Getting Started: a Tale of Two SE/30s

[DaMadFiddler]

Hi, everyone. I'm new.

This board was recommended to me by someone on another forum, and I'm just looking for some help getting started.

I recently came into possession of two Mac SE/30s, each of which has a slightly different set of problems.

One has a 160MB hard drive and four 1MB SIMMS. It has no sound, and starts to boot (happy Mac icon) but never gets to the "Welcome to Macintosh" screen. If I disconnect the hard drive, I get the question-mark disk icon, so I think the data on the hard drive may just be corrupt; I'll know once I have a chance to make a boot disk at work. (All I have at home besides the SE/30s is a MacBook Pro). Still no sound, though. Also, the battery appears to be dead.

The second has a 40MB hard drive and eight 1MB SIMMS. It boots from the hard drive just fine, and appears to have System 7.5 installed. It has sound. However, every sixth or so column of pixels is black, and the column next to each black column flickers in and out of activity. The result is a vertical pinstripe effect, which makes the computer very difficult to use. I tried swapping the logic boards in the two systems to see if the video issue was perhaps a problem with the analog board. Even connected to the new analog board & CRT, the lines showed up... so it must be a problem with the logic board. I also tried re-seating the SIMMS as I saw in a search that RAM issues can cause odd screen and system behavior. No dice.

Each system is more or less stock (except for the 160MB hard drive in the one unit), with no PDS cards or other modifications that might introduce a problem. So, based on what I've read, it seems like both the lack of sound on the first system and the video problems on the second system may be the result of faulty capacitors on the respective logic boards.

I'm not very good at small, precision soldering; I learned that last year, when I had to wire up a couple of control knobs to a USB controller as part of a jukebox I was building. (I took a gutted antique radio console that I'd found in the trash and refinished, mounted an LCD where the dial used to be, replaced the knobs with the aforementioned digital controls, added some nice speaker cones and an amplifier, and used an unmodified Mac Mini G4 set to boot into Front Row as the heart of the whole thing). All I had to do was desolder a pot from the PCB, and resolder it at the end of some lead wires... it took me a couple of weeks and numerous failed tries just to get the bloody thing soldered up well enough to hold. This is why I stick to antique radios when it comes to electronics repair. Everything's big and isolated, there's no need for detail work, and there was no such thing as a PCB; it was all just wires and sockets.

I've tried doing some searching on the forums, but I'd really appreciate it if there were either a step-by-step guide somewhere, or a list of businesses that can do this sort of work (and what they'd charge for it). I have some experience maintaining vintage electronics; I buy, fix, and sell pre-WWII radio consoles as a hobby. However, working with wires and large components in a spacious chassis with an exceedingly simple (by today's standards) design is very different from dealing with much more minute components on a PCB.

I have a feeling this may already exist somewhere on the forum, but I was having trouble finding what I needed in the search results and I'd really like to get both of these guys back up to full speed. I'd eventually like to pimp them out a bit (more RAM, bigger hard drives, and maybe a few add-ons if I can actually find any PDS cards at a decent price), but of course I need to get the base machines in proper working order before I can even start thinking about that.

Any advice is more than welcome. Vintage computers are sort of a new realm for me; when a component breaks in a computer, my response up 'til now has been to replace the component. However, I'd imagine this would be a bit less practical with an SE/30 logic board. This is new ground for me, and I'd like to get both of these machines operating like new again. Please help!

 

[phreakout]

Greetings and welcome to the 68kmla forums!

After reading through your post, it is hard to say if on fact the capacitors are faulty, even though they are known to fail. To best determine if they are bad, you will need to do a couple things:

1) Remove every RAM (memory) card and the ROM SIMM (the card closest to the lithium battery), visually inspect for discoloration or corrosion and clean thoroughly (this includes all the SIMM sockets as well.

2) Visually inspect the logic board(s) for any discoloration or corrosion. Some of the capacitors have been known to leak electrolyte material and for it to flow and dry onto the PCB over time. If you see a white cloudy residue or green-like corrosion around any traces on the PCB, you can clean this off using a tiny wire brush and some Isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, but not a whole lot. You can also use a pencil eraser on traces to clean contacts and traces, as well.

