Thread
SE/30 with Micron Xceed Grayscale & Socketed Daystar Acceler
geedubya, although I can see your motivation for posting here is merely to SELL, my interest in viewing your system is for educational purposes and for the furthering of knowledge in our vintage Mac community. I am now eyeing that SSD you have (Model: S35CF68-900CNN1). I have looked for one of those in the market FOR YEARS (at a reasonable price) unsuccessfully since those are the only true SCSI SSDs available (which means you don't have to mess around with adapters). However, you say it has an SATA to SCSI adapter in your auction listing. But your photo of the label on the drive itself indicates otherwise:
http://homepage.mac.com/gbarrow/SE30-greyscale/images//ssd-label.jpg
You mention that the drive is a 1GB Adtron, which made the industrial-use SCSI drives (no adapter required) shown here:
http://www.psism.com/Smart-SSD.htm
Therefore, it seems that your statement about an SATA-to-SCSI adapter would be in error simply because those ADTRON drives were true SCSI drives that needed to adapter for use on a SCSI bus.
I'm also curious about how that SSD benchmarks too. But if you've not already done that yourself, I would likely need to speak to whomever wins your system about that.
http://homepage.mac.com/gbarrow/SE30-greyscale/images//ssd-label.jpg
You mention that the drive is a 1GB Adtron, which made the industrial-use SCSI drives (no adapter required) shown here:
http://www.psism.com/Smart-SSD.htm
Therefore, it seems that your statement about an SATA-to-SCSI adapter would be in error simply because those ADTRON drives were true SCSI drives that needed to adapter for use on a SCSI bus.
I'm also curious about how that SSD benchmarks too. But if you've not already done that yourself, I would likely need to speak to whomever wins your system about that.
Can someone identify exactly what this is, I see online that some have what look like rectangular crystals in the lower left corner by the white connector and some don't. What's the difference? The one shown here has them:
I cross threaded on this site, sorry. Was looking at another page I had started and inadvertently posted on this one. End result is the same, I guess.
I cross threaded on this site, sorry. Was looking at another page I had started and inadvertently posted on this one. End result is the same, I guess.
There are several revisions of the Color 30 board. Some have different components than the others.
Someone commented under my YouTube video today which reminded me of your old post. My video shows the vertical line problem on my Micron Xceed video card inside my SE/30:
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks.
looks like i do see something when you are in black and white.
unless they are just compression artifacts.
[attachment=1]Screen Shot 2014-01-12 at 7.13.15 AM.png[/attachment]
[attachment=0]Screen Shot 2014-01-12 at 7.13.33 AM.png[/attachment]
do you just have this video card installed right into the PDS slot?
if not. try with just the video card installed in a bone stock config SE/30
also while you are doing that… start up the se/30 with the rear off.
and try to bend / flex the video card in 16 shades mode.
just to see if it goes away if so then you might get an idea of whats going on.
it could also be a hunk of dust or debris that is in-between 2 legs of one of the I/C's on the video board.
any chips that are removable, i would pop them out and then back in… could be a loose or poor connection, after there is some years on this hardware.
and maybe try a hair dryer, see if some heat does anything to change the line.
unless they are just compression artifacts.
[attachment=1]Screen Shot 2014-01-12 at 7.13.15 AM.png[/attachment]
[attachment=0]Screen Shot 2014-01-12 at 7.13.33 AM.png[/attachment]
do you just have this video card installed right into the PDS slot?
if not. try with just the video card installed in a bone stock config SE/30
also while you are doing that… start up the se/30 with the rear off.
and try to bend / flex the video card in 16 shades mode.
just to see if it goes away if so then you might get an idea of whats going on.
it could also be a hunk of dust or debris that is in-between 2 legs of one of the I/C's on the video board.
any chips that are removable, i would pop them out and then back in… could be a loose or poor connection, after there is some years on this hardware.
and maybe try a hair dryer, see if some heat does anything to change the line.
