couple of general se/30 questions

[Johnnya101]

Hello,

I turned on my SE/30 for this first time in months (Never use it...). I have a few general questions to ask other SE/30 owners.

1. There is always a... Sort of a low pitched whining sound? It quiets down and gets loud randomly, kind of ZZZZSSSSHHHhhhhhhhhHhhhhh

Doesn't seem to be related to what's on the screen. It's always had it as long as I've had it. Could it be the fan? I know it's a really stupid question, but I've always wondered if other SE/30s sound like this too?

2. The video will kind of "jitter" once in a while. I'm guessing this is because it's still warming up? I only had it on for a few minutes. The video will just slightly bounce and stabilize. Now that I think of it, the whining described above seems to quiet down a bit when warmed up too.

Again, I know these are kind of dumb questions, I'm just trying to see what other SE/30 owners have experienced.

New caps all around. Logic board, analog board, power supply, as well as new noctua fan. Hard drive on its last legs. I'm guessing what I've seen is normal, just want to see what others have to say.

 

[techknight]

Take a look at the solder joints on your AB, especially the Flyback. and potentially the flyback itself, the way your describing your issues raises red flags in that area. 

 

[Johnnya101]

Will do.

 

[Johnnya101]

Analog board looks perfect solder joint wise. There are two things that stand out to me on it.

1. The fly back looks very... worn. I'm sure that's expected, but figured I'd post a photo.

2. I removed the paper backing, and there is quite a bit of burned carbon or something on the paper. I dont remember how much was there when I had it apart a couple years ago to get new caps.

The solder joints look perfect.

(You can see a bunch of dust build up in the areas where the paper was burned. Potential culprit areas?)

 

[techknight]

That thing has a ton of hours on it, that flyback has seen better days. 

Have you changed the caps in the power supply as well? Also I see a ton of connectors where you did not resolder them. The cracks can be invisible to the naked eye, but they are there. Hit em all up. 

 

[Johnnya101]

Must be tested with time then! lol. There's suprisingly little burn in (for an see/30, you know how bad some have it).

For now, mark this thread as solved

It was that dang hard drive.

That thing must have shot bearings cause it sounded like a jet engine taking off compared to now. Now it's very quiet without the hard drive plugged in. No ZZZZZZSSSSHSHSHHSHSHS or whining anymore.

Must be way past it's due date and the bearings are shot, causing it to put too much strain on the power supply, making it when it tries reading from the disk, the crt to momentarily not get enough juice . No jittering I saw in the few minutes I had it on. Quiet. Just like I remembered my plus (besides the fan, of course). I'll leave it unplugged since it has a rominator installed. Maybe I'll get an scsi2sd for it.

I dont use it much, so hopefully that will "conserve" it's remaining hours, however many that will be.

Edit

Here's a video with a similar sounding hard drive, for anyone interested. If you can imagine it, mine was even louder. Couldn't even hear the head clicking and clacking around.

 

[Franklinstein]

That looks like a Micropolis drive, probably closer to 2.3GB than 23. Those things tend to be loud and run really hot with a huge power draw. They're generally geared toward high-performance A/V applications, not so much a compact Mac. You're probably correct in that its excessive power draw was the cause of a number of your display-related issues.

The most likely reason the armature was stuck is the top case is removed. In this design the top case is integral to the mechanism as it provides both rigidity and proper alignment for the spindle and the armature. The misalignment of the armature's bearing allows the heads to press into the platters, which is basically sanding off the magnetic media. If some of the powder existed before the top case was removed, it's likely that drive had been sitting too long and damaged its heads or had exceeded its rated CSS cycles.

There's really no concern here regarding the platters shattering: they're an aluminium substrate, so you would have to either be doing this in a bath of liquid nitrogen or let the grinding continue for a very long time before anything got to that point. Glass platters didn't start to become common until 1999ish but they're everywhere now, so be careful with modern drives.

If you want an authentic hard drive for your SE/30, a Quantum ProDrive in the 80-250MB range is close to what it shipped with. Flash cards are nice and all, but you lose a lot of the vintage experience if you're not hearing the hard drive clicking away in there. Every model of drive had a different sound, and you don't know the struggle if you're not trying to squeeze your entire life into 80MB.

 

[Johnnya101]

Thanks for the info. I believe you are correct about the heads digging into the platters, as the hard drive has randomly corrupted itself before.

 

[Johnnya101]

Well, guess that wasn't the issue.

The problem is even worse now. There is no sound associated with any of this as it occurs.

It ONLY happens when turning it on for the first few seconds of booting.

The screen zooms in and out a bunch a few times, it kind of jitters a bit and then bounces around and finally stabilizes, with a few heavy scan lines thrown in. After it's stabilized it's fine with no issues . That was the worst I've ever seen it. I'll try and get a video. It might not do it again.

I've never had this issue before... No hard drive plugged in, so no strain on the power supply.

Any ideas?

