My 8088 doesn't like floppy disk drives anymore ... \ VOGONS

My 8088 doesn't like floppy disk drives anymore ...

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First post, by Deksor

Posted on 2017-08-30, 20:06

Deksor Offline

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It has been 10 month since I've got that 8088. It first came with an 5"1/4 fdd which was really dirty and as I didn't have any disks for it last year, I did put an 1.44MB fdd. The Io card was busted due to acid leakage so I replaced it with another one. It worked ok for a while ... At some point I had some 5"1/4 floppy disks and I thought the 5"1/4 disk drive was busted and I had been looking for a replacement. Today I've gotten a working fdd which I tested in another PC first ...

But once I did put it in it, the new FDD stopped working. I was wondering why it was doing this. I tested everything : moving the io card from one slot to another, changing the floppy cable, changing the io card. The thing never worked. And the 1.44MB disk drive stopped working too.

At that point, I was wondering if the computer didn't have a problem, so I took the old "not working" drive and I did put it in my 386 to test it. And guess what ? It worked like a charm. So now I've got the proof that my 8088 has a problem and it's not related to the drive, the io card or the cables ...

But how could this happen ? there was some battery leakage on the board, but I cleaned it. When I say the drive don't work, I mean that when I take "A:" then "Dir", the drive tries to access the floppy disk (the led comes on and the disk starts to spin) but the head never moves. I also tried "format a:" and sometimes it says "general failure" and the rest of the time it says "track 0 error"

Could the battery leakage be the origin to this even though I did clean the board ?

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Reply 1 of 5, by ookamithewolf1

Posted on 2017-08-30, 20:42

ookamithewolf1 Offline

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There's a good chance it is the source of your problems. Check for any corrosion around the components, and watch for any damaged tracers. Hope this helps

Reply 2 of 5, by jcarvalho

Posted on 2017-08-30, 21:31

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Did you clean with vinagre or lemon juice to neutralize the battery acid? Check for green spots in components legs near battery

Reply 3 of 5, by Deksor

Posted on 2017-08-30, 21:52

Deksor Offline

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Yes I did. Some green stuff was left in the ISA slot, but the rest of the board wasn't that damaged last year. I think I'll remove the motherboard and replace it with another one that comes from an XT 5160 until I'll take the time to fix it. I think I'll remove the corroded ISA slot, but I'd rather buy a desoldering iron before that due to the high number of pins in there ^^

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 4 of 5, by .legaCy

Posted on 2017-08-31, 00:56

.legaCy Offline

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jcarvalho wrote:
Did you clean with vinagre or lemon juice to neutralize the battery acid? Check for green spots in components legs near battery

neutralize acids with acids?
some batteries leaks a corrosive substance that isn't acid like alkalines, NiCd batteries for example dont leak acid.
btw for cleaning the mess caused by leaking batteries its good to use isopropyl alcohol, i only use vinegar to clean oxided contacts(then i neutralize it with baking soda and clean the mess with isopropyl alcohol).

Deksor wrote:
Yes I did. Some green stuff was left in the ISA slot, but the rest of the board wasn't that damaged last year. I think I'll remove the motherboard and replace it with another one that comes from an XT 5160 until I'll take the time to fix it. I think I'll remove the corroded ISA slot, but I'd rather buy a desoldering iron before that due to the high number of pins in there ^^

i would recommend you to buy some soldering flux to make the dessoldering job easier.

Reply 5 of 5, by Deksor

Posted on 2017-10-28, 11:46

Deksor Offline

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Okay so I've tinkered with that computer, but I couldn't fix it ... In fact, I have a high suspicion that it's not only floppy disk drive that won't work anymore, but any io stuff (such as serial for example) as I remember my really old Microsoft mouse to stop working for no reason

There was two big chips in the center of the board that received some leakage, but it didn't seem that bad. But I still wanted to take a look underneath them

But as you can see, there's nothing looking suspicious. Maybe the socket on the right has some corrosion as well, but I forgot tu put back that chip at first and the whole computer didn't do anything anymore, but when I did put it back, it was back to life again. I socketed those two chips by the way

My mobo is a TXM/10-II

Also, since last time, floppy disks seem to be completely forgotten by the computer : at POST, it switches right to the hdd and it's not even trying to access the floppy disk drive at all. I also tried to format the floppy disk drive, but nothing is moving. And the cable isn't upside down obviously

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

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