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SE/30 - preparing for 32bit clean upgrade

BacioiuC

Well-known member
Next week my 64MB of ram and Rominator II-clone is arriving, together with a new battery so I want to prepare to do the 32bit clean upgrade properly for my SE/30.

I currently have a PDS ProColorServer Graphics card installed in the PDS Slot and I'm using a color monitor as my main screen. From what I've read online, Rominator doesn't play extremely well with some pds addons. I want to make sure I get this right with as little problems as possible. Also running system 7.5.3 without the System Update File since it's the last System version that supports the PDS Card.

I found some conflicting answers and suggestions while browsing online but from what I gather I have two directions:

  1. Rominator doesn't play well with the PDS graphics card I can stick with Mode32
  2. Rominator plays well with the PDS graphics card.



What I'm trying to understand is the memory configurations so I can avoid fiddling and removing the RAM SIMMS too many times and braking the sim holders (forgot the name).

I currently have 8 MB of ram installed. With the 64 MB coming (4x16 MB simms) and the need to populate both banks I guess I'll end up with 68 MB of ram. Where should the simms go?

64 MB in bank A and 4 in bank B or the other way around? Found both of these suggestions online with mixed results. From my understanding:

  • Mode32


    4 MB in Bank A
  • 64 MB in Bank B

[*]Rominator


  • 64 MB in Bank A
  • 4 MB in Bank B



Did I understand this correct?

Second issue is with the system version. According to the Rominator 2's manual, I'll need to edit the system file on the main drive before I boot it up. Can this be done by booting into the Rominator Rom since it comes with Res Edit, or do I have to do a clean install of 7.1 and go through the upgrade process?

 

jessenator

Well-known member
memory configurations
This is from the Fall 2000 Apple Memory Guide PDF: As far as I'm aware, though the SE/30 can accommodate 128 MB of RAM total, the distribution has to follow the pattern here. And IIRC it cannot accept 64 MB 30-pin SIMMs (or any modules larger than 16 MB), so for 128 MB total, you'd need 8x 16 MB modules, unfortunately. In mine I have 8x 4MB modules, for 32 MB and that's been plenty for anything I do.

Since Apple never really wanted you to know max RAM for these older machines, long after their phase-out, I'm not sure if any other combination will work, but perhaps others have tested them (I'm talking weird values like 4x 4MB and 4x 16MB or something.)

sVm9vl1.png


 

SuperSVGA

Well-known member
Second issue is with the system version. According to the Rominator 2's manual, I'll need to edit the system file on the main drive before I boot it up. Can this be done by booting into the Rominator Rom since it comes with Res Edit, or do I have to do a clean install of 7.1 and go through the upgrade process?


Booting from the ROM doesn't require the patch, so as long as you can access the main drive you can patch it from ROM, or any 7.1 or earlier boot disk I suppose.

 

Crutch

Well-known member
My ResPatch utility can patch and unpatch a System file for a 32-bit clean SE/30 setup with one click.  There’s really no reason to do this instead of manually using ResEdit (as long as you know what you’re doing) of course, but .... here it is




 
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