Troubleshooting a Macintosh SE

[peafour]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the board, and new to the world of older Macs, but the last 10 days or so have been pretty exciting from an "acquiring new knowledge" standpoint.  I've been posting over on the vintageapple subreddit, and this forum was recommended as where the experts hang out.  So I'm hoping to avail myself of your collective knowledge and fill in the gaps in understanding that I haven't been able to fill.

Basically, I bought a Macintosh SE at an estate sale, that looked as if it had been in storage for years, if not decades.  If it had been used since the mid 90's, I'd be shocked.  Initially when I started the machine, it would display a jail bar pattern, like so (sorry for the quality): http://imgur.com/a/aj7C5.  The rest of the photos of the innards can be seen here: http://imgur.com/a/lonrq.  I bought "new" old RAM, which yielded progress, of a sort: http://imgur.com/Ia3IVPf.

Looking around on the internet, at various manuals and scrolls, it seems like it could be a couple different issues: either the logic/analog board needs to be recapped, or the ROMs need to be removed and reseated.  I'm wary of too much pressure on the ROMs, as I'm not sure if they're soldered in or not, and my soldering skills are non-existent.  I saw mention of a tool to remove them from an SE logic board, but only hearsay, nothing concrete.  If it does need to be recapped, I think I'd need to pursue an outside solution, since I'm not able to do it myself.  Any assistance would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.  I can take any pictures of anything that anyone wants to see to assist in diagnosis.

 

[just.in.time]

I'm still new to the hardware side of things but it sounds like you will probably need to do a recap.

Part of the recap process (at least to my understanding) is a good washing of the involved boards after removing the old caps, but before soldering in the new caps. This step would probably be where reseating any RAM/ROM could/would occur as well.

A more simple thing that you could check is the system's voltages. I believe this can even be done via the external floppy drive port on the back. Maybe someone else here can tell you which pins you measure the voltage at. This will help give you an idea on the condition of the power supply.

Good luck on your restoration I'm sure some more knowledgeable members will chime in soon.

 

[Compgeke]

With your new ram, are those 256K or 1M sticks? If they're 1M sticks cut a lead of the jumper R36, the one right below "Ram Size".

The ROMs on an SE are socketed. One thing you can do is give them a firm press to make sure they're fully seated. A slight crunchy feel might be felt, that's normal and not breaking anything. 

Mac SE motherboards rarely need to be recapped. I've had 5 myself and none did, those axial caps tend to last forever. The big ones on recap are SE/30+.

 

[just.in.time]

I got lucky on my SE FDHD.  The RAM jumper was a plastic jumper that could easily be repositioned/removed without any cutting/desoldering/etc.  My Macintosh Plus on the other hand did require cutting a lead when the previous owner upgraded to 4MB of RAM.

 

[peafour]

With your new ram, are those 256K or 1M sticks? If they're 1M sticks cut a lead of the jumper R36, the one right below "Ram Size".

The ROMs on an SE are socketed. One thing you can do is give them a firm press to make sure they're fully seated. A slight crunchy feel might be felt, that's normal and not breaking anything. 

Mac SE motherboards rarely need to be recapped. I've had 5 myself and none did, those axial caps tend to last forever. The big ones on recap are SE/30+.

They're 1 MB sticks.  Before I put everything back together, I cut the jumper, and bent it back so it was out of contact.  I'll try pushing the ROMs down, and see if there's any movement.  If/when that doesn't work, do you have any other suggestions?  There's a certain point where everything is done for, I guess, I'm just hoping that this isn't it.

 

[SlateBlue]

I'm still new to the hardware side of things but it sounds like you will probably need to do a recap.

Part of the recap process (at least to my understanding) is a good washing of the involved boards after removing the old caps, but before soldering in the new caps. This step would probably be where reseating any RAM/ROM could/would occur as well.

A more simple thing that you could check is the system's voltages. I believe this can even be done via the external floppy drive port on the back. Maybe someone else here can tell you which pins you measure the voltage at. This will help give you an idea on the condition of the power supply.

