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Mac SE clicking when turned on

B

Billy Masterpigeon

6502
I was testing a mac hard disk when my se went crazy and i had to shut it down, but now when i turn it on it clicks for a second or two then i get either a single line in the middle of the screen or it will display a checker board pattern for a few seconds then try to boot for about 15 seconds then display the single line. Any ideas?

And the mouse doesn't work sometimes.

 
Is the bright line vertical or horizontal?

If you gently tap on the left side of the cabinet, does it restore the full display or does causes it to flash at all?

The bright line occurring after a few seconds is most likely caused by a bad solder joint on the Analog board, at least that's what Larry Pina says... Once we know if it's horizontal or vertical, I'll tell you where to look more precisely.

The checkerboard pattern occurs when there's something wrong with the ROMs BUT the Analog Board issue itself might be causing that.

Edit: When the flyback fails, it generally doesn't do that.

 
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Definitely a bad joint in there somewhere. The clicking could be coming from your PSU maybe? If it is, you need to recap that PSU.

 
Okay. So the bright horizontal line can be caused by two things:

A/ Bad solder joint at board reference P1 (pin 1, bottom, vertical yoke)

5859062190_471be0b3ff_b.jpg.922757a6e7fcb5a0ddcd3813611c636d.jpg


That's the vertical connector on the left hand side of the picture. If you have a soldering iron, you should re-do the joints on the other side of the PCB.

B/ If the quick fix above doesn't fix your problem, then the TDA 1170 chip is probably bad (located at board reference U2)

That's the chip located to the right of CR1 and C1, a couple of inches below the connector I was talking above earlier. It's hard to find but not unobtainable.

But in most cases, the quick fix (A/) does the trick. So, if you don't have a soldering iron on hand, you should try your local electronics repair shop. It should take a couple of minutes to put some new solder on those pins.

Good luck!

 
I put some more solder on the P1 pins, now it displays the checker board pattern and it flickers in sync with the clicks for the first couple of seconds after i turn it on.

 
Yeah, clicking is your PSU (as I mentioned above). Get it recapped sooner rather than later. If that doesn't fix it, we are going to have to go on a more in depth troubleshooting process.

 
Good, one problem resolved.

Second problem: PSU. Do as Themk says. If you want someone else to do it for you, go to Charles @ Maccaps.com.

But it's kinda odd that those two things happened at the same time... I wonder if they're connected somehow.

 
That's the exact same issue I have with my SE. I guess I can give another confident vote for PSU caps. I have the exact same symptoms. Working on getting mine recapped too. Hopefully that fixes both of ours.

 
I'm just curious, spaceinvader12 what brand of PSU did you have, Sony? Astec?

Also, Billy Masterpigeon, what brand of PSU do you have, Sony? Astec?

Just wanting to get some data points on which brands of PSUs fail more. Eventually, they will all fail as electrolytic capacitors have a finite lifespan.

 
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95% of SEs-SE/30s in Europe have the Sony PSU. All of these Macs were made in Cork, Ireland. I've only seen one Astec on an SE/30 that was for sale on ebay, and that's it.

I think things were a little bit different on the other side of the Atlantic, I believe...

The two PSUs are quite different. Each version has its own set of faults.

IIRC, uni wrote a couple of years ago about SE PSUs failing at an alarming rate... 

Good luck.

 
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I have one Astec, and one Sony. Both of my machines were made in Freemont California. Neither PSU seems to have any major issues ATM. One PSU is from early 1987 (Astec) , the other is from 1990 (Sony).

 
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