 

[Johnnya101]

Yup, here's a video. It didn't do the bounce around thingy but you can see the heavy scan lines I talked about. Only for a split second. No sound with it. Again, it's all Recapped, so caps shouldn't be an issue. Never had these issues before...

I was moving around a bit when the "weird" boot happen described above, so I'm sure the zooming in and out was just the video shaking around and not as bad as I made it sound. These monitors really play with your eyes when you're not steadily looking at them!

Edit

After reading about a similar SE/30 issue, they said to shim the rominator... If you don't sometimes it will cause issues. Does this look like that issue? It starts fine though... And it's only when booting.

Edit edit

No issues with boot #3. Had an error when playing a game, but when trying again, no error? Also noticed that the rounded corners of the screen appeared and disappeared when doing different things. An error bomb finally forced me to restart. This was all off the rominator rom image... Maybe there's something wrong with it? Maybe these issues are all related to one thing? Not sure. The crashes seem to just be the rom Image though I'd guess? Here are two videos. Shorter one is of boot #2, longer one is boot #3 and on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/lusoJjLNmIk

View attachment 20181219_165158.mp4

 

[Johnnya101]

Here's a better video. Higher quality and you can actually see the words.

https://youtu.be/FgM4lO-02fk

4th boot 15 minutes later. No issues to speak of... Maybe I'm just imagining things. Who knows.

 

[Johnnya101]

Just checked the ROM. Seems very tight in the socket? This is an early logic board if it matters. I don't know how much it should be wiglging around if it were loose, and again, if it were, iw ould have thought it wouldn't have booted or at least showed signs of being loose before.

 

[techknight]

Well thats just it with failing electronics. When they warm up, the better it gets. 

If you have already recapped the analog board and power supply, then you have a noisy transistor that gets better with heat. 

I couldnt see anything in the video other than a bad case of "vertical video syndrome". I did see the F-line copro crash when you clicked trash. Yikes! unstable voltages can cause this along with corrupted System, etc. 

Get a can of freeze spray (or upside down canned air) and hit some ICs and Transistors on the analog board. Figure out which one is causing this. Chances are, its probably in the power supply more than the AB. 

 

[Johnnya101]

I'm hoping that the ROM image is just bad or corrupted or something, due to the other error I got. I've never had issues before while booting off the hard drive, and this is the first time I've really actually booted to the ROM.

How will I know which one to hit if it gets better once warmed up? It goes away (as you saw) within the first few seconds, and then I'm guessing within the next few hours it will cool down again. But even then, it's only a once in a few chances type thing...

If I were to leave this alone, and it is just an IC or transistor, will the problem get too much worse or is it just an annoyance?

 

[techknight]

It will get worse then fail entirely. 

How do you know which one? Thats the whole point! you hit them one at a time until you find the one that is causing the fault. 

 

[Johnnya101]

Thanks Techknight. I'll ask hopefully just a few more questions. I am reading that I can test them with a multimeter. Is there a way to do so without removing them? How many of them need to be looked over? Is there one area in particular that I should look over that relates to the verticle video syndrome you speak of?

Also, how will freezing anything help if it works fine when warm? Will it make the issue worse to show its that particular one?

 

[SE30_Neal]

Analog board looks perfect solder joint wise. There are two things that stand out to me on it.

1. The fly back looks very... worn. I'm sure that's expected, but figured I'd post a photo.



2. I removed the paper backing, and there is quite a bit of burned carbon or something on the paper. I dont remember how much was there when I had it apart a couple years ago to get new caps.



The solder joints look perfect.



(You can see a bunch of dust build up in the areas where the paper was burned. Potential culprit areas?)

Hi Jonnya101,

I'm intrigued, as what you mention sounds familiar with my se/30. I’m to nervous though to take the analogue board and power supply out :/ . Did it fix any issues and noise.

neal

 

[Johnnya101]

Did what fix any issues and noise? Haven't done anything yet except unplug the hard drive. That helped a lot with the noise. Way too loud with it plugged in.

This problem was found after it was listed for sale, and I've updated the listing. If I were keeping it, I probably would just buy an eBay psu and see if it fixes the issue. That would narrow it down to the power supply. I'm not too skilled electronically (yet). If it didn't have an enclosed psu like the plus or classic I'd delve right in.

Let me know if you end up fixing your issue! Is it the same exact problem, only screen jitters on a cold boot?

Maybe this is the start to the next big age related problem in these... I've heard of the one transistor going bad commonly now on the video boards on these.

 

[SE30_Neal]

Mine has a very minor screen jitter, more of a very little flicker but only when cold and only briefly. I do think its psu or a/b cap related as otherwise it runs beautifully for its age, I don’t think mine was used much at all before spending 15 years in a loft as there’s no screen burn at all but still its nearly 30 years old with those pesky old caps.  I would like an engineer to look at it and recap the a/b and power supply but finding it difficult to get someone to do it in the uk :/