VOGONS


First post, by pan069

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I have this old mini tower and it has a turbo switch and speed display. I'm trying to configure the display to my CPU speed but I need a bit of help since I'm a total noob.

First question; as you can see in the photo, there is a single brown wire, where does this normally connect to?

Second question; to configure the speed indicator I assume I can connect it to a battery temporarily while I fiddle with the jumpers (marked 1 to 7 and A to G on the PCB). What would be a good voltage and "how" would I actually connect it?

Third question; what should I definitely not do (i.e. what might cause damage).

In case you're wondering, the white/yellow wire goes to the turbo led on the front of the case.

pRaO5bB.jpg

Reply 1 of 8, by wiretap

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Power: it is +5VDC.
- Check what model transistor those are at the very top of the board in the picture. See if they're PNP or NPN.
---If PNP, put a multimeter on the emitter and test for a short between it and one of the header pins. That will be your (+) lead for 5VDC. The collector pin of the transistor will go to the ground pin.
---If NPN, put a multimeter on the collector and test for a short between it and one of the header pins. That will be your (+) lead for 5VDC. The emitter pin of the transistor will go to the ground pin.
- Ground pin should be right next to the +5VDC pin at the header on the very top of the picture. If I had to guess, +5VDC/GND is 2 of those 3 pins you don't have hooked up.

To connect power outside the case, you can use a 9V battery jumpered to a breadboard. Then run the battery output on the breadboard to a LM7805 to output 5VDC. Alternatively, you could snip a USB cable and wire up the 5V/GND to it, powering the circuit from an old phone charger. It would be best to wire up a 2-position female header so you don't short something on accident.

The single brown (orange?) wire likely goes to the motherboard turbo LED (-) to get the signal for the turbo display to change state when you press the turbo button on the case -- the turbo switch is probably hooked up to the motherboard turbo switch header.

To get your speed to display right, one set of headers (left/right in your picture) is for the 1's position, and the other is for the 10's position. Each segment on the display is A-G. There are 4 positions for each segment -- always off is jumper removed. Always on is one position. On for turbo enabled is another position. On for turbo disabled is another position. From your picture, look as if each segment is 4 pins -- you have one base pin, and 3 surrounding pins. Jumpering from the base to one of the 3 adjacent pins gives you the latter 3 positions I talked about. In the picture, the right hand jumper row (probably the 1's digit) looks to be jumpered to display always zero (0) -- segments A-F, omitting G with no jumper to keep that middle segment always off in both turbo/nonturbo states.

You'll have to experiment with it, because I haven't seen this particular model turbo display and I'm not 100% sure on the documentation because none of my diagrams 100% match up with it.

My Github
Circuit Board Repair Manuals

Reply 3 of 8, by pan069

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Thanks guys. I will go through this feedback, see if I can comprehent, as I said, I'm a total noob with electronics.

I did google the LED display part number BD-A402NI and it came up including a datasheet. I think this might be helpful to figure out the LED config:

https://parts.io/detail/7686716/BD-A402NI

Reply 4 of 8, by pan069

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wiretap wrote:

The single brown (orange?) wire likely goes to the motherboard turbo LED (-) to get the signal for the turbo display to change state when you press the turbo button on the case -- the turbo switch is probably hooked up to the motherboard turbo switch header.

I thought I get the LED working first before messing around with external batteries to configure it. However, I'm confused on to actually connect to my main board.

There is only the brown/orange wire and I assume this connects to one of the Turbo LED pins on my main board as the Turbo switch connector goes to the Turbo switch header (the turbo switch header has 2 pins and the connector has 3 so that's another thing I'm confused about but I guess I can try different positions to see what works).

In the main board manual it says for the Turbo LED header:

J9 Turbo LED  Pins 1 = VCC, 2 = LED

Can I safely try any or should I be aware of damaging the LED display?

On a further note; I'm assuming I should connect to to an external battery to configure it but is this actually necessary or am I just complicating things, i.e. can just configure the LED with the system turned on?

Reply 5 of 8, by pan069

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So, I just realised that I have another case with an LED display, unfortunately it's not hooked up to anything BUT... It made me realise I was missing an important part... POWER... Now it makes sense. 😀

Luckily I had one of these cables in my spares box. Hell, it might have even come from the case I'm trying to fix up (it's a rescue and when I got it, it was all a bit messed up), I probably misplaced it at some point.

So, I now have to figure out to which of the 3 pins on the display panel I have to connect the 2 pin header and if I'm not mistaken, the orange/brown lead (single connector) goes to the Turbo LED - (minus) on my main board?

One pressing question leaves me, if I wrongly connect the power connector on the LED PCB, can I damage it? Or, can I just try out different pins until it works with out issues?

And... Once connected and powered on, can I safely fiddle with the LED jumpers without killing myself or any of the peripherals. 😀

Q7KrnhO.jpg

Reply 6 of 8, by wiretap

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That's good you found the molex adapter -- those are what commonly came inside cases to hook up the turbo display. You can also make your own just by soldering on a 2-pin connector to +5V and GND if you pop the pins out of the molex connector. (or crimp new ones if you have the pins and tool to do it)

Follow the instructions I posted in my reply (post #2 of this thread). It will ensure you don't fry anything.

Once powered on, you can freely test the jumper configurations for the display segments.

My Github
Circuit Board Repair Manuals

Reply 7 of 8, by PARKE

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wiretap wrote:

Once powered on, you can freely test the jumper configurations for the display segments.

By the looks of it it seems that it is currently jumpered to show [turbo = 20] vs [non-turbo = 10]

Reply 8 of 8, by pan069

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First of all, thanks everyone for the suggestions. Apologies for the long delay... I finally had time to work on this a bit and I actually managed to get the LCD to display the correct numbers for turbo and non-turbo (40 and 20 Mhz).

There is only one thing that I haven't been able to find out and I would appreciate some suggestions on..

I have connected my turbo switch such that when the turbo button is pressed, the system is in turbo mode and vica versa. The LCD is displaying the correct value for each of the modes, however, the LED that indicates if turbo is on or not is now reversed. I.e. with turbo on the LED is off.

So, the question is. How you can I reverse the turbo LED? I have tried reversing the white/yellow connector (see original photo) but that doesn't seem to work. Is there anything else I can try?