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Oddities with a Mac SE - what's the most thorough diagnostic that I can run?

VMSZealot

Well-known member
I recently got a 'broken' Mac SE for very little. The only problem with it was no video, bar a dot in the centre of the screen. That was easily fixed, and the display is bright and stable and the right size. Happy days. Or so I thought.

System 6.0.8 and System 7.1 installed easily on separate partitions - but, for some odd reason, the Mac will only boot from partition 1 (formatting and partitioning was done with Lido on a 500MB Quantum that didn't want to format with HD Setup - HD Setup just crashed. First oddity right there.)

Word, ClarisWorks, MacWrite and Hypercard all installed successfully - the latter three all off my original disks. All run successfully too. My printer (StyleWriter II) works properly. Things are looking up.

But… Arkanoid won't run (complains about memory being used strangely), neither will The Fool's Errand (beeps three times and crashes), Star 'Roids complains about something using the memory oddly but runs anyway, Mac Man complains about a memory problem too. PPP 2 won't run.

I've run Apple Personal Diagnostics with a long memory test - but no issues are found. The OS Installs are clean.

Can anyone recommend a really thorough diagnostic workout that I could try on my Mac? Something is clearly not right. All of this software ran fine on the Mac SE that I had at Uni - and I really messed around with the OS and hardware of that one!
 

VMSZealot

Well-known member
Nope. Not yet. I'd rather try a reliable diagnostic first rather than hit'n'hope.

Or maybe someone else can suggest a reason for my Mac's strange behaviour. Could it be linked to running a GB hard drive in an SE? Could it be the BMOW floppy emulator which is causing a problem? I'm open to any suggestions.
 

Phipli

Well-known member
System 6.0.8 and System 7.1 installed easily on separate partitions - but, for some odd reason, the Mac will only boot from partition 1 (formatting and partitioning was done with Lido on a 500MB Quantum that didn't want to format with HD Setup - HD Setup just crashed. First oddity right there.)
Not sure about Lido, but this is normal on an SE with period disk drivers.

But… Arkanoid won't run (complains about memory being used strangely), neither will The Fool's Errand (beeps three times and crashes), Star 'Roids complains about something using the memory oddly but runs anyway, Mac Man complains about a memory problem too. PPP 2 won't run.
Are the memory jumpers set correctly? Games often skip through layers of abstraction and control hardware directly is the obvious difference. Are you experienced with moving software to old macs and decompressing it (sorry, have to check).
I've run Apple Personal Diagnostics with a long memory test - but no issues are found. The OS Installs are clean.

Can anyone recommend a really thorough diagnostic workout that I could try on my Mac?
I suspect the machine is fundamentally OK if Personal Diagnostics passes. Are these problems on both OSes? Try putting them both on the same partition and using System Picker.

What you describes sound more like a combination of disk driver and OS. Or worst case, the disk.
 

VMSZealot

Well-known member
sorry, have to check

Perfectly sensible questions! I eliminated the possibility of decompression error by cpt’ing up software which I have working fine on my SE/30 and copying to my SE using LocalTalk. I always used CompactPro back in the day and found it to be very reliable.

The problems occur with both OSes, and System Picker is exactly how I’m selecting the OS.

The memory resistors have been cut correctly (no jumpers on this old Mac!), but surely an SE (or a Plus) only reports what the resistors / jumpers tell it to report? So it couldn’t show 4096K if they were incorrectly cut / set?
 

Phipli

Well-known member
only reports what the resistors / jumpers tell it to report? So it couldn’t show 4096K if they were incorrectly cut / set?
I was being super carful, given you're having trouble. If I remember the resistors actually change where things are in the memory map. Without going and reviewing the maps that could cause a conflict.

Specifically I was thinking if you had more installed than set.
 

VMSZealot

Well-known member
Okay - so the problem is solved. And thank you for all your help. It turns out that…

Apple Personal Diagnostics is a piece of crap, and I wasted my money back in the day. The only reason I don’t erase the disks now is that I imagine there can’t be too many original copies left in the world.

I rummaged around in my parts bin and I found another set of SIMMs (I knew I had a set of 4 2MB 30pin SIMMs, and 4 16MB 30pin SIMMs, neither of which are much good at all in an SE, but I was a little surprised to find a set of 4 1MB SIMMs - much less SIMMs in apparently good condition!). I fitted them, without much hope of them being good. Ran APT (which I know now to be a waste of time), and then tried all that software that failed before. And hey presto! Happy Mac and happy days.
 

Phipli

Well-known member
Okay - so the problem is solved. And thank you for all your help. It turns out that…

Apple Personal Diagnostics is a piece of crap, and I wasted my money back in the day. The only reason I don’t erase the disks now is that I imagine there can’t be too many original copies left in the world.

I rummaged around in my parts bin and I found another set of SIMMs (I knew I had a set of 4 2MB 30pin SIMMs, and 4 16MB 30pin SIMMs, neither of which are much good at all in an SE, but I was a little surprised to find a set of 4 1MB SIMMs - much less SIMMs in apparently good condition!). I fitted them, without much hope of them being good. Ran APT (which I know now to be a waste of time), and then tried all that software that failed before. And hey presto! Happy Mac and happy days.
Weird. TechTool does a memory test if you're looking for something else in the future.
 
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