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SE/30 Strange Issues

jajan547

Well-known member
Okay so real mystery here I have an SE/30 and the machine boots fine and works great. Power supply and analog board all seem fine. Thing is now after say 15 minutes of use the screen goes black and then sometimes it will try and pickup where it left off on the same screen but freeze, other times it will stay off completely while the machine runs. I'm using a BlueSCSI and the SE/30 is very clean. Any ideas, is the machine overheating or what's going on here? I've added a photo below of what all is going on, this was shortly after booting.
 

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joshc

Well-known member
Check for bad solder joints on the analog board first, in particular the yoke connector and other connectors. It's probably temperature related and most likely an analog board issue.
 

jajan547

Well-known member
Check for bad solder joints on the analog board first, in particular the yoke connector and other connectors. It's probably temperature related and most likely an analog board issue.
I’ll do this later today, but it’s another analog board that was just fine, I’ll double check.
 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
Do you see any difference between PSU voltages (as measured at the floppy port, for example) when the machine is in the glitched state?

Is the machine itself still running code while the screen is black? Can you get it to beep, or read from a floppy?
 

jajan547

Well-known member
Do you see any difference between PSU voltages (as measured at the floppy port, for example) when the machine is in the glitched state?

Is the machine itself still running code while the screen is black? Can you get it to beep, or read from a floppy?
Have not checked any of the above but I surely will. Its almost like it overheats.
 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
Its almost like it overheats.

From the symptom you've said, my bet is that a solder joint has a hairline crack in it, so when it reaches a specific temperature, the metal expands, and doesn't make good contact for a while. Another thing you could try in that case is tapping it on the side when it glitches, though that may not achieve anything.
 

jajan547

Well-known member
From the symptom you've said, my bet is that a solder joint has a hairline crack in it, so when it reaches a specific temperature, the metal expands, and doesn't make good contact for a while. Another thing you could try in that case is tapping it on the side when it glitches, though that may not achieve anything.
OK here's pictures of the analog board and logic board. Both the PSU and analog board have been swapped with known perfectly good ones and the logic board was recapped and repaired, the repairs look solid but the recapping I'm not too thrilled about so will order tantalums. Also 12V and 5V rails are perfect.
 

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Byrd

Well-known member
With the lid off, point a desk fan into the internals of the SE/30, I had a similar issue which was the ROM SIMM not making good contact in the end (had a IIfx ROM now switched back to stock, running a socketed PowerCache upgrade board).
 

jajan547

Well-known member
Cleaned some dust off the ROM Simm Pins with alcohol and well so far no issues will post back tommorow.
 

jajan547

Well-known member
Never mind, here's a video of what happened shorty after it went black and I tried to reboot. I did hear like a squeal noise coming from the analog board/power area neither have been recapped but my other SE used this power supply and analog board and no issues, weird.
 

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jajan547

Well-known member
Ok so more to the story when it blacks out, according to my TechStep there is Serial/SCSI communication issues. Also when you try and boot after a crash there is no chime.
 

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jajan547

Well-known member
Ok figured it out. It was not one but two issues, the first being the neck board had two cracked solder joints, the second being that the BlueSCSI I was using, well it's SD card with System 7.5 was a bit corrupted fixed both problems and no issues since. I've been playing games and what not so now that these issues are sorted it's time for a Rominator and 128MB of RAM. System 8.1 here I come.
 
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