Display issues on SE and SE/30 after recapping

burstattack

New Tinkerer
Apr 11, 2025
1
0
1
Hi folks,

I have an SE and SE/30 that were working, though with their original capacitors. The SE/30's video started to deteriorate -- after startup, where video looked normal, "snow" would start and gradually get thicker until the screen was unreadable. The rest of the machine worked fine except for sound, even though the speaker was confirmed working. The SE worked as normal without any issues.

I had both boards recapped yesterday with capaciators from Console5 (tantalums for the SE/30 and electrolytics for the SE). Once I got them home and plugged in, I found that the SE/30's sound was back (I was so pleased to hear the startup chime!), but now there were severe video issues in both machines. I didn't find similar symptoms in my cursory search of the forum, but I did find this post over at iFixit with the same issue as the SE/30.

I've attached screenshots of both machines at startup with no disk attached or inserted.
The first screen shows the SE. You can see the floppy icon appears normal in front of all that garbage, but if I let it continue booting, the Welcome to Macintosh screen is messed up and unreadable.
The second screen shows the SE/30. You can kind of see where the floppy icon is; if I let it continue starting up from a floppy, it appears to work normally except fro the video.

I have had no work done to the analog board at all, whether earlier or when the boards were getting recapped. And I'm no expert - I have to depend on others to do the soldering and whatnot. However, I do have a multimeter!

If anyone can give any advice, I'd appreciate it.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_1600.jpeg
    IMG_1600.jpeg
    149.6 KB · Views: 30
  • IMG_1601.jpeg
    IMG_1601.jpeg
    129.9 KB · Views: 30

cluster_fsck

New Tinkerer
Oct 9, 2022
9
2
3
Argh…I just got my SE/30 motherboard back from recapping and it’s basically dead. Prior to recapping the machine would boot to the missing floppy icon, but now I can’t even get video. I’m new to this level of restoration so looking similar basic advice on how to test the motherboard and isolate the problem.
 

AndyDiags

Tinkerer
Dec 18, 2021
94
164
33
Argh…I just got my SE/30 motherboard back from recapping and it’s basically dead. Prior to recapping the machine would boot to the missing floppy icon, but now I can’t even get video. I’m new to this level of restoration so looking similar basic advice on how to test the motherboard and isolate the problem.
Post some photos of the motherboard which was worked on
 

vtgearhead

Tinkerer
May 1, 2023
87
34
18
Burlington, VT USA
The area around UD8 and UE8 seems particularly prone to trace damage on SE/30 boards. It's hard to tell (may be lighting), but there appears to be corrosion on the pins of those chips. Highly recommended to remove them for inspection. You could also start by checking point to point with reference to the schematic diagram.
 

cluster_fsck

New Tinkerer
Oct 9, 2022
9
2
3
I cleaned off UD8 and UE8 with some IPA and they look a _little_ better. I was able to extend the power and speaker cabling so I can power the motherboard outside of the chassis. What's weird is that UC8 is showing ~12V and C11 just under 5V, and the light on my BlueSCSI is lit up, so power is passing. But, no startup chime and no video at all. The fan runs just fine. I need to try again with headphones plugged in to see if I hear a startup chime that way.

What else would folks recommend for a next step? I took out all the RAM and just have the ROM SIMM in place - do I need RAM in order for it to show any life on the CRT?