If after cleaning the logic board(s) doesn't fix the problem, then you may very well have bad capacitors. The ones needing replacement will be C1 through C13; this includes the two radial axis electrolytic caps, while the rest are (1) 16WVDC 1uF SMT (surface mount) and (10) 25WVDC 470uF SMT capacitors. If you need replacement parts, get in touch with 68kmla forum member Trag; he sells the SE/30 recap kit and can send it to you. If you need someone to do the actual replacing of parts, I am available for the work. I provide more details in this previous post. Just send me a PM (private message) and we can talk further. I've helped a few members here with successfully recapping their SE/30 logic boards.

Cheers!

73s de Phreakout. :rambo:

 

[DaMadFiddler]

Thank you for your help! I didn't see any noticeable leakage in either machine, but I'll give both of them a more thorough run-down tonight (including a proper cleaning of the SIMM and ROM sockets; in my initial testing, I re-seated but did not clean).

I'm a little nervous about trying to recap the logic board, if it comes to that; as I said, I've recapped antique radios before, but that's the comparative equivalent of playing T-ball. All the components are huge, and are connected with actual free-floating wires. There's lots of space to work with, and you never have to worry about a sloppy solder job bridging unwanted connections, and each circuit is easy to trace by sight.

At this point, I'm thinking I should probably get an external floppy for my laptop, so I don't have to use my office computer to make disks. I found some directions online for setting up classic MacOS floppies under both OSX and Windows, so hopefully I can get that figured out myself.

Once I do get everything up and running, I'd like to start looking at what I can do with these things. More RAM and bigger hard drives both seem relatively easy to source, and I don't think it'll be too terribly difficult to find older SCSI drives if I ever decide I want to add an external hard drive or CD-ROM. But from what I've read on the forums so far, it seems like pretty much all the other desirable upgrades (ethernet card, accelerator cards, video upgrade--particularly with the harness for the internal CRT) are relatively difficult to find.

It doesn't look like there's any way to get the SE/30s to talk to my printer in its current configuration (a Time Capsule serves as the core of our home network, with an Epson printer/scanner/copier plugged into its USB port so my girlfriend and I can both print to it without swapping cables around). It would be nice to get the two machines online though, if for no other reason than to save myself the effort of having to download all the software I need on my laptop and transfer it to floppy disks. From what I understand, more RAM and an accelerator card are pretty much must-haves in order to make that worthwhile, so it would seem a lot less complicated to use an external ethernet device if possible, rather than chaining PDS cards.

Are there any ethernet adapters that will plug into the AppleTalk ports? One of the SE/30s came with an external fax/modem, but our apartment isn't even wired for a land line.

Is my understanding of all that correct? And if so: is there still a good source of SE/30 compatible expansion cards? I'm thinking either accelerator boards for both of them, or an accelerator for one and a graphics upgrade for the other... though the required parts seem like they'd be difficult to find.

eBay, Craigslist, and Freecycle have not been very fruitful, and there don't really seem to be any online stores dedicated to Macs this old. That was actually kind of surprising, since there are plenty of antique radio supply shops online, and those radios are a good 50 years older than these compact Macs.

 

[beachycove]

There are SE/30 ethernet cards and there are SE/30 accelerators and there are even SE/30 graphics upgrades (the Micron XCeed being the pick of that particular litter), but they are rarities and, as the machine is prized by collectors, they are accordingly expensive. Some are very expensive. There are even ways and means to have at least two of these at the same time installed in an SE/30 without too much hacking, but the requisite adapter board costs yet more money.

A recent eBay auction for an MacCon ethernet card for the SE/30 went for about $70, though prices vary and I have also seen one fixed priced at $140 or so (and not sell, so far as I know), and another one go for $40, all just in about the last four weeks. It "pays" to watch the auctions.

I will likely be selling an SE/30 ethernet card on eBay in the next few weeks, with the hope of hitting somewhere around that magic $70 mark. If you want to make an offer.... I have three MacCon cards, so selling one or two at a good price will allow me to collect some other goodies (e.g., an accelerator) that I do not have, without actually spending any money. I also have recently acquired three different SE/30 video cards for driving large external monitors of the period, but have not decided quite what to do with them. Some details here.

