SE/30 worked until it didn't

[just.in.time]

I'm new to this forum, if I do anything outside the rules let me know and I will correct my postings as appropriate.

I recently acquired an SE/30 with 8mb ram and 80mb hard drive.  It is in decent physical condition, and even included an ethernet networking card. [] ]'>

Gentleman shipped it to me, I unpacked it, plugged it in, and used it for 5 minutes.  It ran great and the display was bright and sharp.  Audio was fairly quiet but working (its max was about the same as my SE FDHD's mid level I suppose)

I then proceed to open up the case to put in a new battery.  Luckily the original 9/1989 dated battery hadn't leaked yet.  Using canned compressed air I dusted off the logic board.  Surrounding almost every capacitor was a faint wet-looking spot in the dust.  I'm guessing the capacitors are shot.  Reassembled and hooked everything up.

Upon flipping the switch it ran great for 2 minutes, then restarted on its own and continued to run normally for another ~45 seconds.  At this point it hard locked, not even the mouse would move.  I flipped the power off, waited 10 seconds, flipped it back on and was greeted with the standard chime but a garbled display showing roughly what had been on the display when it froze.  Also, despite the regular startup chime there was no further hard drive activity. :'(

In an attempt to fix the problem, I removed the new battery and network card.  Still no go.

Checked voltage at hard drive power supply.  I'm seeing 12.15 and 5.07.

Letting the system set for 5 minutes with no power I was just getting a gray display (like you would see right before the happy mac appears) and faint startup chime, but no mouse or disk activity.

At this point I stopped powering on the system as I didn't want to cause additional damage.

From here, what should I do?

I know the caps will need to be replaced.  I've read that people wash the logic board....???  If so, what are the steps to do that?  Should I do it before or after replacing the caps?  Is that leaking fluid bad for the board, and if so, how long before it starts causing damage?

I have very limited soldering skills.  Also heard people mentioning hot air guns and this special gel that melts into solder.  Youtube videos make that look a little easier but I'm not sure.

Most likely, I'll go pick up an old dvd player or vcr from goodwill to practice on before trying my hand on an SE/30 board.

From the description of the symptoms, is this a salvageable system?

 

[SlateBlue]

Sounds easily salvagable if you replace the caps. If you're not comfortable with your soldering skills, then it's totally worth paying someone else to do. If you want to attempt to replace the caps yourself, forum member trag has replacement cap kits. I'd bet the issue is caused solely by the bad caps. Good luck!

 

[SlateBlue]

(Mods, please merge this post with my previous if necessary.)

You'll want to use distilled water, a mild detergent, and a toothbrush or similar to wash the board. Don't scrub too hard with the brush or you could cause physical damage to a component. Follow up with blowing the board off with air to remove most of the water, but let the board dry for a couple of days before you reinstall and power up the Mac.

 

[Elfen]

The system's logic board needs a recapping, that's for sure.

You need to wash the board in a mix of alcohol/ammonia/distilled water mix of something like 1/1/10 or so. Slosh it about for about 5 minutes and then dry it out with compressed air. If you do not have compressed air, a hair dryer will work in a pinch. Make sure to get air flowing under the chips by flowing the air through the pins. Then you recap the board when it is dry. DO NOT let it sit and air dry!

While you are recapping the board, you still need to clean it up with q-tips and Acetone; there will be cap goo under the caps and when you remove the cap to replace it, you need to clean that goo off before putting in the new cap. Replace the caps a few at a time and test the board. Just because the board works fine with just a few caps replaced, does not mean you should stop work there. You should continue until all the caps are replaced. Just take your time with it.

In replacing the caps a few at a time and testing it, you can narrow down the area you worked on if the board "dies' compared to the tests before it. This is a lot better to fix than to recap the board all at once and then when it comes up dead, you have to chase down every connection you worked on.

Distilled water is a must. If you use water from your sink, it has salts and minerals in it that will (at best) coat everything with a fine white powder and (at worst) damage the board even further.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

I experienced similar issues with my SE/30.

Mine had no sound, a wavy display and rebooted on its own too. The problem is leaky capacitors.

You NEED to wash that board ! Otherwise it won't change anything.

I recommend Uniserver (used to be on the 68kmla, but is now gone). He's a pro. He can recap anything. His site.

He charges $70 per board (wash & new caps included).

I had to recap mine because it wouldn't shut down or reboot at some point... Yours is acting rather strangely but bad caps are to blame here.

 

[mrpippy]

Agree with everyone else, that board will need new caps. But even after I recapped my SE/30 board, I still had problems with it rebooting after a few minutes and sometimes going to checkerboard at boot. My board has a socketed 68030, and removing/reseating the CPU has fixed all the remaining problems.

 

[just.in.time]

Thank you everyone for your input.  I think I will contact Uniserver to see what he recommends.  I'll most likely ship it to him so it can be done right.  If I wreck the board it would be at least $120 to replace it with another one from eBay.  I'd really like to get the computer running again.  On a side question, do the caps on the analog board usually last a few extra years beyond the logic board's caps?

