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RasterOps Clear Vue GS30 for me SE/30 died...any ideas why?

JT737

Well-known member
Hello all,

     A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to pick up a few SE/30's with video cards, including one with a RasterOps Clear Vue GS30.  So I put it into my main SE/30 to test it out.  It worked well for about a week, having the ability to display 256 shades of grey at 1024 x 768.  And then one day I heard what kind of sounded like a ticking sound, and then......nothing.  The video card no longer displays anything, and doesn't even show up in the monitors control panel anymore. 

Also note that the same mac still works fine with my RasterOps Colorboard 264.

     Is it possible that one of the clock oscillators is bad?  Or is their something else I should take a look at?

Thanks for any ideas that anybody has!

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JT737

Well-known member
Welp, so far I replaced the 80mhz crystal, transistors, voltage reference, all of the electrolytic capacitors, and two muxes: the CD74ACT153E (below the 50mhz clock) and the 74HCT139n.  And after doing all of that, I got.....nothing.  Then i replaced the 50Mhz clock, and finally I got a something- a blue screen that barely displays anything.  But at least something is being displayed, and the card is once again showing up in the monitors control panel.  But as you can see from the pictures, it's still not really usable:

      This is a shot of the start-up splash screen:

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here is the screen trying to display a picture:

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And the closing screen:

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Anyone got any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong/what I should try next?  Thanks!

 
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JT737

Well-known member
Finally figured it out the other week-had an inductor that also needed replacing.  It's nice to have the card up and running again, at a resolution of 1024 X 768 in glorious 256 shades of grey:

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JT737

Well-known member
Pretty much process of elimination.  I have to admit that the issue with the inductor was my own fault...but more on that in a bit.  The main part that failed was the 50mhz clock, which was my original thought (that one of the clocks was bad).  But I wasn't sure, so I replaced the transistors which give the clocks power and the voltage reference first. 

When that didn't work I replaced the caps (hey, the old ones were almost 30 years old!)  and then the muxes.  Then on a hunch I replaced the inductor with another one that I thought had the same inductance.  Turns out it didn't, as I found out when I started to replace the clocks:  first the 80Mhz (which didn't work) and the the 50mhz, which got the card to work again but with the garbled output.

And that's where I was stumped.....until I realized that maybe I should just try swapping the old inductor back in (which I almost couldn't find!).  And then it worked perfectly.  In the end, I did a whole lot more work than I needed to, but isn't that usually how it goes?

I am by no means an expert on all of this, but I will chock this project up to a great learning experience!  And with all of the support components replaced I basically have a brand new video card to add to my collection 8)

 

SE30_Neal

Well-known member
That is a  real nice setup, i like doing desk top publishing on my SE/30 (because i can) and that real estate would make photoshop so much easier. I’ll look out for one of those. :)

 

JT737

Well-known member
@SE30_Neal  Thanks!  I use this for a bunch of stuff as well, including writing, and even Photoshop (It will run Photshop 4 with reasonable speed, especially with the 128mb of RAM).  And all of the extra screen real estate is nice, especially if I'm working on an excel spreadsheet.  My only regret is that it doesn't do color, although I wonder if there is a way to make it do 256 colors; after all, the minimalistic splash screen that it starts up with is in color.

I guess now that I'm gonna be spending a whole lot of time at home I'll take a look at it.

 

SE30_Neal

Well-known member
@SE30_Neal  Thanks!  I use this for a bunch of stuff as well, including writing, and even Photoshop (It will run Photshop 4 with reasonable speed, especially with the 128mb of RAM).  And all of the extra screen real estate is nice, especially if I'm working on an excel spreadsheet.  My only regret is that it doesn't do color, although I wonder if there is a way to make it do 256 colors; after all, the minimalistic splash screen that it starts up with is in color.

I guess now that I'm gonna be spending a whole lot of time at home I'll take a look at it.
I use photoshop 4 on my se/30 as i have the usual 128mb, 24 rom and quicker hard drive etc but it really is pretty useless on that tiny black and white screen but funny trying so yes your duel screen and 256 grey scale is a huge leap up from standard so mighty impressive to me.  We’re in lockdown in the uk so yes if you’re similar to us yes plenty of time over the next few months lol let me know how you get on :)

 

techknight

Well-known member
I wonder if you had an unstable power supply and that caused the weird cascade failure. 

That is strange. 

 

JT737

Well-known member
@techknight- I'm honestly not sure.  But as I've replace most of the parts that supply power to different parts of the board, I'm hoping that it just keeps working.  So far, so good!

@SE30_Neal-Where I live in the U.S. is definitely similar to the U.K.  I live in the five college area in Massachusetts in Northampton....and everything here is shut down.   So far it seems to be working; in my state, the spread of the virus seems to have been dramatically slowed.  On the plus side, I am getting really good at using Zoom!

 

SE30_Neal

Well-known member
@techknight- I'm honestly not sure.  But as I've replace most of the parts that supply power to different parts of the board, I'm hoping that it just keeps working.  So far, so good!

@SE30_Neal-Where I live in the U.S. is definitely similar to the U.K.  I live in the five college area in Massachusetts in Northampton....and everything here is shut down.   So far it seems to be working; in my state, the spread of the virus seems to have been dramatically slowed.  On the plus side, I am getting really good at using Zoom!
Lol same I’m using zoom for work standups and meetings. Went out food shopping today first time in a week and it was weird to be honest and very quiet, everyone 2 metres apart and only a handful of people allowed in. Hopefully means more time on my hobbie machines and some gardening too  :)

 

JT737

Well-known member
@SE30_Neal-Are you looking for some more screen realestate?  It's not much, but I do have a Radius pivot SE/30 card that I did the modification to so that it can at least display in 4 color/shades of Grey.  The only problem with it, of course, is that it scrunches the video a bit.  PM me if you're interested!   

     On a different note, I'm finding Zoom to be quite useful....maybe we could all have a giant Zoom meeting on this site someday.

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