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Seeking insight: SE Superdrive display

Posted by: OlSwampass on 2026-04-13 14:49:21 Hello! I'm afraid this is my very first post to these forums, but I expect I'll be here a lot from here on. Be gentle. 🙂 I was recently lucky enough to acquire a Macintosh SE Superdrive. I originally thought it did not work whatsoever, and had planned to use the shell for another project, but I was delighted to find it chimed and chugged when I plugged it in and turned it on. So now, obviously, I want to get it working with original hardware (or as close as I can manage). Unfortunately, the display has no picture, and while I've done a little sodering and rewiring here and there, this is well beyond my ken. Plus I'm a little gun-shy about the potential shock from the CRT. A local shop that was willing to look at it quoted me $400 to get it working again, and I was hoping some of you fine folks might have some better suggestions for me. Picture attached for posterity - please ignore the chaos of USB hubs and wires for my usual setup.

Posted by: Byrd on 2026-04-14 02:42:42 That's good it shows some life, the SE are the cockroaches of compact Macs and usually reliable, yours might have a bad caps in the PSU or analogue board. Silly question but have to ask - you have the monitor brightness all the way up? You can test the PSU voltages from the floppy port - see pic. The PSU can also be replaced with brand new innards. $400 is a lot to pay for a $200 Mac, only do if the tech is quoting for a complete overhaul - all caps and labour, maybe a SuperDrive check as well.

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