No. Just turn it on. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org

IMHO there's little risk of danger to you (or to people around you), there may be a risk to the machine. And whether you need 'local help' depends on your geenral level of hardware knowledge. The main risk to the machine is that if there's a fault in the power supply that causes the 5V line to go through the roof, then it will ruin every integrated circuit in the machine. Therefore, IMHO good practice for powering up an old computer involves : 1) A vidual inspection. Check for things that are likely to short, burnt compoentns, leaking capacitors, that sort of thing. At this point you can make a note of what boards you have, DIP switch settings, etc 2) RUn the power supply on a dummy load (car bulbs, 6V and 12V, are useful for this). Make sure all the output voltages are correct. A new bulb is a lot cheaper than a complete set of ICs for _any_ computer!. To be honest, if you can't understand how to do this (with one of us talking you through the connections between the PSU and backplane, say), you are going to have real problems if you ever have a logic fault or internal PSU fault in your machines. Others here may claim that MVIIs are common and that it's not necessary to do this. Well, firstly, there are not still being made, so however common they are there will be no more, and it is therefore foolish to take unnecessary risks. And secondly, you should get into the right habits from the start. One day you might have the chance to work on something really rare, and if 'test the PSU on dummy load' is second-nature to you at that point, you'll not risk that machine. One comment from a book on repairs (actually to classic cameras, but the point applies) that I have is something like 'Do not say " This one is common/ruined anyway, it doesn't matter what I do". You must not get into bad habits' One final point. On switch-mode power supplies (which the MVII uses), it is a bad idea to run them up slowly on a variac. It can actually do damage. -tony