Good luck on your restoration I'm sure some more knowledgeable members will chime in soon.

I don't think the SE board is plagued with capacitor issues like the SE/30, Classic, Classic II, etc. However, I wonder if the analog board is susceptible to cold solder joints. Beyond reseating ICs, I would look for any obvious damage on the logic board. Cold solder joints on the analog board will be nearly impossible to see. Last thought: maybe the SIMM sockets have dirty contacts?

 

[SlateBlue]

This link has information for measuring voltage: http://www.ccadams.org/se/classicmac2.pdf

 

[Elfen]

As stated on Compgeke's post, the SE Logic board does not have the problem with caps that the SE\30 has, so you will not need to recap the board.

Also, there is the jumper issue. Follow this guide to make sure your jumper is set right:

http://lowendmac.com/2016/memory-upgrades-mac-se/

Since it turns on, I think this may be a RAM issue. The SE (and the Plus and a couple of the Mac IIs) were picky as to what RAM you put into it. The guide explains it well so read up on it and try again. The photos you put up are nice, looks like you have a very clean machine there, and the issue is a minor one. But sometimes minor issues are hell to fix as one tries to figure out what it is, and when it is fixed, one says, "Damn, all that time for such a simple fix! Now I know better."

I see you have the older SE with Dual 800K Drives and the Squirrel Cage fan. The Squirrel Cage fan is better in keeping the SE cool but it makes a lot of noise! People tend to switch it out for the box fan which is less noise. Unfortunately, you can not put in a high density drive into this machine as is. You need to replace the ROM and the IWM with the high density ROMs and the SWIM. Only then you will have proper setting for high density Floppy Drives on the SE.

 

[peafour]

As stated on Compgeke's post, the SE Logic board does not have the problem with caps that the SE\30 has, so you will not need to recap the board.

Also, there is the jumper issue. Follow this guide to make sure your jumper is set right:

http://lowendmac.com/2016/memory-upgrades-mac-se/

Since it turns on, I think this may be a RAM issue. The SE (and the Plus and a couple of the Mac IIs) were picky as to what RAM you put into it. The guide explains it well so read up on it and try again. The photos you put up are nice, looks like you have a very clean machine there, and the issue is a minor one. But sometimes minor issues are hell to fix as one tries to figure out what it is, and when it is fixed, one says, "Damn, all that time for such a simple fix! Now I know better."

I see you have the older SE with Dual 800K Drives and the Squirrel Cage fan. The Squirrel Cage fan is better in keeping the SE cool but it makes a lot of noise! People tend to switch it out for the box fan which is less noise. Unfortunately, you can not put in a high density drive into this machine as is. You need to replace the ROM and the IWM with the high density ROMs and the SWIM. Only then you will have proper setting for high density Floppy Drives on the SE.

Thanks for the response, that link is something that I've come across before.  I clipped the jumper in R35 and pushed it off to the side a little so it wouldn't reconnect.  I noticed in the link that it expects there to be a jumper in both R35 and R36; mine only has the jumper in R35.  Potentially an issue?

This is the memory that I bought on eBay; it seemed to fit the bill: http://www.ebay.com/itm/142093920103.  The seller offers returns, so I've got some recourse if there's a better option.

When you say that I can't put in a high density drive without switching the ROMs out, does that mean a higher capacity floppy, or a hard drive?  I was under the impression that I could put a 50-pin SCSI drive in with little difficulty, provided I had one of the caddies to do it.  And the ability to properly format it, etc.

I will try cleaning the SIMM sockets tonight, and report back.  I'm kind of in the tall grass here, as all of the guides that I've seen have basically just said to switch out RAM until it works, and I don't have a ready, unlimited supply of 30 year old RAM

 

[SlateBlue]

He's referring to a SuperDrive, which is a floppy drive that can read and write 400k/800k/1.4M floppies. The original SE isn't able to read or write 1.4M floppies unless you install both a SuperDrive and the necessary ROMs.