Thank you for your reply, uniserver. I will reply point-by-point below.
FRONT
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-1eQ05JFdke8/TgF3ulf04ZI/AAAAAAAABrc/6VIR8Xr3TSk/s0-Ut/P1030198.JPG
BACK
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Civph6YvxAg/TgF3oD95b2I/AAAAAAAACCo/SR2n49QOlzw/s0-Ut/P1030199.JPG
viewtopic.php?p=157029#p157029
For further info, photos, and video, please have a look through the previous pages in this thread. And note that although I do talk about three different problems in this thread, you can still glean a wealth of information about the vertical line problem when reading through my previous posts here.
All said, the most likely problem is that one of the VRAM chips is bad (one of the 16 chips shown in the upper left hand corner of my "front" photo). But as I've been repeating throughout this thread, I would like to find a way to nail it down to one specific chip, rather than being forced to replace all the chips blindly, seeing there are greater risks, time and expense in replacing all 16.
Many thanks to everyone who have kindly contributed to this discussion thus far.
The little white dot that you're showing in your screen capture is indeed related to the Xceed video card. It is not a compression artifact.
Yes, the Xceed video card is plugged directly into the SE/30's PDS slot.
I've done that many times, both with that back housing removed and with it installed. Such as zero effect on the vertical line problem.
Easier said than done. Even with the card removed and sitting in my hands, the card is not so easy to flex. Here's a photo of the video card:
FRONT
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-1eQ05JFdke8/TgF3ulf04ZI/AAAAAAAABrc/6VIR8Xr3TSk/s0-Ut/P1030198.JPG
BACK
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Civph6YvxAg/TgF3oD95b2I/AAAAAAAACCo/SR2n49QOlzw/s0-Ut/P1030199.JPG
If you look very closely and zoom in at the front and backside photos of my video card, a "hunk of dust" is not likely. I certainly can't see anything like that. It's a very clean card.
As you can see from my front side photo, there is one chip that is socketed, but it's stuck in there very tightly and I'm not really sure what the best procedure is to even remove it. But thinking about it logically, with that particular chip cause the vertical line problem?
I answered Trag on that, earlier on in this thread:
viewtopic.php?p=157029#p157029
For further info, photos, and video, please have a look through the previous pages in this thread. And note that although I do talk about three different problems in this thread, you can still glean a wealth of information about the vertical line problem when reading through my previous posts here.
All said, the most likely problem is that one of the VRAM chips is bad (one of the 16 chips shown in the upper left hand corner of my "front" photo). But as I've been repeating throughout this thread, I would like to find a way to nail it down to one specific chip, rather than being forced to replace all the chips blindly, seeing there are greater risks, time and expense in replacing all 16.
Many thanks to everyone who have kindly contributed to this discussion thus far.
you could take the floppy / hd assembly out boot it from an external.
then you could have room to flex it.
have your Tried an air duster upside down… for cold to see if that does anything … with the floppy drive/hd assm out you could use that per vram chip to find out what one might be causing the issue.
if the line goes away after a squirt on that specific chip.
lastly how far are you from fukushima, is your how many counts per minutes are you getting?
( not saying radiation is your issue of corse ) you've had your issue before that i reckon.
you could take your multimeter and ohm out, document each chip from ground to leg by leg to see if there is an odd duckling there.
anything else you would need an oscilloscope to find your odd duck ram chip.
then you could have room to flex it.
have your Tried an air duster upside down… for cold to see if that does anything … with the floppy drive/hd assm out you could use that per vram chip to find out what one might be causing the issue.
if the line goes away after a squirt on that specific chip.
lastly how far are you from fukushima, is your how many counts per minutes are you getting?
( not saying radiation is your issue of corse ) you've had your issue before that i reckon.
you could take your multimeter and ohm out, document each chip from ground to leg by leg to see if there is an odd duckling there.
anything else you would need an oscilloscope to find your odd duck ram chip.
I flexed it (within reason) using rubber gloves while powered on and with the vertical line showing. No affect whatsoever during flexing.
