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Two SE/30s with identical no-startup problems.

S

scotter

6502
I recently bought two SE/30s on Ebay, hoping to put together a working pair of old Macs that would run only very basic old software without all the more recent bells and whistles.

Both of them do not start, and both display the "early symptoms" pattern shown at

http://www.biwa.ne.jp/~shamada/fullmac/repairEng.html#SimasiMac

It's an irregular vertical pattern.

Apparently this is a common problem. Does anyone here know where I should be looking to troubleshoot this? Is it a motherboard or analog board problem?

Thanks in advance for any help on this.

 
I feel a touch of neurosis coming on. Am I the only one? :?:

Are recent posts too hard to find? [V]

Will someone please step forth and put our SE/30 cap replacement info into a sticky? :?:

 
The screen pattern I'm seeing on these two SE/30s is not even remotely the same as that shown in http://gallery.mac.com/huckdunsany#100165 which JRL linked to via Huxley's post in 2007 (http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=31079). The "early symptoms" pattern depicted at http://www.biwa.ne.jp/~shamada/fullmac/repairEng.html#SimasiMac is what is being displayed by both of the SE/30s I have here.

One of the ones I have here is emitting an intermittent scratchy noise from the speaker, while the other is silent, but both screens display that irregular vertical pattern depicted as an "early symptom" of the "simasiMac". While the screen pattern is the same as shown at the widely mirrored "Repair Macintosh SE/30 (Repair Mac)" page under "early symptoms", neither of them start up at all.

 
You're still not reading far enough:

http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=30927#30927

Click on "strange artifacts" in my post and compare with what your screen looks like. If your screen looks different, then shoot a photo and post it to Flickr and then post the link for us here so we can all see exactly what you see.

Audio problems on the SE/30 are also solved by the very same "cap job" I refer to time and time again in all my posts which I have linked for you in my previous email in this thread. Read through and you will see how to do the cap job.

 
scotter, once again, I must refer you back to this post. You read through it once and kindly confirmed that you are seeing the strange artifacts on your SE/30's screen. But I would also like to repeat, as I say in that same post, that in my case I get those artifacts only during RAM check at cold boot and then my SE/30 boots after that. I have 128MB of RAM and so those RAM checks take over a minute to complete. But if after waiting 120 seconds or so and your SE/30 still does not boot, your screen is either indicative of SimasiMac or possibly "bad RAM, no RAM, dirty RAM slots, bad ROM, dirty ROM slot, or PRAM battery issues." So if you have confirmed that the latter is NOT an issue, then it leaves only SimasiMac, and the only solution to that is a cap job (which is certainly not an impossible task, even for someone without such experience). Indeed, we have a 68kMLA member who is kindly offering a low cost SE/30 replacement caps set, which I myself have purchased two sets of.

 
scotter, once again, I must refer you back to this post. You read through it once and kindly confirmed that you are seeing the strange artifacts on your SE/30's screen. But I would also like to repeat, as I say in that same post, that in my case I get those artifacts only during RAM check at cold boot and then my SE/30 boots after that. I have 128MB of RAM and so those RAM checks take over a minute to complete. But if after waiting 120 seconds or so and your SE/30 still does not boot, your screen is either indicative of SimasiMac or possibly "bad RAM, no RAM, dirty RAM slots, bad ROM, dirty ROM slot, or PRAM battery issues." So if you have confirmed that the latter is NOT an issue, then it leaves only SimasiMac, and the only solution to that is a cap job (which is certainly not an impossible task, even for someone without such experience). Indeed, we have a 68kMLA member who is kindly offering a low cost SE/30 replacement caps set, which I myself have purchased two sets of.
Click to expand...
It's not as easy to find topics in old posts as you think it is JDW. It does seem to be a hot topic so I agree with your suggestion of making it a sticky.

Anyway, the point of this forums are to talk about old macs, I'm sure at heart you really enjoy showing your knowledge by explaining (quite a few times, granted) how to fix the SE/30

 
All of the electrolytics used as bypasses, yes, at a minimum. Any that are leaking, certainly.
Click to expand...
I was able to get one of the two computers going by removing and replacing the RAM then waiting for the RAM to get recognized (only 8MB on that one). Oddly enough, the one with a very slight leak around C9 was the one that started up. No luck on the other one thus far. It appears not to have any leaky caps or corrosion around the battery, but I'll go through the recommended maintenance steps when I have a chance and report what happened.

Thanks to all.

 
nahuelmarisi, those posts are easy to find if you authored them! ;)

Of course, that is precisely why I took time to carefully link the relevant threads in my previous post above. Therefore, if this thread becomes the sticky, all other information can be found simply by clicking the links herein. But of course, there are some other discussions on the same subject on this site, but they basically just talk about the same content as I have linked above.

