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My new (to me) SE/30!

B

BGoins12

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2011
Messages
249
Location
Amherst, Ohio
So.... here she is. Got it off of a member off here/68kmla for a great price a few weeks ago. I got it knowing that it had no sound, and that it wouldn't recognize SCSI drives.

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Upon powering it up after getting it, I noticed a slight burning smell. Turned it off and took it apart to find this...fried sound output transistors. Most likely caused by old, leaky caps. -

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No big deal. Ordered some tantalum capacitors, and sent it off to a member on 68kmla that has quite the knack for repairing these boards. Upon repairing the board, he found that a trace going to one of the pins on the SCSI chip was burnt out, and this is why it wouldn't recognize any SCSI drives attached to it. After a cap/transistor/trace repair, it's now alive and happy, as seen here -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVE-nle0cM8

I'm glad I finally own a SE/30. I've been wanting one ever since I used one in 3rd grade in 1997. There was something about the black and white screen and the size that made it "cool".
 
That's good it's still repairable (on right hands). It's a fantastic piece of hardware!

I am also finally, i might add, soon about to get my own SE/30. That was much more difficult to find than other classic-form machines.
 
I read online somewhere that it's hard to find SE/30s in Europe. I do know a guy in Germany that found one... paid a pretty price, too. I think he paid 225 euros for it.
 
i have a mac classic that for the life of me wouldnt recognize any drives to the point where i just got another classic. the one i got had no sound, but recognized drives. im going to guess they both have the same exact problems.
 
33black said:
i have a mac classic that for the life of me wouldnt recognize any drives to the point where i just got another classic. the one i got had no sound, but recognized drives. im going to guess they both have the same exact problems.
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Classic's and SE/30's are probably the MOST prone to bad leaking capacitors of all the Macintosh's out there, I would say 99% of them out there need to be recapped. They are harder than some other machines to re-cap since they are all surface mount, but with a steady hand, most DIYers that can wield a soldering iron can undertake it.
 
840av,LCIII and IIci's also have that leaking capacitor problem.

I fixed both of my SE/30's up with new capacitors and got the plastic tools to do fine tuning of the screen. The only thing better then an SE/30 is an SE/30 with ethernet!
 
Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I thought the SE/30's had the old style startup chime, not the newer one from the Mac IIs? Does it have a custom ROM in it?
 
The SEs startup tone is pretty much the same tone that can be set as the "alert" sound (Simple Beep) in the control panel. It's just a longer version.

There's a video on YouTube which has the startup sounds of all the Macs. The SEs sound is the first or second sound you hear.

EDIT: Whoops, I was talking about the SE. Yeah, the SE/30 does have the same "chime" as the Mac II.
 
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SE/30's startup tone is the Mac II one; that's one of the reasons I got an EEPROM SIMM for mine, I want to replace it with the oldschool beep :D
 
Yup, the SE/30 has the Mac II chime.

The SE, along with other 68000 8MHz compact macs have the single beep. The Classic II is an oddball as well.... it has the same chime as the LC and LCII
 
Okay... definitely rusty memory then.

We had a all in one Mac in the computer (and music!) store that I worked at when I was a kid hooked up to a MIDI interface to a keyboard. I thought it was an SE/30, but apparently it was just an SE since it had the older style Bonnnnngg startup chime.
 
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