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Performa 450 new user

Zare

Zare

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 12, 2015
Messages
375
Location
Croatia
Hey, I couldn't pass the opportunity to get this wonderful pizzabox machine. The previous owner says it's working.
I don't have any Mac experience before PPC, completely going into uncharted territory here.

Power is ok, fan starts, HDD spins up, no further activity, no sound out of the buzzer.

Is there any way to check the board before I can plug keyboard and mouse to it? Cause I have none. Does anyone have a recommendation for DB15 to VGA adapter that's being shipped in Europe? Also what would be some nice and not rare and not expensive keyboard for this machine?

Thanks,
Z
 

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If the machine hasn't been recapped already, you should recap it before powering it on. This includes the caps on the floppy drive and especially the PSU. Almost ALL Macs 2006 and older need to be recapped, but especially anything in the 68k era with SMD capacitors, they all leak and cause severe damage if not caught in time. Look for wet areas on the board around the capacitors, or a yellow tinge. Same with inside of the PSU, the secondary side caps all go bad.

If the machine isn't booting, it's most likely bad caps in the PSU and on the logic board causing it.

The PRAM battery should be removed and thrown away if its dead. If you opt to replace it, make sure you remove the battery if you plan on storing the machine for a long period of time, because they can leak and cause even worse damage than leaking capacitors. The leaked battery goo is also toxic and a significant health hazard. The Performa 450 doesn't need a PRAM battery to boot (some models do), but without it, the settings for the boot drive, clock and various control panel settings won't be kept across power cycles.

If you plan on doing anything with the machine, you'll need to upgrade the RAM. Stock, it comes with 4 MB of onboard memory, which won't get you very far. You also may want to upgrade the video memory with a 265k VRAM SIMM, which will allow you to run higher resolutions or more color at lower resolutions. If you plan on trying to run any software that needs a FPU, you'll need to install a 25 MHz 68882 in the brown socket next to the CPU, making sure to get the orientation right.

As for keyboards, anything will work. The Apple Extended Keyboard is a full sized keyboard with function keys and a numpad. You can also use 3rd party clone keyboards.
 
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GiGaBiTe said:
If the machine isn't booting, it's most likely bad caps in the PSU and on the logic board causing it.

The PRAM battery should be removed and thrown away if its dead. If you opt to replace it,
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Completely wrong, sorry. This machine is special. A recap might be needed, but normally these systems work anyway.

The Performa 450 DOES NOT START without or with an empty PRAM battery. What you describe is exactly what happens in that case. You need to install a new PRAM battery, turn the system on, let it sit for about a minute, turn it off and then back on again. It will start then.

As for a VGA adapter: make sure it's one with dip switches. There are later ones without that are always set to a fixed multysync monitor, which does not work with this Mac. For this one, you must set the adapter to 640x480. Check eBay 390558193126 for example. There should be sellers of that one in Europe, too.

You also may want to upgrade the video memory with a 265k VRAM SIMM, which will allow you to run higher resolutions or more color at lower resolutions.
Click to expand...
Adding 256k VRAM will not give you higher resolutions on the 450. You can run 832x624 in 16-bit color instead of 8-bit then and... that's it. Completely useless, as for applications, 8-bit is fine (and way faster), and for games, you use 640x480 anyway. It would be wasted money, given that VRAM modules are neither plenty or cheap.
 
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Timo W. said:
The Performa 450 DOES NOT START without or with an empty PRAM battery. What you describe is exactly what happens in that case. You need to install a new PRAM battery, turn the system on, let it sit for about a minute, turn it off and then back on again. It will start then.
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I beg to differ, it usually works after a cold reboot (or maybe just a soft one), a bit like the PowerMac 6100.

Zare said:
Is there any way to check the board before I can plug keyboard and mouse to it? Cause I have none. Does anyone have a recommendation for DB15 to VGA adapter that's being shipped in Europe? Also what would be some nice and not rare and not expensive keyboard for this machine?

Thanks,
Z
Click to expand...
I have a spare 10dipswitch adapter somewhere, I'll send you a PM.
 
Timo W. said:
Completely wrong, sorry. This machine is special. A recap might be needed, but normally these systems work anyway.

The Performa 450 DOES NOT START without or with an empty PRAM battery.
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This isn’t correct, it’s the LC 475 family that need a battery. The 450 is based on the LC III, which doesn’t. @GiGaBiTe is right, it needs a recap before further troubleshooting. Recap of the logic board may fix it, or it may be another problem, but there’s no point in troubleshooting with the old caps in there. They’re ALL bad, in all of these now.
The PSU may or may not. It depends on which PSU you have. If it’s a TDK PSU, it 100% needs new caps. The Astec PSU you have may or may not. Verify the voltage rails look good and if they do, you can leave it alone unless it causes a problem.
 
