A Mac SE/30 has progress indicators during system boot up. 1) The RAM & ROM check start-up chime. Hear a single chime at power on and the RAM or ROM is good. Multiple tones and RAM or ROM is bad, it's a series of tones going up or down (can't remember which).
If you don't get a "good" RAM/ROM tone, you don't get to the next step. NOTE: one failure mode of old Macs is the sound gets fainter and fainter then goes away as the motherboard capacitors go bad. Turn off the TV and music and listen very carefully for the sound. 2) After the tone the system does a RAM check. Note: RAM memory above 32M to 128M can take minutes to pass this check--be patient. My 68M RAM SE/30 takes 2 and 1/2 minutes to run through the check. Sometime during (or after for small memory amounts) the RAM check, a small picture of either: 2-A) a floppy disk with a question mark on it will appear. This means neither a bootable floppy boot disk or a bootable hard disk was found. 2-B) a picture of a Mac with a smile will appear. This means a disk was found with a boot data on it was found. --------------------- Here is a good site for how to trouble shoot a dead Mac. http://www.biwa.ne.jp/~shamada/fullmac/repairEng.html#SimasiMac The following assumes you have successfully opened the Mac (see above web site). First! Be careful to eliminate static. Do not work on the computer while your are sitting on a rug or upholstered furniture. Best is in a garage at a wood bench on a stool all on a concrete floor. Next choice is in the kitchen on a tile counter. Also, it's best to also use an anti-static strap from your body (wrist) to the equipment chassis. Don't have a anti-static strap? Make one. If you wear a watch with a metal wrist band, run a clip lead from your wrist watch band to the computer chassis. (Run the lead between your wrist and the band, then loop it back and clip it to the band and it'll stay on.) With your symptoms not describing a start-up tone and no 2-A or 2-B pictures seems to indicate a RAM or ROM problem. If there is a ROM card in the single ROM slot then I'd suspect there is a RAM problem. Check the memory, the 8 RAM slots, there are two banks of four slots each. The first bank has to be filled first! The second bank is optional. But, for each bank, all four slots have to be filled with the same type of memory card. See the above web site for memory layouts and configuration. So start by making sure the first bank of four (from the front edge) slots all have the same type of memory card installed. Empty the second four slots, when you get the first four working proceed to checking the second four slots/cards. Regards, Dave On Jun 26, 12:49 pm, jonahb <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > I recently found a Mac SE/30 on the street and brought it home. Now > I'm trying to get it to boot. I plug it in and flip the switch. After > a few seconds, it displays a gray screen with the black cursor in the > top left corner, and there it stays ... forever. > > A few notes: there's no disk in the drive, and I haven't plugged in a > mouse, keyboard, or anything else (except the power, of course). > > How do I get it to boot? Do I need a floppy or a peripheral? It is > hosed? > > Thanks for any help, > > Jonah Burke --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
