Sounds like cap rot. The SMT electrolytic capacitors used in just about anything electronic from the late 80s-mid 90s are at the end of their lifespan. They will leak, causing the machine to malfunction at best and corrode the motherboard at worst. Sometimes you can see or smell the leaky residue (it smells sort of like dead fish), and sometimes you can't. But they WILL fail, causing a variety of completely erratic and unexplainable behavior, from loss of audio to constant crashing.
Lots of old computers and game consoles have this problem. All Macs from the same time period (SE/30, iisi, Luggable and so on) are affected, as well as the AGA Amigas, the Turbo Duo, and the X68000 Compact/X68030/X68030 Compact, just to name a few. You will need to replace every surface-mount electrolytic capacitor on the motherboard and all add-in cards (preferably with tantalum capacitors so you will never have to do this again). It's not the hardest soldering job in the world, but it does take some practice, as well as some electronics knowledge. On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 6:46 AM, Iamanamma <vsand...@neo.rr.com> wrote: > I have to work with vintage Macs on a daily basis, and I've hear the > car crash noise, the breaking glass noise, and the "chimes of doom." > I've never heard the video game-like major chord sound that I heard > today. > > I have IIci that has decided to start behaving badly. When I powered > it on, I got the normal startup chime followed immediately by a four > note major chord. There wasn't even time between the two sounds to > reset the PRAM. > > Anyway, it was so odd, I opened the case and started checking how > everything was seated. When I reseated the cache card, the sound > stopped occurring, but the IIci was still freezing after startup. > Those of you who have read my other post know I have another IIci that > won't start up at all. I swiped the cache card out of it and put it > into my musical and malfunctioning IIci, and now it seems to want to > work properly. > > I was hoping someone who sees this post could tell me if that chime is > the symptom of a bad cache card, or if my "fix" was purely > coincidental. > > -- > ----- > You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group. > The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our > netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml > To post to this group, send email to vintage-macs@googlegroups.com > To leave this group, send email to vintage-macs+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs > > Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/ -- ----- You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to vintage-macs@googlegroups.com To leave this group, send email to vintage-macs+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/