 

[phreakout]

Asante makes an adapter that will plug into the Printer Port of your retromac and convert to Ethernet, called AsanteTalk, but it is more suited for connecting Macs for file and printer sharing. I don't know how reliable it is with using it as a means to get the SE/30 on the Internet. For all I can say, you may need to add in playing with Open Transport, MacTCP and AppleTalk protocols and control panels/extensions. It can be real frustrating to set it up. Oh, and you have to resort to 10-BaseT (10Mbps) ethernet speed and turning off auto-negotiation on your ethernet hub/router equipment.

http://www.asante.com/products/CardsAdapters/AsanteTalk.asp

I hope this helps.

73s de Phreakout. :rambo:

 

[DaMadFiddler]

Thanks, everyone, for all the information so far! I know this must be the sort of thing you go through each time someone shows up for the first time with a "new" compact Mac, but I really appreciate the help.

So, let me double check all this:

1. I'd really like to have greyscale graphics, but that apparently requires having both a rare greyscale harness for the CRT *and* an also-rare graphics card, which has to be one of a few select models that is compatible with the harness. Does this also increase the max. screen resolution, or just the color depth? I'd really like the greyscale graphics, but this sounds like it may not be worth the cost, especially if the internal resolution is still limited to 512x342.

2. Ethernet card may be of interest, but will take some software fiddling to get it to work with a modern LAN. Our Internet access is via high-speed DSL, which is split out to the main house and two apartments. Then, in our apartment, we have a Time Capsule connected to further split the connection out to the devices in our home. In order to work properly with the rest of the network, the Time Capsule's router functionality is configured to be little more than a passthrough. I can do whatever I want to the Time Capsule, but I have no access to or control over how the DSL modem or the ethernet hub at the center of the network are configured. (Basically: we live in a 1-bedroom cottage that shares a lot with a larger house and another cottage. The owner lives in the main house, and has a high-end DSL connection which is shared out to the cottages via a hub in the main house connected to professionally-installed wiring to the rental units leading to wall terminals). Will this setup be problematic?

3. If getting online is still viable given #2, I have heard of three different types of devices: a PDS ethernet card, a SCSI ethernet adapter, and an AppleTalk bridge. The lattermost seems like it would be a bit problematic to get working with TCP/IP, but are there any specific advantages or disadvantages between the first two? Obviously a PDS card would be less cluttery, but also take up the PDS slot. Is a SCSI adapter slower (or even compatible)? Would it work in a SCSI chain (if I decided to add, for example, an external CD-ROM drive)?

4. From what I've read so far, using a web browser is still pretty painful unless an accelerator card is also installed. And if I understand correctly, it's better to use an 030-based accelerator than an 040, for the sake of software compatibility. Are these still available anywhere? Any recommendations, or makes/models to steer clear of? Also: it seems like some of the accelerator cards have PDS pass-through slots. Would this allow me to chain the accelerator with either a graphics card or an ethernet card, or does that start posing a logistical problem? (both space and power draw)

5. Alternatively: are there any viable drop-in replacements for the CPU, or is a full accelerator board necessary to handle a higher clock speed?

6. Are there any practical advantages to replacing the ROM SIMM with a 32-bit clean one rather than just installing Mode32? Are there any compatibility or performance differences? I'm not looking to run OS8 or anything, but I do definitely intend to upgrade the RAM on both units (one has 4 and the other has 8 MB).

I think that's about it for right now. Thanks again for all the help so far!

 

[Mac128]

DaMadFidler, I haven't read this in extreme detail as I am not particularly interested in the SE/30 as my user name suggests.

However, I know you have searched for other things, have you searched the forum for SE/30, Ethernet, and Internet? If so , add JDW as a user post name and limit to Compact Macs. He has written a collective tome on getting an SE/30 online, accelerating it and routinely accessing the internet. I would be surprised if every answer you needed wasn't there.

Actually I'm surprised he hasn't chimed in on this topic yet. Must be busy.

 

[DaMadFiddler]

All right, I've done a more thorough inspection of both logic boards, and there doesn't seem to be any visual evidence of capacitor leakage... though I know there's no foolproof way to tell a bad cap other than to remove it and throw it in a tester.

