Picked up an SE/30, installed ROMinator II and maxed out RAM

omgmonsters · Feb 16, 2020

I've been looking for an SE/30 for years, and I just found one on eBay in my city for local pickup. Turned out to be literally 2 blocks from my house! Added a ROMinator II and 128MB of RAM, and I've never been so happy with a machine.

It even came with a PDS video card installed. I'd love to figure out a way to get that working with an external monitor.

On the downside, I broke one of the RAM clips on the motherboard. Any advice on replacing it?

Video on the upgrade process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sann_7dwMDk

Pics:

The RAM I used:

BMOW ROMinator II and an unimpressed cat

PDS video card:

Broken RAM clips

My janky solution to broken RAM clips:

68krazy · Feb 16, 2020

Sweet find! The king of the compacts

. I got an SE/30 a few years ago and it has been a great computer, so much snappier to use than the other compacts. Massive upgrade potential (which it seems like you have already taken advantage of). Do you have any other upgrades planned for it?

Get the motherboard recapped as soon as you can. Working SE/30s are getting hard to come by and you risk damaging the motherboard if you run it with original caps for long.

Bolle · Feb 16, 2020

Get this thing recapped asap.

68krazy · Feb 16, 2020

I just saw in your YT comments that you feel intimidated by surface mount. Where are you located? If you’re anywhere near the CA Bay Area/Sacramento, there are a lot of us out here who would be happy to help you with recapping.

LaPorta · Feb 16, 2020

You are lucky with the find! Also with the card. That never happens to me. Every machine I find is always bone stock. I’m lucky if there is even extra ram!

While I love cats, that’s a huge ball of static discharge right next to your logic board.

omgmonsters · Feb 16, 2020

68krazy said:
I just saw in your YT comments that you feel intimidated by surface mount. Where are you located? If you’re anywhere near the CA Bay Area/Sacramento, there are a lot of us out here who would be happy to help you with recapping.

Thanks! Unfortunately I'm on the east coast. I really want to try surface mount soldering, but I don't think my first go should be such a special machine. I could get some practice in and then try in a month or so. I'm also going to VCF East, so maybe I can find some help there too!

LaPorta · Feb 16, 2020

To be honest, I just did my first hot air job on an SE/30 SCSI chip, and it actually worked out pretty well. You can do it with some patience and care.

omgmonsters · Feb 16, 2020

LaPorta said:
To be honest, I just did my first hot air job on an SE/30 SCSI chip, and it actually worked out pretty well. You can do it with some patience and care.

Any good videos you'd recommend?

LaPorta · Feb 16, 2020

Well, what exactly are you going to do? Just surface mount caps with a regular iron?

krishnadraws · Feb 20, 2020

Congrats on your "new" Mac

I was the one who left the comment on your YT video about getting the Mac recapped. Do you recommend the Rominator II? What can you do with it apart from booting from it?

I just bought a Mac SE/30 as well. Mine arrived this afternoon. I've tested it out and it works. (The owner mentioned he had fully recapped it in his ad.)

Angelgreat · Oct 1, 2021

Cool

omgmonsters said:
I've been looking for an SE/30 for years, and I just found one on eBay in my city for local pickup. Turned out to be literally 2 blocks from my house! Added a ROMinator II and 128MB of RAM, and I've never been so happy with a machine.

It even came with a PDS video card installed. I'd love to figure out a way to get that working with an external monitor.

On the downside, I broke one of the RAM clips on the motherboard. Any advice on replacing it?

Video on the upgrade process:

Pics:

View attachment 24110

The RAM I used:

View attachment 24111

BMOW ROMinator II and an unimpressed cat

View attachment 24112

PDS video card:

View attachment 24113

Broken RAM clips

View attachment 24114

My janky solution to broken RAM clips:View attachment 24115

BTW, Action Retro, is that you?

aeberbach · Oct 2, 2021

Congratulations on the new Mac - for those broken SIMM clips there are some neat 3D printed clips to help you out. I believe you will find them on thingiverse. If you don’t have a printer, just ask (and say where you’re located).

trag · Oct 2, 2021

@omgmonsters Regarding your broken SIMM clip.

Someone around here 3-D printed some spacers, which use the RAM/SIMM next to them to hold the next one over in place. That's a pretty easy solution.

Ultimately, you could desolder the plastic clipped SIMM sockets and install sockets with metal clips, which are more durable. But if you're not comfortable soldering, that's probably a task for another day.

The actual difficult part of replacing the SIMM socket will be removing the old socket and getting all teh through-holes clean of solder without removing the VIA plating by accident.

amedeo_68k · Feb 7, 2022

What video card is that one ?

nottomhanks · Feb 11, 2022

Was wondering the same thing!!

bwicklund · Mar 2, 2022

Reminds me of mine. I picked it up recapped, both the motherboard and analog board.

I added 64MB of RAM, a ROMINATOR II and a Micron Xceed SE/306-48 (which gets me unaccelerated 8-bit color)

I have also added a SimpleModem v2 for some BBS fun….

Livingroom · Mar 3, 2022

Where the hell did you find a graphics card for it? I want one for mine but they seem to be unobtanium

bwicklund · Mar 3, 2022

I obviously wanted the Micron Xceed Color 30 with the 256 Gray CRT Backplane upgrade but those are truly unobtanium, and when they do come up on eBay they go for thousands. I was able to find someone locally that is in the vintage computer scene and he had a Micron Xceed SE/306-48 that was tested and working and he was willing to let go of it for a reasonable price. So I got really lucky, I only looked for a few weeks before finding one.

Picked up an SE/30, installed ROMinator II and maxed out RAM

omgmonsters

Active member

68krazy

Well-known member

Bolle

Well-known member

68krazy

Well-known member

LaPorta

Well-known member

omgmonsters

Active member

LaPorta

Well-known member

omgmonsters

Active member

LaPorta

Well-known member

krishnadraws

Well-known member

Angelgreat

Well-known member

aeberbach

Well-known member

trag

Well-known member

amedeo_68k

Well-known member

nottomhanks

Well-known member

bwicklund

Member

Attachments

Livingroom

Well-known member

bwicklund

Member

Similar threads