Macintosh SE/30 fan/cooling

thewap said:

I remember using the Kensington system saver fan on a mac plus back in the days, whats your opinion on using one for the mac se/30? - does it help?, better to plug the se/30 to it's own power source rather than through the kensington SS?. Anyone make a custom fan set up to improve cooling?.

Click to expand...

The 128K, 512K and Plus all were prone to overheating because they didn't have a fan (per Steve's orders). Thus Kensington System Saver was useful. The SE/30 has a built in fan though. So unless it's defective, the built in fan should be adequate.

cooling

Not that I am aware they did not make more cooling. If you don't have the round squirrel cage fan you could get a better square fan to replace the stock one.

The squirrel cage was on the early SE not the '30. I would be concerned about changing the airflow pattern that Apple engineered.

Since there is no slots on the top of an SE/30, your choice is pretty limited unless you want to drill holes or slots under the handle where they can't be seen.

I'll agree the airflow as standard is fairly good, drawing air from around the logicboard and out from behind/below the LOPT.

I'll say that in it's day, I rarely saw analog boards on the SE and SE/30 getting fried (unlike the 128, 512 and Plus).

The only thing I could think of would be a few holes between the two handle screws. Not so many as to draw a LOT of air through there. You still want the bulk to come from around the logicboard at the bottom.

Some air will come in via the floppy drive slot. Apple did have a plastic air blocking sleeve for that series of floppy drive - not really for the SE - and having air coming via the floppy might pass around the hard drive so I guess it's best to keep that 'as-is'.

The best advice might be to simply make sure the fan is rotating freely and not noisy - indicative of a worn/wearing bearing.

YMMV