I don't currently have an air duster. But it is freezing cold here in Japan, and having left my Mac off last night, it's of course very cold this morning. So I cold-booted it and then used a hair drying on the video card (both sides). No affect whatsoever.
I'm more than 260 miles south of Fukushima, and no, the wind from Fukushima doesn't blow in this direction either. (It blows toward California.)
I attempted that, but man, it is NO SMALL TASK! The problem is we are dealing with surface mount chips here, not DIPs with thick legs. As such, even the least little hand jerk could cause the DMM's probe to slip in between two pins, shorting them together. Even if I could reach all the chips with my DMM probes (which is not possible even with both drives removed), the probability of destroying the board do to human error (probe slipping) is so high that this wise piece of advice becomes impractical. Even if I had the means of using some special adapter to completely pull the video card outside the SE/30's chassis (which I do not), there is still a high probability of shorting as I just described.
I did remove the card and used by DMM to do a continuity check on all the green hand-soldered wires that you saw in my Front side photo. No problems there.
I have access to a CRT type scope (20MHz) at the office, along side a 100MHz digital storage scope. Using the scopes is a non-issue, but the question is: WHAT TO LOOK FOR?
But when using a scope probe though, there is also the possibility of accidental shorting (albeit less likely due to the thinness of a scope probe's tip versus a DMM.)
So you can better see what I am seeing...
I just uploaded some hi-rez photos to my Flickr account, showing the Micron Xceed card mounted inside the SE/30 from various angles:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=xceed&m=tags&ss=0&ct=0&mt=all&w=66071596%40N00&adv=1
has it done this every since you got it, or is it something that just popped up one day?
Ever since I got it, from the very first time I powered it on. But of course, this machine was previously owned by someone else who really didn't know how to use it. I acquired it from them on Craig's List. And I don't know if they were the original owner. Due to their lack of knowledge, perhaps not. Especially since they sold me the SE/30 with socketed Daystar accelerator and this Xceed video card (with grayscale card) for a mere $75 at the time (if memory serves me correctly).
Here's another photo I just shot, showing some of the 16 VRAM chips on the Micron Xceed video card, from the side:
The photo illustrates just how difficult it would be to desolder even one chip, let alone all 16. Note how the solder point for each pin sits directly beneath the chip!
Some will tell me, "just use a desoldering heat gun." I have a heat gun for heat-shrink tube (which is like a hair dryer), but it's not made for desoldering chips. Furthermore, there is high risk of damage to the PCB if a heat gun is used too long on the board.
Others may suggest that I use an XACTO knife to slice off all the pins of the bad chip at the top of the chip, then easily desolder. You're right, that would work, but soldering on a replacement chip would still be impossible using a normal soldering iron.
Even if I knew which chip (assuming the culprit is indeed a single VRAM IC), safely desoldering it and resoldering a new chip is no simple task.
The photo illustrates just how difficult it would be to desolder even one chip, let alone all 16. Note how the solder point for each pin sits directly beneath the chip!
Some will tell me, "just use a desoldering heat gun." I have a heat gun for heat-shrink tube (which is like a hair dryer), but it's not made for desoldering chips. Furthermore, there is high risk of damage to the PCB if a heat gun is used too long on the board.
Others may suggest that I use an XACTO knife to slice off all the pins of the bad chip at the top of the chip, then easily desolder. You're right, that would work, but soldering on a replacement chip would still be impossible using a normal soldering iron.
Even if I knew which chip (assuming the culprit is indeed a single VRAM IC), safely desoldering it and resoldering a new chip is no simple task.
cool nice photos
maybe for you.
ok boss
i wouldn't suggest that.
well there you go, focus your effort and try and find out what one.
maybe pull the card and pay an experienced electronics professional to find out for you.
The other option is just leave it be,(just a slight line) and just enjoy it. Stop being a stickler.
--------------------------------------
Any experienced electronics professional with a digitally temperature controlled hot air re-work station could work on that with no issues.
