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SE/30—my first recapping, so close to success

macjeffr

Member
I gave up for the moment on my Classic, and started on one of my my SE/30s. It had no startup chime, no drive activity, and the screen showed the simisimac pattern. I recapped with the Console5 set and cleaned the board with 99% IPA. It's not the neatest soldering job I've ever seen, but everything looks clean and the connections seem solid. On powerup, I now get a startup chime, a grey desktop and a cursor that responds to the mouse! However, there's still no drive activity, and I don't get a floppy with a question mark. I tried cleaning the floppy drive (with a cleaning floppy and IPA), but the spins for a couple of seconds and stops. No ejecting or anything else.

What should I do next, troubleshooting-wise? I've got another SE/30 that does boot, although it needs an analog and logic board recap, as it's got a vertical stripe pattern on the screen. Should I try swapping that HD into the recapped one, or is that just asking for trouble if there's something else wrong with the recapped board?
 

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3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
Do you get the question mark when you start the SE/30 with no HDD or Floppy drive connected? If you do, then you have a dead hard drive that's holding up (freezing) the SCSI bus. If you still get no question mark with nothing connected, then the problem is going to be on the board. (Broken trace or a failed component).
 

macjeffr

Member
I tested it tonight: starting with HD disconnected=question mark. I swapped the board into the other SE/30 and got the same as on the first: a chime, a cursor, and no booting or question mark. So I'm 99% positive it's the board. Any ideas where I can start looking now?
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
If you've tried a known good SCSI drive with the same issue, then I'd agree with you on that. Check your traces, especially near the SCSI chip I'd assume, look for cap goo you missed, the usual suspects. Could be a failed IC as well. Just start checking things, and good luck!
 

PotatoFi

Well-known member
What is the activity light on the SCSI drive(s) doing when you power the machine on, and it gets to a blinking question mark?
 

bibilit

Well-known member
Probably a broken trace near the SCSI chip… or underneath.
If you are lucky, you will see a black spot on the trace.
 

imactheknife

Well-known member
Did your screen look like this?? I cant figure mine out. It booted before recap. It gave me a pattern sometimes when turned on but left if i hit reset. Now, just this screen. Have cleaned board really really well. No change. Known working ram, not sure about rom simm. Displays the same lines with chips in or out. This is an se/30 upgraded se
 

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Amiga of Rochester

Active member
Did your screen look like this?? I cant figure mine out. It booted before recap. It gave me a pattern sometimes when turned on but left if i hit reset. Now, just this screen. Have cleaned board really really well. No change. Known working ram, not sure about rom simm. Displays the same lines with chips in or out. This is an se/30 upgraded se
There's going to be a missing trace. Also possibly bad traces for video looking at it. I'd be happy to look at it via email.
 
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