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Se/30 ram

I've recently picked up an SE/30 with a mere 2 mb of ram. I was wondering which type of ram do I need in order to extend it, and well where can I get it.

Thanks

 
The SE/30 will take 512K, 1MB, 4MB, 8MB and some 16MB 30-pin SIMMs, installed in lots of 4. There are eight SIMM slots in the machine meaning there are two banks of RAM, named A and B. This means the machine can be upgraded to a whopping 128MB total!

1MB SIMMs are quite easy to find (and cheap) but larger sizes are getting a little scarce now. If you wish to be adventurous with your SE/30 I would suggest looking for some of the larger chips as the extra RAM will give a noticable increase in performance. You'll need to install the Mode32 extension to address more than 8MB as the SE/30 has a 32-bit "dirty" ROM. My SE/30 runs quite happily on 8MB, (8 x 1MB SIMMs), which is adaquate for retro gaming and some older apps.

 
... would this work on the se/30 ... ?
That's 9-chip parity RAM from the PC world. The Mac will ignore the ninth chips. However, if you had trawled this Forum before asking, you'd have found that the cheapest (~USD30 per set of four) 16MB 30-pin 60ns FPM non-parity RAM can be had here, and if you do not wish to lash out for 16MB, 4MB SIMMs of the same spec. can be had for about USD10 per set of four.

To make sure that the 4MB cards can be moved to any other Compact AIO if you need to do so, ask for 8-chip SIMMs instead of the 2-chip.

Also if you say it can be upgraded to 128, but accepts only 16 mb simms or lower, how do you make it go to 128?
Already addressed.

Finally, does the logic board need to be removed to upgrade the ram?
The MLBs of Compact AIOs need to be removed to do many things inside the Macs, especially if the MLBs are to be worked on. You'll get used to it.

de

 
equil, those auctions are in the US, i would prefer european ones. thanks for the help
You'll find 4MB and 1MB SIMMs in the UK. 16MB SIMMs in the UK/EU will be really rare, and much more expensive than from the US. Globalisation is easy: if you trust the seller, bid or buy. For one in four purchases from the US, you will pay import duty. In the long term, buying from the US is cheap.

 
equil, you say that using the ram on ebay from the pc world will mean that the 9th chip will be ignored. Does that mean that it would work but instead of 16 mb i would get 14?

Also, then what I have to look for is 30 pin , 60 ns, parity (what does that mean btw?) simms?

thanks

 
A byte is eight bits. A ninth bit can be appended to each byte for error-checking/correction of the other eight bits. The ninth chip is for this purpose. A 9-chip "16"MB simm is actually an 18MB module (16MB of user bits, +2MB of parity). If you ignore the ninth bit/chip, you have 16MB of user bits, and zero MB of error correcting ("parity") bits. You do not need a module with parity, but having it won't hurt. As equill said, it will be ignored. If you have the option of not paying for it, then save the money. If you don't have the option, then you get what you can get.

Hope that helps.

 
Take it from one who has two SE/30s, three IIcis, a IIcx, a Q700 and two Q950s that can use 16MB SIMMs that you will have the greatest difficulty in finding cheaper 16MB SIMMS of such quality as the above (both non-parity and parity at the same price) anywhere. The postage from US to UK should be less than from US to Australia, which was a miserable USD6 for two sets of four until it recently increased to USD11.50.

You have nothing to fear from a trans-Atlantic purchase but fear itself. The US is naturally the largest Mac market in the world, and for anything that is not uniquely Euro-centric, the logical place to go.

de

 
Thanks tomlee for your technical isight.

Equil, I'll give it a try. It's just that I've always got everything (not only mac stuff) from the EU and I'm used to not having any kind of check on my parcels. I'm a bit scared of H&M Customs when ordering stuff from outside the EU. But well, other people have stated that they have had no problems.

 
It's just RAM. It's not like you're importing weapons grade uranium.
With the current state of the UK, mothers can't even take bottles of baby milk on planes without them being tested first. It's crazy.

 
With the current state of the UK, mothers can't even take bottles of baby milk on planes without them being tested first. It's crazy.
Correction: EU, not UK. It's still nonsense, but there are signs that the European Parliament is recognising that fact. I've not flown this summer, but is Spain (and possibly others) still asking for passport numbers and addresses to be registered with the airline in advance of check-in?

WRT to the OP and UK customs: I've bought various bits of computer kit from the US during the last ten years. All of it has been "vintage" stuff, and 90% of the time this has been recorded on the customs declaration. Strangely enough, all parcels were sent by USPS so the deliverer in the UK was Royal Mail or Parcel Force. The price that I paid for the goods was between £10 and £500. In total, probably 15 or 20 parcels.

During that time, I have been asked to pay customs duty three times. Other people are less lucky, and large, professionally packaged items are a popular target for customs. Customs duty is a stinker: you pay an inspection charge, which varies depending on the value of the goods and the carrier, but it is at least £5. On top of that, you pay the import duty -- it varies depending on the item, but just use VAT as a starting point.

In the long term, it works in your favour. Occasionally, you get a silly bill before you go to collect your parcel, but it is very unlikely on a small package of SIMMs.

 
You have nothing to fear from a trans-Atlantic purchase but fear itself. The US is naturally the largest Mac market in the world, and for anything that is not uniquely Euro-centric, the logical place to go.

de
sure a slong as you have the actual means to do that if you are more locally bound then you are just screwed arent you

 
Just to echo what everyone else has said, the SE/30 will definitely accept 16Mb SIMMs. I know as I managed to get some (here in the UK) and added them to my machine to ramp it up to a very healthy 80Mb. Takes a while to boot but worth it. One thing to note though is that the SE/30 has two banks of RAM (A and B) and you should fit the higher capacity modules into bank A

If you do get stuck, let me know and I'll have a look through my big bag of RAM and see if I've got any 4Mb modules lying around (got loads of 1Mb modules)

 
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