 

[CC_333]

Usually, but they're getting to the point that they, too will need to be replaced sooner than later, so it's probably better to get it over with now, if you can, to avoid any future problems. The Classic and Classic II are particularly bad as compacts go. The SE and SE/30 analog boards have been fairly solid in my experience, but again, better safe than sorry, so recap it if you can. Especially the power supply.

c

 

[just.in.time]

Good to know, thank you.

 

[just.in.time]

Update:  I have contacted Uniserver to ask about pricing and turn around times.  I will most likely end up sending the board out to him in the next week or two.  This is one of my all time favorite machines, I'd like to not damage it since it would be my first recapping experience  .  See my other posts, I'll most likely get my practice recapping my spare Color Classic's analog board  .

Two side questions:

1) Are the SE/30 and SE FDHD boards swappable for the purpose of doing an open-case power on test?  This assumes that both unit's hard drives have an OS that is compatible with the other's logic board.  If that is the case, would the systems be able to boot one another's healthy logic boards?

2) On the SE/30, the CRT is bright and sharp (for the 8 minutes it worked for me), but when I power off the unit the display does a bright flash towards the center.  My SE FDHD and Plus do not exhibit this behavior.  Could this have been from the failing logic board, or is this a sign that the analog board is also on its way out?  If this is normal behavior, then no worries.  I want to verify that I'm not slowly causing damage to the CRT tube itself.  If necessary I can post a slow-motion video of the effect.

 

[bibilit]

Hi

SE/30 and SE boards are swappable.

 

[Elfen]

2) On the SE/30, the CRT is bright and sharp (for the 8 minutes it worked for me), but when I power off the unit the display does a bright flash towards the center.  My SE FDHD and Plus do not exhibit this behavior.  Could this have been from the failing logic board, or is this a sign that the analog board is also on its way out?  If this is normal behavior, then no worries.  I want to verify that I'm not slowly causing damage to the CRT tube itself.  If necessary I can post a slow-motion video of the effect.

It is usually a failing Analog board, though the SE\30 Board is having other problem that will be repaired when is it sent out. Check out the usual suspects around the flyback transformer. And checked for cracked solder joints around the harness jacks; if needed - DESOLDER(!!!), clean up and resolder with fresh solder and flux. Reheating to reflow the joint does not fix it and it will crack again in no time. Also check the PSU with a multimeter.

 

[just.in.time]

Hi bibilit and Elfren,

Thanks for your replies.

Re: swapping the logic boards out

I may or may not give this a try to verify the SE/30 board.  However, my SE FDHD has ran the same way since 2005 now (great with an occasionally jumpy display on a warm startup, always clears itself by the time it gets to the desktop).  It can literally run stable for over 8 hour hops at a time.  With that said I'm thinking I shouldn't go touching it too much until I'm ready to resolder and recap the computer.

Re: question 2 about CRT

I will most likely be sending in the logic board, analog board, and PSU all at once to get it done and over with.  I will post a video of the effect I'm seeing later today.

 

[just.in.time]

Sorry about the delay in posting more regarding the CRT, Elfen.  Setting my phone to 240 fps, I was able to catch the effect it is creating.  May be normal, may not.  I only have a sample size of 3 B&W compact Macs.  The photos are 6 consecutive frames, that span only 0.025 seconds  from start to finish, as well as the 8 seconds from the source video. Just kidding, I can't attach an mp4 video file, so see the photos.  Let me know what you think.  Most likely will still send the analog board and PSU in with the logic board so I don't have to deal with them in a year or two if they are EOL on their capacitors.

This occurs approximately a half second after flipping the power switch to off.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

My SE/30 does that as well. Sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it does.

Everything was recapped on this machine apart from the AB. PSU and LB are recapped.

I don't know for sure if that's normal or not, but I don't think it is hurting the CRT much. 

 

[just.in.time]

Thanks BadGoldEagle. Now that I have a general idea of how the machine should run and what is relatively normal I have a baseline for comparison when it all comes back from being recapped

 

[BadGoldEagle]

But my AB is on its way out... It's on my list of stuff I have to recap.

 

[just.in.time]

I'm most likely having the logic board, analog board, and PSU all recapped in the next couple weeks to just get it done and over with.  Hopefully the system will then be good to go for another 20 years, with future hard drive and floppy drive mechanical issues aside.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Yeah that HD will undoubtedly fail some time soon. If anything's on there you want to preserve (old rare program/game/document), you should back it up before it's too late.

Floppy drive won't give you much trouble I think, except if you're a fool like me who forgets to put it back on properly  xx(  :

On the SE and SE/30, it's quite easy to mis-align the drive when securing it to the chassis. When it tried to eject that floppy it hit the bezel and broke...

Thankfully bibilit is really good at mending stuff! But that head assembly was gone.

With those boards recapped, your machine will be as good as new, or even, better than it ever was.  :approve: