• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

SE/30 chime but then blank screen

Durosity

Well-known member
I’ve acquired a SE/30 board which has no battery or obvious trace damage, which starts up and makes a chime sound but no video output and no signs of it starting up beyond that point.

So far I’ve:
Cleaned board with isopropyl alcohol
Full recap
Replaced ROM/Ram from known working SE/30
Replaced the video rom chip.
Reseated the processor (socketed model)
Tested with a seperate known working crt/analogue board

I’ve had a look over the board and I’m not seeing any obviously damaged traces or bad vias.
Any thoughts on most likely area? I have a spare mostly working board which I can switch out components with but I’m not entirely sure where a logical starting point is.
 
Last edited:

Durosity

Well-known member
C5EDFBC8-27A1-41F6-8AC9-CB6C5E42DA3A.jpeg
Hum.. so here’s a weird thing. This board has a socketed CPU, but the cap position for C12 is next to the battery slot rather than below the ROM slot. I’m not particularly familiar with the SE/30 but as far as I can recall all the socketed ones had the lower C12 position.. or am I mistaken? 🤔
 

bibilit

Well-known member
More than often UE8 is a culprit for a black screen.
Goo contamination by capacitor C7.
You are right about C12, but probably an intermediate version.
 

Phipli

Well-known member
View attachment 49256
Hum.. so here’s a weird thing. This board has a socketed CPU, but the cap position for C12 is next to the battery slot rather than below the ROM slot. I’m not particularly familiar with the SE/30 but as far as I can recall all the socketed ones had the lower C12 position.. or am I mistaken? 🤔
It might have had a socket swapped in for an accelerator.
 

Durosity

Well-known member
More than often UE8 is a culprit for a black screen.
Goo contamination by capacitor C7.
You are right about C12, but probably an intermediate version.
I removed UE8, cleaned it up and replaced but no joy. But then I realised the flux residue on it was boiling off in the centre, so replaced it with a known good one but still no joy (but wasn’t overheating anymore).. I then replaced UG8 and bingo! It’s now working. Thanks 😊
It might have had a socket swapped in for an accelerator.
The soldering underneath looks too clean to have been done by hand so I guess it’s more likely as @bibilit said it’s probably an intermediate board. But who knows.. I’m just excited it’s now working and booting 😅
 

Chopsticks

Well-known member
The soldering underneath looks too clean to have been done by hand so I guess it’s more likely as @bibilit said it’s probably an intermediate board. But who knows.. I’m just excited it’s now working and booting 😅
I can confirm that I while I'm used to seeing c12 at the Botton right of the ROM socket I have actually seen 2 se/30 logics boards with c12 near the battery socket. both used sockets CPU's too fwiw.
 
Top