You can construct your own DB-15 to VGA adapter if you're handy with a soldering iron. I did--the monitor resolution is encoded in the adapter itself.
 
3lectr1c said:
Recap of the logic board may fix it, or it may be another problem, but there’s no point in troubleshooting with the old caps in there. They’re ALL bad, in all of these now.
The PSU may or may not. It depends on which PSU you have. If it’s a TDK PSU, it 100% needs new caps. The Astec PSU you have may or may not. Verify the voltage rails look good and if they do, you can leave it alone unless it causes a problem.
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This machine was bought under "working" condition. If it is dead, I'm returning it. I have no intent of recapping anything.

How do you know a Mac like this is working if you dont have keyboard or a mouse?
 
Battery is original and dead and there is no damage below it.
So, will this machine work with a new battery installed? Seems opinions differ here. One thing I don't like is that seller advertised machine as functioning but the battery is dead.
 
If you aren't getting a video signal out, it's dead. It should start from just flipping the power supply switch on the rear, you don't need a keyboard or mouse, these don't have soft power.
It absolutely does NOT need a working PRAM battery to start. I own an LC III which is the exact same computer, and it boots happily with no battery installed.
You can't really blame the seller about the battery being dead, after all, the only thing that would happen to an otherwise working 450 if the battery is dead/missing is that the time and date and some other settings would not save. It being advertised as working but then not booting up on the other hand, yes, that's not good.

Any of these needs a recap though, so if you don't want to do that, I'd just return it.
 
Like I said in 1st post, I do not have a monitor or a keyboard...
Also nothing anywhere appears to be damaged.
 

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If you have no interest in recapping, then old Macs are not for you. Even if the machine is working, the old caps are slowly leaking and eating away at nearby traces and will need to be replaced before it's too late. I buy and repair Mac IIci computers. Even the perfectly working ones immediately get recapped.

Those metal caps in your picture, they are the enemy. You can get recapping kits on eBay for a few bucks.
 
Alright, well, without a video out you can't confirm whether or not it boots. Some of those capacitors are in the audio circuit, so it may be that the computer works but sound is dead, explaining why you don't get a chime. Or the computer just isn't starting, but you can't tell right now.
The only test you can really do until you get a monitor hooked up is to check the output voltages off the PSU.

Those caps don't look like they've leaked yet, but they still will need to be replaced. You'll get at best a few hours of use out of them before they start to actively leak. They're all bad, even if they don't look bad yet.
 
Zare said:
Yeah and there are no pictures of it working...
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Sounds like they just heard the fan come on and the hard drive start and assumed it was on, I hate it when sellers do that.
You can't confirm it's dead or working unless you get video hooked up though.
 
Ok guys please explain to me what's the deal with these capacitors before I decide what to do here.
On none of my 30+ year old PCs I had to do this. What makes these so bad and what makes your opinion so rock solid without even knowing the number of power-on hours of the particular board or PSU?
 
3lectr1c said:
Some of those capacitors are in the audio circuit, so it may be that the computer works but sound is dead, explaining why you don't get a chime.
Click to expand...

Does chime come from internal speaker or just rear?
 
Zare said:
Ok guys please explain to me what's the deal with these capacitors before I decide what to do here.
On none of my 30+ year old PCs I had to do this. What makes these so bad and what makes your opinion so rock solid without even knowing the number of power-on hours of the particular board or PSU?
Click to expand...
Almost no PCs from this era used these type of caps. PCs usually used through hole electrolytic caps, if any at all during this time, but mostly had tantalum caps.
These Macs used surface mount electrolytic caps, and early ones especially have faulty seals that fail prematurely, causing the electrolyte to leak out. This also happens on some through hole caps, but it’s less common. These caps first started failing commonly in the early 2000s, and then newer and newer ones started leaking as the years go on. It’s the general rule now that if it’s pre-1995, it needs to be replaced.
It’s not mainly a function of use, although that may exacerbate it, just one of time. The seals will fail regardless of storage conditions, hours, whatever.
 
Oh, and also, some PCs are affected, but mostly just power supplies. A select few PC desktops, and a whole lot of laptops used the surface mount caps.
Some brands of through hole caps, like certain Nichicons and ELNA capacitors from the same time also leak. It’s just that they didn’t end up on PC motherboards for the most part.
Of course, that changed when the 2000s capacitor plague happened.
 
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