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SE/30 motherboard problem ??

30pin

Well-known member
I picked up a very nice SE/30, outside condition very clean. I booted it up and got a garbled screen. The hard drive was running, but very noisy. I have an external drive that I wanted to use to replace the internal drive with. I popped off the case and was surprised by the mass of brown corrosion surrounding the pram battery!! The mounts for the battery were eaten away and some of the surface mounted components nearby were eaten by the corrosion. The edge of the video chip was also badly corroded. Sort of put a hold on my project. The unit was assembled in Ireland in May of 1991. I kind of think the motherboard is finished ? I have an SE motherboard that I will try and use, it should work. I am thinking that any SE/30 motherboard will work? Any comments ?

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Ike

Well-known member
I would start by cleaning EVERYTHING with alcohol and Q-tips, the traces can be repaired, the fallen off chip can be soldered back if you have it and the pads are okay... but I'm very worried about the condition of the ROM SIMM, lots of corrosion there, i would pop that out first and see if that area is salvageable.

 

30pin

Well-known member
Here are a few more pictures. I will do a more thorough clean up with the swabs and some alcohol soon. The area under the chip mount has some serious corrosion. I did not think that the pram battery would be so corrosive over so much area !!

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Ike

Well-known member
Yeah that really is your typical Maxell PRAM Battery explosion, Most of the red ones tend to go out with a bang...

The board already is much cleaner than it was, which is good. If you'll get the ROM working, you have quite a bigger change of getting things up and running.

Fingers crossed that the bus isn't damaged under the corrosion :(

Can you give us a brief description of what the screen looked like other than 'garbled'? any of these?

 

30pin

Well-known member
Thanks to Ike for the lead to the SE/30 repair page. The screen was the "Irregular Vertical Rasters" as shown on the the web site. After seeing the damage on the mother board I am amazed that it was able to do anything at all !!

I will try some type of cleaner to dissolve some of the corrosion that is under and inside the rom chip mount. The rom chip itself needs a good cleaning too.

 

mcdermd

Well-known member
I dunno, the pads look pretty well gone for the UJ ICs. A number of vias through there also. I'd say it's iffy at best. Dead at worst. Either way, it's a number of hours with a meter repairing traces. You'll probably want to pull the ROM slot for cleaning/testing too.

 

uniserver

Well-known member
Yeah I have to concur with mcdermd.

I'v have had se/30 boards that were so clean I could see my teeth and still be dead. :( in-fact there is 3 just like that (clean!) in the hands of genie_mac of ireland right now:)

from just the cap goo getting into the via's and causing havoc. let alone a battery explosion.

I have a parts se/30 you can buy from me for $15 + shipping if you want it.

it would have all those missing parts you need. The parts from it have already saved 3 other SE/30's, why not yours too?

That would make CC_333's board a real winner, winner, chicken dinner!!!! :)

 

genie_mac

Well-known member
I'd say that board needs a good scrubbing before you can properly assess the damage. I suppose the corrosion on any metal parts like the SIMM socket is going to be a big problem.

( in-fact there is 3 just like that (clean!) in the hands of genie_mac of ireland right now:)
Those boards seem to be quite happy in their spiritual home :) ...they're still not doing anything useful though...really need to have a look at them more thoroughly when I have nothing else on.

 

trag

Well-known member
If I remember correctly, those parts labeled F258 (the one that came off) are standard CMOS logic chips or buffers -- buffers I think. And so it should be possible to source brand new ones from Digikey.

The ROM SIMM is replaceable, even if it's been kilt. And socket is harder to find, but also replaceable. One of our members had a source for the 64 pin sockets, as I recall. Can't remember who it was.

The big issue, I think, is whether or how many traces and vias were eaten and whether the corrosion reached the CPU pins and what that little chip in the middle of the big white stain is.

 

ScutBoy

Well-known member
Hmm - Just today I cracked open a Craigslist find - an SE with an SE/30 MB installed, and exactly the same issue with battery explosion, and the "Irregular Vertical Rasters" from the website referenced upthread.

I did an alcohol scrub, and tried to clean the contacts on the ROM SIMM, which had a black coating that didn't really seem to respond to either alcohol/Q-tips or a couple passes with a pencil eraser.

I'm going to let things dry overnight, and then perhaps re-clean what I can, and then go from there.

Machine did come with an Asante MacCon Ethernet card, so it was worth it even if the rest of the machine doesn't pan out.

 
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