raoulduke
Experienced Member
Hey, I got a pretty good deal on a Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh from the original owner. He told me he'd gotten it a few years after the release when the price came down and he and his wife had used it for at least 5 or 6 years (but maybe as many as 10) - so probably 1999-2005/2009... - and thereafter regularly powered it on roughly every 6-9 months from 2009 until it failed to power on a few weeks ago.
When I got it, it soft-powered on immediately with no problem. I booted into I think OS 7.6 and shut it down. I then soft-powered it on again with no problem. At that point I noticed the screen started to flicker shades of gray (I'm going to have trouble describing the precise problem, but people who have seen this will know what I mean, I think). I played with the connector from the machine to the subwoofer and it seemed to trigger the cycling flickering. But then when I just let it be it also flickered - where sort of columns and rose of gray, or parts of the screen or the whole screen, would randomly become gray or pop back into view and then disappear again.
I've seen this on other machines; and because of the unpredictability both of the effect itself and of the owner saying it would not power on but me having no problem, and the sort of choreography between the cycling of the effect and the booting (like it'll stay still and then when there's a burst of HD activity it'll start again), I'm pretty sure it's a capacitor problem. I'd welcome second opinions on that, though - I have at least one spare 3400c screen in storage, so it would not be difficult to swap out the screen, but I don't think that's the problem.
The bigger issue is that, assuming that's right, or maybe even anyway, assuming I want to recap my TAM... is there a capacitor list anywhere? And do I have any choice but to basically painstakingly take out the motherboard? Does anyone have any tips on that? (I'm 99% sure I'll break parts of the plastic.)
When I got it, it soft-powered on immediately with no problem. I booted into I think OS 7.6 and shut it down. I then soft-powered it on again with no problem. At that point I noticed the screen started to flicker shades of gray (I'm going to have trouble describing the precise problem, but people who have seen this will know what I mean, I think). I played with the connector from the machine to the subwoofer and it seemed to trigger the cycling flickering. But then when I just let it be it also flickered - where sort of columns and rose of gray, or parts of the screen or the whole screen, would randomly become gray or pop back into view and then disappear again.
I've seen this on other machines; and because of the unpredictability both of the effect itself and of the owner saying it would not power on but me having no problem, and the sort of choreography between the cycling of the effect and the booting (like it'll stay still and then when there's a burst of HD activity it'll start again), I'm pretty sure it's a capacitor problem. I'd welcome second opinions on that, though - I have at least one spare 3400c screen in storage, so it would not be difficult to swap out the screen, but I don't think that's the problem.
The bigger issue is that, assuming that's right, or maybe even anyway, assuming I want to recap my TAM... is there a capacitor list anywhere? And do I have any choice but to basically painstakingly take out the motherboard? Does anyone have any tips on that? (I'm 99% sure I'll break parts of the plastic.)