An SE/30 and a MBA 1th gen

[quantumii]

Hi,

I was just given a nice SE/30, and it has a network adapter too. It boots up nicely, although a little noisy on the HDD side. I have not browser the system contents yet (Because my ADB keyboards and mice are at work), but I was told it has been used to convert between different storage media (PC-MAC or something).

It also belonged to the university, but this one I was actually given and not something I found in the eWaste bins

I also got myself a Macbook Air where some fool has broken the battery connector. Also, the cooling paste was a mega overkill, causing a short and making the fan run at full speed all the time with very very bad CPU performance (could not even run Youtube)

After a nice cleanup, the machine runs great, but with no battery.

I've finally repaired my 512k's keyboard too. Used key switches and key caps from a $1 Plus keyboard I got from ebay.

All in all a great month for Mac repair and fun

 

[agg23]

Where did you get the MacBook? Was it free :O

 

[quantumii]

Nah, not free, it was eBay. It was listed as broken, so I figured I wanted a cool project. I was pretty confident that I could fix it, and I am posting from that very Air right now.

 

[agg23]

Nice still. :lol:

 

[quantumii]

yes, it's still nice

I have been working a bit on the SE/30 last night, and found out the following:

- The HDD is noisy and 80 MB, so I might replace it with another SCSI drive. I'll dig around and see what I find.

- Sound level is barely audible. Capacitor replacement needed, no?

- I had to adjust the picture, as the screen was dim and the picture was a bit squashed. This is cured now.

- It requires a full internal cleanup. The CRT parts are very dusty, and the case will be much happier after a good cleanup.

It had some software on it for converting files between NEXT, Sun, IBM PC, Mac and some other formats. Probably useful, so I will make a backup of this some day. It suppored a wide range of documents as well as binary formats.

 

[iMac600]

I'm pretty sure the battery connector on the MacBook Air is surface mount, but with exposed legs which does make a repair or replacement of the connector possible. If the connector is broken on the battery side however, this is even easier as you can just replace the battery pack.

Personally I would love a MacBook Air. 13-inch display, full size keyboard, Core 2 Duo and ultimate mobility. With a bit of work on the thermal module i'm sure it would be one hell of a machine.

 

[quantumii]

I took the MBA motherboard to the lab at work, and soldered the connector back (or, thin wires from the pads on the motherboard, and it still did not charge or detect the battery.

Either the battery is wasted or the MBA motherboard has a problem somewhere else. But you are correct, the connector is surface mounted. With professional soldering equipment it was not too much of a deal to remove the broken pins from the mainboard and fabricate a fix, but unfortunately, as I said it still does not care about the battery.

Still, the machine runs like a dream from the ac adapter.

I have applied new cooling paste and the machine runs quiet and cool now, at least if you dont play a 3D game or something