I did some very light cleaning with rubbing alcohol and a sponge-tip brush, and cleaned all the contacts and re-seated the ROM and the RAM SIMMS in both machines. Made no difference whatsoever. The batteries in both machines are dead, and I do need to get replacements for those. As stated before, one machine has sound but the display is "pinstriped" with missing columns of pixels, and the other machine displays properly but has no sound. I have tried both logic boards with each display assembly, and the problem is definitely with the logic board.

None of the graphics glitch guides really list a problem quite like this one, so I took a picture. Sorry about the low quality; the only camera handy was the webcam built into my laptop:

I can live with the one computer not having sound, but this screen issue really makes it difficult to even use the other.

Once again:

Computer 1: Mac SE/30 with 40MB hard drive, 8 MB RAM (8x 1MB SIMMS), System 7.5; sound works, display is pinstriped

Computer 2: Mac SE/30 with 160MB hard drive (dead), unknown RAM (4x 1MB(?) SIMMS); sound does NOT work, display works

Both have dead batteries, and neither have evidence of capacitor leakage.

 

[Paralel]

I've seen that pin-striping phenom. once before on a compact, although it wasn't an SE/30. If I remember correctly it turned out there was some damage to the video subsystem chips on the logic board. The only way it could be repaired was by replacing the damaged chips.

 

[Mac128]

Computer 1: Mac SE/30 with 40MB hard drive, 8 MB RAM (8x 1MB SIMMS), System 7.5; sound works, display is pinstriped

Computer 2: Mac SE/30 with 160MB hard drive (dead), unknown RAM (4x 1MB(?) SIMMS); sound does NOT work, display works

I'm still a bit confused ... when you swap the logic boards, do the respective problems above go with the logic boards? In other words, the SE/30 with no sound always has no sound regardless of the logic board but the video only follow logic board #1? Or does the sound problem go with the logic board as well?

For the sound problem, if the cables are correctly connected, this is almost certainly a failed cap problem, which hints at leakage which may be causing your other problems. If Only in one Mac regardless of logic board, then the problem is on the analogue board and replacing the associated caps will fix your problem.

Some thoughts from Pina on the video. The closest things he describes to this problem are reversed, or bad simms, since your Simms are all the same, reversing them is not the culprit (unless they are of different manufacture). If you have completely switched the RAM SIMMs out of the good logic board and the video problem is still there, then they can be eliminated. However, one thing you say concerns me. In addition to the pinstripe affect, you say there is a fluctuation with each activity. Is this on both Macs, or just one of them? If just one, you have a flyback failure, or other video circuitry coming on that Mac. If both, then this activity is on the logic board as you suspect.

Have you adjusted all your voltages to make sure both Macs are properly powered?

I'm amazed that Pina's books are so thorough yet leaky caps are never mentioned. I can only assume that this problem did not turn up until after the first decade of life for these Macs and Pina's books were all written within the first ten years of the first one sold. The fact that you don't see any evidence of leakage does not mean it's there. After you make absolutely sure you've tried everything easily done to fix the problem, you might seriously consider running it through the dishwasher, as many here have successfully done. If that doesn't fix it, then you're looking at tracking down a bad chip. Which may or may not involve cannibalizing from a known good board, in which case, what's the point? Just get a new logic board.

 

[phreakout]

Okay, that picture looks very much like this symptom. If it's true, then check that the RAM wasn't inserted wrong. Follow through carefully on the recommended steps and report back with results.

73s de Phreakout. :rambo:

 

[DaMadFiddler]

Yes, the problems traveled with the logic boards. The swapping I did was to see whether the problem was on the logic board or the analog board; and since the problems traveled with the logic boards, that answered that. The logic board with pinstriped video always has pinstriped video, and the logic board with no sound always has no sound.

I didn't even think about the possibility of one of the SIMMS being bad; tonight I will try swapping the RAM between the two units, and see if that makes any changes to how the problem manifests itself. All eight in the pinstriped system are identical, and all four in the no-sound system are identical (but of different manufacture than the ones in the other system).

As for the fluctuation:

When I first got it, each pinstripe was one column wide, and the column to the right of each "dead" column would flicker in and out of life. However, after cleaning the board, it seems to have settled into both columns being dead (as pictured). It is no longer flickering.