 

[peafour]

More progress, I think.  I took the RAM out, switched it around in the sockets, after thoroughly cleaning the sockets with rubbing alcohol and a can of air.  Firing it back up lead to  the barest hint of a sad Mac icon through the digital fog, so kind of for the hell of it I popped one of the system disks that came with the machine into the drive and restarted it.  It beeps (which I've read to be good), but then kind of chills on a grey screen.  

I have a panoply of disks that came with the SE, but I'm unsure as to which, if any, is a boot disk, and what potential harm there could be in popping them in and seeing what happens.  I don't want to hose the disks that I have, as it's impossible for me to recreate them right now.  I believe they're System 5, but I'm not totally sure.  GIS wasn't much help in trying to find a match for "mac os system 5 boot disk".  Any help would be most appreciated.

ETA: i forgot to post the link to my disks: http://imgur.com/a/ASejJ

 

[peafour]

I was so focused on finding solutions online, that I completely forgot I had the manuals that came with the computer. Reading those illuminated a couple things for me, and led me here: http://m.imgur.com/WxodcA2

It lives! It is indeed on system 5.5, and all of the RAM is showing up, which is tremendous. I need to explore the disks a bit more, but it seems like I have everything that I need to format a hard drive on the disks that I have. Back to google to determine the next course of action, thanks to everyone for their help!

 

[just.in.time]

Good job!

 

[peafour]

Stupid question, that I've seen conflicting answers on.

With regards to moving data to the SE, I need to figure out a floppy solution.  I've seen three potential options:

1.  Upgrade the ROMs on the logic board and install a FDHD, which I'm not to keen on;

2.  Buy an (extremely expensive) external SuperDrive that will allow the SE to read and write to 1.44MB floppy disks;

3.  Chicane something together using a combination of other computers and peripherals.

I know that the first two will work, because they're well documented, but for technical reasons on the first, and monetary reasons on the second, I'm looking to pursue the third option first.

Doing research online it seems like there are hardware differences between 800k and 1.44MB drives, which prevent the two from being used interchangeably.  But browsing various forums, including the Low End Mac Google Group, I've seen people mention that pre-Leopard OS X can format 1.44 MB disks as HFS that can be read by an SE, as long as there is a hole that is taped over (?).  This seems kind of too good to be true.  I do have a G3 iMac running Tiger that I could potentially use to copy 800k disk images to a 1.44MB disk, if that would be a thing that would work.  

Before I go much further, I think I need to figure out how to copy drivers, etc, to be able to install a HDD and whatever networking solution I gin up.

 

[SlateBlue]

Formatting a 1.44 MB disk as 800k is unreliable. Expect the disk to be one-time use, if it works at all. Have you heard of FloppyEmu?

 

[peafour]

Formatting a 1.44 MB disk as 800k is unreliable. Expect the disk to be one-time use, if it works at all. Have you heard of FloppyEmu?

I had not, but I think this addresses pretty much every thing that I need.  Thanks!

 

[just.in.time]

Yes, taping over a hole on a 1.44mb disk will let the computer format it as an 800k disk (make sure you tape over the correct hole, not the one with the slider that locks the disk).  I've done that dozens of times and never once had an issue with it, for both 800k disks and a long time ago, 720k disks for PCs.  I wouldn't have my only copy of data on one, but for transferring some files back and forth and installing software it should be fine.

Of course, FloppyEmu really is a more modern solution.

edited to add:  Your iMac won't have a way to write the 800k disk.  Even with a USB floppy drive, as they don't support the multispeed motor operation that was required to write 800k to a 720k disk.  Looks like you are getting a FloppyEmu or buying an inbetween machine (beige G3/Wallstreet PB G3 w/Apple Floppy Module or older).

 

[peafour]

Yeah, I ordered a FloppyEmu.  When this project inevitably balloons into buying and restoring more machines, it'll be nice to have the flexibility that it provides.

 

[just.in.time]

this project inevitably balloons into buying and restoring more machines

It happens faster than you would like to believe.