New SE/30....Its a little funky

[System6+Vista]

Hello all,

After fooling around with a Classic running 6.0.8, I finally found an SE/30 in seemingly nice condition so I snagged it. Being used to 8mhz and 2mb of RAM, I thought the SE/30 would be a lot faster, but its way slower and the way it runs makes me nervous compared to the classic. It is very loud. Its running system 7.5, so of course that is a beefier system, but even with all extensions off its a little weird. Here are my issues I'm hoping someone can shed some light on:

Sometimes the screen shakes a little bit, more like warps around the sides. I have looked it up and think it may be a simple solder point problem that's fixable, but as I don't have access to a solder for quite some time, does anyone know if prolonged use like this will cause permanent damage?

No sound out of speaker or jack. I have searched these forums, and it seems like it could be a bad capacitor, but I'm not sure how to proceed with that.

Disappearing RAM! I swear, when I bought it there were 12mb of RAM for the first few days. A few days ago I noticed it was only reporting 6mb. Now its only reporting 5mb and change! Is this possible or am I crazy? Dirty RAM chips or RAM falling out? I think I've been gentle with it...

I can't seem to figure out how big the hard drive is. When I get info, it says 30 something mb today, but it said 51mb in the past. Perhaps that is how much information is on it currently because I deleted a lot of things, but if so, how can I find capacity? This all seemed so easy on my system 6 classic?

One more thing - I am a Windows user (by birth) - and our Windows computers get pretty junked up over time, and a fresh install of the OS is very helpful. Might this help for this computer?

Much thanks,

Dave

 

[porter]

Disappearing RAM! I swear, when I bought it there were 12mb of RAM for the first few days. A few days ago I noticed it was only reporting 6mb. Now its only reporting 5mb and change!

With a "new" machine it's good to open it up and check what is inside, especially if it has been bounced around in transit. Unplugging and replugging each connector is a good thing in my book, including SIMMs.

Is virtual memory on? Does it have a working battery?

 

[System6+Vista]

No, the clock battery appears to be dead. Same as my classic. I will have to deal with that.

I feel like such a fool, thank you, I just loaded the memory control panel and it says 5mb built-in, go up to 11mb restart. Curiously though, as many times as I restart, it never goes above the 5mb anymore. But that solves the disappearing mystery.

Also, as of today, half the time I click the apple and the "about this Macintosh" it crashes, has an "address error" and has to be restarted.

 

[porter]

Also, as of today, half the time I click the apple and the "about this Macintosh" it crashes, has an "address error" and has to be restarted.

With a new acquisition I always obiliterate the original installation, and start from scratch again with a complete operating system install onto an empty disk. Technically you currently have no idea of the state of the machine.

 

[JDW]

You have System 6 on the Classic and System 7 on the SE/30, and you wonder why the SE/30 is slower? Put System 6 on that SE/30 and watch it blow your classic out of the water. Or if you wish to experience pain, put System 7.5 on that Classic! :b&w:

System 6 and System 7 are two very different beasts.

 

[tomlee59]

With a computer of that vintage, I'd open 'er up and take a look around before doing much of anything else. My guess is that you will find that many electrolytic capacitors on the logic board have leaked, leaving conductive smudges on the board. Clean the board thoroughly, and replace the capacitors. Often, that fixes many "mysterious" behaviors, including weak or noisy (or no) sound.

As to the wobbly raster, that is something you ought to fix. A few minutes with a soldering iron (and fresh solder) will likely take care of it. Leaving it as is can lead to more serious damage (it's hard on the flyback transformer), so it's best to fix it now. After taking care of all of the hardware problems, then do a clean re-install of System 6 or 7. Choose the former for speed, choose the latter if the apps you want to run demand it.

 

[System6+Vista]

Great, thank you very much. How will I know which capacitors to replace, and what to replace them with? Is there any guide or website anyone can refer me to so that I can understand what I'm doing once I open it up? I'll make sure to discharge the CRT. What would be a good thing to clean the motherboard with?

 

[JDW]

I guess everyone is expecting me to provide the answer, so I shall...

http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8922&p=89593&hilit=sticky#p89593

Moderators, please make that post/thread a Sticky!

 

[equill]

Now that you and Essie Thirty have settled on 5MB as the RAM complement (4 x 1MB plus 4 x 256kB), the best thing to have on hand is another 4 x 1MB (min.), or 4 x 4MB or 4 x 16MB. 30-pin 1MB RAM is virtually throwaway stuff these days, and many of your fellow-soldiers could supply it, but 4 x 4MB (USD10) or 4 x 16MB (USD30) will set you back a little more. Forget about 2MB or 8MB for most Macs (in 30-pin SIMMs). 'Have on hand' because you have some groundwork to do first, as suggested by others: remove the (aluminium) electrolytic capacitors and replace them with tantalum electrolytics after you have washed the MLB thoroughly; resolder all joints on the analogue board and the signal input to the CRT; reset the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the display, and adjust the yoke if need be; make sure that all wiping connectors on the MLB (power in, RAM, ROM, sound out to speaker, SCSI, and FDD) are clean and functional. All of these wrinkles are available in these Forums, in detail.

RAM Bank (4 cards in either bank is obligatory) B, which is inboard of Bank A, can be empty, or contain the cards of smaller value in all cases except 4 x 256kB plus 4 x 4MB (17MB total), which must have the larger cards in Bank B. The SE/30 was the first Compact AIO to be able to support virtual memory, which had probably been set conventionally at 2x physical memory plius 1MB (= 11MB in this case).

Best of fortune in coaxing the Mac through convalescence.

de