Westinghouse
Well-known member
Hi all,
I posted here a while ago about a SCSI problem with my SE/30, which I managed to resolve.
Since then I’ve replaced the surface-mount capacitors (haven’t received replacements for the axials yet), and given the board another swabbing with alcohol - sound is back.
Having used the SE/30 for a while now, I’ve identified some issues with its operation, and I’m wondering if anyone has any helpful suggestions
Problem 1: floppy drive.
The floppy drive accesses and reads floppies, and will mount them to the desktop.
When given an unformatted disk, or when asked to erase an existing disk, the system will lock up immediately upon starting initialization.
The SE/30 will boot from a floppy, but after shutting down, the disk will no longer be recognized on the SE/30, or on my known-good Mac Classic (I use the Mac Classic to make these disks).
The floppy drive has been cleaned out, and when placed in the Mac Classic it will read, write and initialize just fine.
I’ve checked a number (but not all) of the traces from the SWIM chip with my multimeter and all of the ones I’ve tested so far have been OK. I haven’t gone any further upstream though.
Problem 2: intermittent hanging and crashes.
I get some weird pauses and some crashes, and I haven’t been able to pinpoint the source - while it may be related to whatever is causing Problem 1, I do note that some of these crashes are related to Mode32 being active. This is a two-parter so I’ve broken it up into 2a and 2b.
2a: Some programs - Sierra games, and sometimes Bard’s Tale - will have a bus error almost immediately upon loading when Mode32 is on.
Macwrite will hang as it opens, freezing the system, when Mode32 is on, and works properly with Mode32 off.
Stuffit 5.5 will also lock up the system on opening if Mode32 is turned on, but runs fine when it’s off.
2b: Generally, regardless of whether or not Mode32 is on, the system will ‘pause’ - this is most noticeable in games due to the animations: the screen will stop animating and it seems as though nothing is happening at all. An input, be it a mouse click or a keyboard press (but not a mouse movement) will ‘shake things loose’ and the system runs properly again until the next ‘pause’ about 15 seconds later. It’s not only in games, though - I notice it when transferring files via Fetch, as the ‘bytes transferred’ count pauses until woken up.
I’ve got 80 megs of ram - 4x4mb in bank A and 4x16mb in bank B.
When I boot with just the 4x16mb in bank A, I get the chimes of death.
When I boot with just the 4x4mb in bank A, and mode32 turned on, the issues are still present with bus errors and freezing as described in 2a above.
I'd appreciate any insights!
Thanks!
I posted here a while ago about a SCSI problem with my SE/30, which I managed to resolve.
Since then I’ve replaced the surface-mount capacitors (haven’t received replacements for the axials yet), and given the board another swabbing with alcohol - sound is back.
Having used the SE/30 for a while now, I’ve identified some issues with its operation, and I’m wondering if anyone has any helpful suggestions
Problem 1: floppy drive.
The floppy drive accesses and reads floppies, and will mount them to the desktop.
When given an unformatted disk, or when asked to erase an existing disk, the system will lock up immediately upon starting initialization.
The SE/30 will boot from a floppy, but after shutting down, the disk will no longer be recognized on the SE/30, or on my known-good Mac Classic (I use the Mac Classic to make these disks).
The floppy drive has been cleaned out, and when placed in the Mac Classic it will read, write and initialize just fine.
I’ve checked a number (but not all) of the traces from the SWIM chip with my multimeter and all of the ones I’ve tested so far have been OK. I haven’t gone any further upstream though.
Problem 2: intermittent hanging and crashes.
I get some weird pauses and some crashes, and I haven’t been able to pinpoint the source - while it may be related to whatever is causing Problem 1, I do note that some of these crashes are related to Mode32 being active. This is a two-parter so I’ve broken it up into 2a and 2b.
2a: Some programs - Sierra games, and sometimes Bard’s Tale - will have a bus error almost immediately upon loading when Mode32 is on.
Macwrite will hang as it opens, freezing the system, when Mode32 is on, and works properly with Mode32 off.
Stuffit 5.5 will also lock up the system on opening if Mode32 is turned on, but runs fine when it’s off.
2b: Generally, regardless of whether or not Mode32 is on, the system will ‘pause’ - this is most noticeable in games due to the animations: the screen will stop animating and it seems as though nothing is happening at all. An input, be it a mouse click or a keyboard press (but not a mouse movement) will ‘shake things loose’ and the system runs properly again until the next ‘pause’ about 15 seconds later. It’s not only in games, though - I notice it when transferring files via Fetch, as the ‘bytes transferred’ count pauses until woken up.
I’ve got 80 megs of ram - 4x4mb in bank A and 4x16mb in bank B.
When I boot with just the 4x16mb in bank A, I get the chimes of death.
When I boot with just the 4x4mb in bank A, and mode32 turned on, the issues are still present with bus errors and freezing as described in 2a above.
I'd appreciate any insights!
Thanks!
Witch is why i always test. 
