I decided to pull the logic board that has never been recapped since I purchased it in the mid 90s. Visual inspection looked good, so I put everything back and booted it up.

After an initial chime, I saw no progress, but letting it sit for a minute or 2 revealed that my primary SCSI drive had failed, the system switched to my 2nd drive with a base install of OS 8.0. Man it was nice to see that desktop and see this machine up again!

Next steps.
- I have put in an order for replacement capacitors for this system
- I am working to locate (in my house) more RAM to max this out as I believe an installed module I have has failed.


Performa 575
Same as with the Quadra, I decided to pull the logic board and do a visual inspection on the capacitors. No leaks found, I decided to go through the process of booting. With that, I thought I had a huge paper weight. I would power on the unit, but was not able to boot the system at all as the system wasn't responding to my keyboard. On a hunch.

I pulled the logic board and cleaned contacts to the board, cleaned - re-seated memory and re-installed.

No luck!!

Thankfully for me, I decided to test another keyboard and BAM, the system booted!

Next Steps.
- Watching 68k sites, I decided to try to up the memory to 128+mb of RAM, or, switch down to 64+mb of RAM if the modules I ordered don't work.

- I have also located and plan to install a 68040 (Note no LC) processor so I can add an FPU and more speed.

- Capacitors on order for this system too!


Conclusion
Been fun to boot / play around in my 68K mac computers. I have some work for the Quadra to do once I re-cap it as I use the DSP in this system to digitize LP albums and old tapes!

 

[velocityg4]

Those are cool systems. The 840AV is my favorite. Never got one though. They're way too expensive now. Wish I bit the bullet and bought one in the mid 00s when they were super cheap. Oh well.

How's the plastic holding up on them. Especially the 575. As that case is known to get super brittle. Be careful taking it apart. Since they're known to just fall apart on disassembly.

Are you going to put a SCSI2SD drive in either of them?

 

[840quadra]

Took a couple hours, but replaced all the capacitors on my 840av. A couple of REALLY tight spaces where I was worried I wouldn't be able to fit the larger Tantalum capacitors, but had to slow myself down and work some unique angles to make it work.

Biggest oops of the entire project was melting the plastic cradle that supports the logic board inside the case. I got a bit too close with the rework heat gun.

Super fortunate that it went well, and device booted first time!

Those are cool systems. The 840AV is my favorite. Never got one though. They're way too expensive now. Wish I bit the bullet and bought one in the mid 00s when they were super cheap. Oh well.

How's the plastic holding up on them. Especially the 575. As that case is known to get super brittle. Be careful taking it apart. Since they're known to just fall apart on disassembly.

Are you going to put a SCSI2SD drive in either of them?

I picked mine up back in 1998 or 1999 and have had it since! It was effectively my first Mac that I purchased, despite having a family PowerPC at the time.

Nice to have the recap task done, I no longer have to worry (hopefully) about board damage due to things corroding.