Here is a 10pack for 39.00
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MT42C8128-DJ10-10pcs-42C8128-MT42C8128-ICs-IC-MT42C8128DJ/251331865419?_trksid=p2045573.m2042&_trkparms=aid%3D111000%26algo%3DREC.CURRENT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20001%26meid%3D4081701049397337309%26pid%3D100033%26prg%3D8920%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D251331865419%26
if you really are interested in finding out what ram chip is bad, using an upside down duster, spray each chip and see if it goes away. the extreme cold, is what you need to create a significant diagnosable reaction.
So, I was giving this some more thought....
And every avenue of investigation I came up with involved potentially dangerous (temporary) board modifications, because so many things are unknown. For example, one could tie the Chip Enable (CE_) pin on a single memory chip high and see how that affects the image on the screen. That would just require a temporary wire from 5V to the CE pin of a memory chip. The problem with this technique is that at some point a component on the card is going to be trying to sink that line low, and too much amperage to sink, could potentially damage the driver trying to pull it low. Once could pull it high through a resistor, but how much is enough to keep it high, without overloading the driver?
So, probably not a good idea.
But here are a couple of simpler, less invasive ideas....
Check continuity between all of the memory chip CE_ pins. If you find them tied together in some fashion, then that tells you which memory chips are working together as a bank. That's a small start. If they're all separate, then this is a largely useless exercise.
I can't remember if the chips have RAS lines as well, but if they do check those or whatever control lines would be used to signal a read operation and see how they are grouped amongst the memory chips.
Use the oscilloscope to probe the CE_ pins during different resolution depth settings. This will tell you whether all banks of RAM are always used, or whether some are not needed for some resolutions.
Does the oscilloscope you have access to have two or more channels?
Create a pattern of alternating light and dark rows of dots on the screen. Then probe various data pins on the memory chips to see if they're synchronously high and low, or alternating with each other. This will give you some idea of which pins are contributing which rows of data. If you find a pattern, and then test the pattern until you find a break in the pattern. The pin you're probing when you find the break is your likely culprit. If there are no breaks in the pattern, then either you need a different pattern (invert the light and dark dots, e.g.) or the problem is downstream of the memory chips in the buffers which are used to deliver the data to the DACs in proper order.
And every avenue of investigation I came up with involved potentially dangerous (temporary) board modifications, because so many things are unknown. For example, one could tie the Chip Enable (CE_) pin on a single memory chip high and see how that affects the image on the screen. That would just require a temporary wire from 5V to the CE pin of a memory chip. The problem with this technique is that at some point a component on the card is going to be trying to sink that line low, and too much amperage to sink, could potentially damage the driver trying to pull it low. Once could pull it high through a resistor, but how much is enough to keep it high, without overloading the driver?
So, probably not a good idea.
But here are a couple of simpler, less invasive ideas....
Check continuity between all of the memory chip CE_ pins. If you find them tied together in some fashion, then that tells you which memory chips are working together as a bank. That's a small start. If they're all separate, then this is a largely useless exercise.
I can't remember if the chips have RAS lines as well, but if they do check those or whatever control lines would be used to signal a read operation and see how they are grouped amongst the memory chips.
Use the oscilloscope to probe the CE_ pins during different resolution depth settings. This will tell you whether all banks of RAM are always used, or whether some are not needed for some resolutions.
Does the oscilloscope you have access to have two or more channels?
Create a pattern of alternating light and dark rows of dots on the screen. Then probe various data pins on the memory chips to see if they're synchronously high and low, or alternating with each other. This will give you some idea of which pins are contributing which rows of data. If you find a pattern, and then test the pattern until you find a break in the pattern. The pin you're probing when you find the break is your likely culprit. If there are no breaks in the pattern, then either you need a different pattern (invert the light and dark dots, e.g.) or the problem is downstream of the memory chips in the buffers which are used to deliver the data to the DACs in proper order.