One thing I should note is that other than the pinstripes, the system is "working" properly. It boots all the way into Mac OS, and I can use everything normally. As you can see in the screenshot, I've got the "About This Mac" window open, which is reporting 8MB RAM.

 

[Mac128]

The fact that a light cleaning improved the video problem suggests damage from a leaky capacitor. Try the RAM swap but, I'm almost certain a thorough cleaning in a dishwasher will solve the problem if there is no permanent damage to a trace or a chip. Search "dishwasher" to see how many people have actually done this bizarre method.

As for the sound issue, that definitely clears things up. The problem is on the logicboard and is almost certainly the result of a leaky cap. I've never heard of this problem caused by any other thing. Doesn't mean it can't be. Closely investigate the sound circuitry and thoroughly clean the board around them. If spot cleaning doesn't help, you've got another candidate for the dishwasher. If the dishwasher fails in both cases, you've got damage to the board traces or physical components.

The fact that the evidence points to leaky caps in both cases, means even if cleaning the boards fixes your problem it is temporary at best. The caps must be replaced.

 

[DaMadFiddler]

Well, I guess that depends on your definition of better. Previously, the pinstripes were one dead column and one flickering column each. Now it's just two dead columns each.

Also: I have the non-pinstriped SE/30 at work with me, and I tried making a boot disk using resources I found on the board here. (My work PC is an older Dell desktop running WinXP; it's the only computer I have access to with a floppy drive). Unfortunately, the Mac is rejecting every disk I try to make.

After inserting the disk the first time, it will immediately spit it out with an X disk icon. I wait for the X to turn back into a question mark, then insert the disk again. This time it will start to read, give me a happy Mac, then reject the disk. This pattern of one instant reject, one start-to-boot can be repeated ad nauseum. It's done that to me with three different disks made from three different image files.

 

[Mac128]

In this case "better" = change. Change which resulted from cleaning.

As for the PC formatting ... what can I say. I don't do it. I hate PCs. Combine with the fact that vintage Macs are somewhat finicky to begin with, I just won't bother. Others have had success with this though and have some good methods. If you don't want to wait for them to post here, try searching the forum, as solutions to this and the steps and software required have been posted in over a dozen threads.

 

[DaMadFiddler]

I've tried three different methods I've found on the forums for making Mac boot disks on a PC, and so far the SE/30 is rejecting everything. I may just have to bite the bullet and track down a legitimate set of System 7 disks. I also saw a thread about replacing the hard drive with a CF card, which I could easily swap out and plug into my Mac to get data onto it that way. However, it seems like executing such a replacement would be a little bit convoluted (ie. CF>IDE adapter, IDE adapter > SCSI adapter, introducing several potential error points).

 

[Osgeld]

well if you have a pc scsi adapter you can use it with an emulator on pc to install system software (just did it with my SE, and I am pretty sure I have a extra scsi cards laying around begging me to dump on someone)

 

[DaMadFiddler]

That's part of why I'm thinking this may be the way to go. As I said, I don't have anything besides these two SE/30s that uses floppy disks at home, and I threw out all my old floppies seven or eight years ago. Since I can't seem to get this machine to accept the floppies I'm making anyway, they don't really serve any purpose. Replacing the hard drive with removable media (ie. CompactFlash) and using that in conjunction with an emulator on my laptop seems the better option.

In the long run, I'd like to either get both of these machines online so I can download directly to them, or get at least one online and use an AppleTalk network to transfer between them.

A third alternative would be getting an external SCSI CD-ROM, and burning everything I want onto CD from my laptop and transferring it to the SE/30s that way.

But first, I need to get the one computer set up with an OS, and the other to stop showing pinstripes.

 

[DaMadFiddler]

Okay, it's not the RAM or the ROM causing the video issue (drat!)

It's definitely something on the logic board itself. I have tried swapping out every component that is user-replaceable, and none of it has any impact on the pinstripes. So I guess unless I recap, I'm stuck with one computer that has no sound and one that has a striped display.

Also, I did manage to verify that the boot disks I was making were no good... so I'm back to trying to figure out a way to re-install the OS on the 160MB drive.