If I can add anything, it would be a link to my SE/30 logic board photos. That board has been recapped. And this AppleFritter thread is the one in which I posted my "Strange Artifacts" screen shot. It has some interesting info toward the end about "thick bar" screen anomalies. I had posted even more on this subject in the past, but all that was erased in the 68kMLA hard drive crash over a year ago. May that NEVER happen again! Backups, please!

scotter, congrats on getting of your machines up and running. But I'm sorry to say that even if that machine works for now, it still needs a cap job. As mentioned in the other threads on this subject, all SE/30 logic boards that have not previously been recapped need a cap job now. This holds true even if you cannot see any electrolytic capacitor fluid leaked onto the logic board. I myself could not physically see leaked fluid on one of my Simasimac boards, but it was only when I cleaned off the fluid and re-capped the board did it start working again. Fluid had indeed leaked. I just couldn't see it with my eyes.

You know, if I were back in the states, I would love to offer a re-capping service to SE/30 owners. It would be a labor of love, to be sure. But I do love working on old Macs, especially when I know the exact steps required to fix them (like a recap job). And with people like Trag offering a compete set of high quality tantalum caps for the SE/30 at a great price, it makes the job even easier.

Happy SE/30ing!

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I was able to get one of the two computers going by removing and replacing the RAM then waiting for the RAM to get recognized (only 8MB on that one). Oddly enough, the one with a very slight leak around C9 was the one that started up. No luck on the other one thus far. It appears not to have any leaky caps or corrosion around the battery, but I'll go through the recommended maintenance steps when I have a chance and report what happened.

Thanks to all.
Click to expand...
As JDW said, your victory is likely a temporary one. Often, the act of mechanically perturbing the board can get things to work for a time (say, by breaking some shorting paths, perhaps). But this is a good time to plan your cap-replacement weekend. :)

 
I have no power to edit a website that belongs to someone else, nor do any of us here on 68kMLA.

One must also consider that this site is indexed well by Google. Search for "SE/30 boot problems" or "SE/30 problems" and you will spot 68kMLA in the first 10 search results.

The fact remains that we have a CRT sticky now, even though I see more questions about SE/30 boot problems here than I ever did for CRTs. That's not to say we should not have the CRT thread a sticky. Rather, it is evidence we need a sticky for SE/30 boot problem info, such as is contained in this thread.

 
no - I didn't mean that. You could take that page and create a new one with the updated information, using it as a template. Or instead, create an entirely new one if you'd rather replicate the info - I just personally think the layout of that FAQ is nice.

Then host it somewhere.

Basically, instead of getting frustrated every time someone doesn't trawl through this forum to get all the (genuinely good) infos you've posted (and I suspect a sticky wouldn't be enough - as the investigations span several threads of conflicting info, with many pages to each), you could instead simply make a more current SE/30 repair FAQ.

 
nahuelmarisi, those posts are easy to find if you authored them! ;) Of course, that is precisely why I took time to carefully link the relevant threads in my previous post above. Therefore, if this thread becomes the sticky, all other information can be found simply by clicking the links herein. But of course, there are some other discussions on the same subject on this site, but they basically just talk about the same content as I have linked above.

If I can add anything, it would be a link to my SE/30 logic board photos. That board has been recapped. And this AppleFritter thread is the one in which I posted my "Strange Artifacts" screen shot. It has some interesting info toward the end about "thick bar" screen anomalies. I had posted even more on this subject in the past, but all that was erased in the 68kMLA hard drive crash over a year ago. May that NEVER happen again! Backups, please!

scotter, congrats on getting of your machines up and running. But I'm sorry to say that even if that machine works for now, it still needs a cap job. As mentioned in the other threads on this subject, all SE/30 logic boards that have not previously been recapped need a cap job now. This holds true even if you cannot see any electrolytic capacitor fluid leaked onto the logic board. I myself could not physically see leaked fluid on one of my Simasimac boards, but it was only when I cleaned off the fluid and re-capped the board did it start working again. Fluid had indeed leaked. I just couldn't see it with my eyes.

You know, if I were back in the states, I would love to offer a re-capping service to SE/30 owners. It would be a labor of love, to be sure. But I do love working on old Macs, especially when I know the exact steps required to fix them (like a recap job). And with people like Trag offering a compete set of high quality tantalum caps for the SE/30 at a great price, it makes the job even easier.

Happy SE/30ing!
Click to expand...
well obviously I wasn't referring to my own post! but a third party looking for questions about the topic

 
Yes! A sticky is a great idea!

We have several members here who have done much work with the ailing SE/30--surely we can establish a good point of reference for these machines.

 
The fact remains that we have a CRT sticky now, even though I see more questions about SE/30 boot problems here than I ever did for CRTs. That's not to say we should not have the CRT thread a sticky. Rather, it is evidence we need a sticky for SE/30 boot problem info, such as is contained in this thread.
Click to expand...
JDW has an excellent point -- the frequency with which this question arises certainly merits a sticky. The "capacitor problem" is a common affliction, and only likely to become more so as these machines age.

 
I would like to suggest that if we get a sticky on this we include the various soldering methods folks have recommended. I have my favorite. Others have their preferred method. This would allow new readers to choose the soldering method which seems most comfortable for them.

Although, of course, I'm convinced that the method I recommend would be most successful for newbies. :-)

 
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