Aftermac's Personal Computer Cache

Broken. Eventually, I was going to pull out a computer that legitimately didn't work. I knew they were there. At least this one is my "spare" Classic II. Still, I can't help but feel bad for it. If I had to make a guess, I would say this Mac is the victim of bad capacitors on the motherboard. Since, this is a spare computer I really don't have anything to lose by washing the motherboard to remove the conductive fluid from the leaking capacitors. As of this writing, I have removed and (my wife) washed and rinsed the motherboard. I am going to let it dry for a while - possibly a couple weeks, to make sure there is no water left to short out the components and cause more damage. I'm not really confident that washing the board will allow the computer to boot, but again I have nothing to lose. Either way, the capacitors need to be replaced. I'm not sure if I'll do this or part out the computer for spare parts for my other Mac's or just put it on the she...

Might as well start with what's out in the open. This Classic II has been sitting on my workbench with its guts exposed for so long, that I don't even remember what I was doing with it when I opened it up in the first place! I'm not even sure if it works... First things first lets give it a visual inspection to see if everything is hooked up. Hmm... the motherboard is partially pulled out, but it looks like all the connections are hooked up... HD, floppy, power supply, battery is installed... A keyboard, mouse, and power cord are already hooked up, so lets see if it works... Lo and behold, it fires right up! Looks like it has a ton of extensions loaded. After the parade of icons finishes and the desktop loads, I opened "About This Macintosh". This particular Classic II has System 7.1 loaded, with 4 MB RAM, and a 40 MB HD - that is practically full! The screen is exceptionally sharp and clear. There is software for sharing DOS files, Microsoft Word 4.0, FileMaker P...