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Apple IIe Macintosh card now won't access the external 5.25 floppy

dmemphis

dmemphis

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2014
Messages
262
Location
Pottstown, PA
I pulled my LCII with a IIe card of the shelf and powered it up.
It acted erratically and I knew what that meant, recap time.
Actually long overdue, I should not have let it get to this point.
It used to work great.

Now after the recap, and the LCII working good again, I'm finding that the IIe card will not
access the external floppy. "Cannot boot from.." message issued on the IIe
screen.

Seems like this person had the same thing:
http://www.applefritter.com/?q=content/apple-ii-floppy-disk-issues-pulling-my-hair-out

If anyone really knows this card, or someone with access to schematics, can
tell me if the card has some buffers between the ASIC and the connector that
might be changeable? The card seems to otherwise work fine so I'm suspecting
its something external to the ASIC.

Thanks!
 
This might be slightly left of field but possibly check your power supply connector (between the logic board and the supply itself).

I have an LC which worked great; I then recapped it and then started having odd problems like spurious reboots and hangs. Turns out one of the contacts inside the PSU to logic board connector had partially disintegrated when I disconnected it for the recapping. It wasn't at all obvious until I started poking around and checking voltages with a multimeter (and hence wiggled the bad pin which triggered an instant reboot). Replaced the pin and it all works fine again.

I'm not sure if the LC series is like IBM PC's where some PSU voltages are only used for very specific tasks (i.e. the -12V line might only be used on the apple IIE card but nothing else). I only thought of it due to the above post.
 
Hi gents, thanks. I didn't tell quite the whole story exactly.
When it was put on the shelf a while back, it was a fully working configuration.
It is the correct model drive for a IIe card. Yes this exact drive used to work with the card.
Plus I have a 2nd identical model that also does not work with the IIe card.
Both drives work on a IIgs.

Further, the IIe card behaves the same in another machine, a recapped LCIII.
The problem seems to follow the card, unless both the LCII and LCIII also have the same offending problem
which is possible but not likely.

This is why I posed the question if there is anything replaceable on the IIe card that might be preventing the card
from working with a drive. The drive light never comes on and never makes a sound when the IIe card should
be booting from it.
 
Thanks for the link!
My failure mode is a bit different than described there.
I get NO drive light or motor. But I suspect the cause is the same, a
blown IWM. I don't think it ever got hot plugged.
The most serious abuse the IIe card saw was the cap failures on the LCII.
But perhaps its impossible for those failures to blow the IWM.
In any case, I think its pretty clear the card is destroyed.
Thanks very much.
 
Yes I did recap the IIe board as a matter of fact. Only two caps there, pretty straightforward.
But, OK, I'll recheck the caps, don't know what to check on "power to the drive" other than trying the boar out again.
 
...final thoughts.... if there is a difference between the internal mac-floppy and the external floppy using via IIe card?
what about using a 3,5" external floppy on the IIe card...perhaps the floppy from the IIgs?
perhaps the floppy-controller on the IIe card is really defective and the internal floppy on the LC does not rely on controller of the IIe card and uses the internal mac-floppy-controller?
 
I am so dumb...the sweeping noise does not come from the power-supply... I copied the ADTpro version from the IIgs and this expects another modem, If I do not use 2.0.2 ADTpro and use 1.2.1 instead there is no high-pitched noise...but the floppy issue is still there and therefore not related to the high-picthed noise.
 
You probably should have opened your own post and not replied to a dead seven year old post from another member if you are hsving an issue.

Regardless the smd caps on the iie card are leaky at this date and need to be replace. And every flat LC i have worked on has leaky caps (very leaky and smelly) that will have to be replaced. Some people (myself included) have noted even after recapping the psu they dont work every time you turn the machine on.
 
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