Packard Bell Legend 610 PB400 Motherboard disk controller failure \ VOGONS

Packard Bell Legend 610 PB400 Motherboard disk controller failure

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First post, by vga256

Posted on 2019-05-15, 14:38

vga256 Offline

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Hi all. I've got a PB Legend 610 486 SX-25. The NiCad battery began to leak, so I swapped it out with a NiMH battery of the same voltage and fit. The machine worked well for a few months, until it very recently began showing a "fixed disk controller failure" on boot. I've tried several different drives with the board, and all of them produce this error message regardless of the disk geometry settings in BIOS.

So I ordered a replacement board from eBay. This one arrived with battery leakage corrosion, which I cleaned up. It has *exactly the same* disk controller failure as my original board. What are the chances both boards suffer the exact same failure?

Can anyone give me some troubleshooting ideas on narrowing down what's causing the hard drive controller failure? I thought the controller is on the drive itself, not on the board?

Thanks!

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Last edited by vga256 on 2019-05-15, 21:30. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 11, by dionb

Posted on 2019-05-15, 16:25

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"Disk controller failure" can be as simple as incorrect CHS settings (due to loss of CMOS data) or a dead/dying HDD. What happens if you attach the same drive with the same settings to a different system?

Reply 2 of 11, by oeuvre

Posted on 2019-05-15, 18:40

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yeah it's likely a dead or faulty HD

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Reply 3 of 11, by vga256

Posted on 2019-05-15, 20:11

vga256 Offline

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Thanks for the ideas so far. Just tested the drive (Seagate ST3120A) in my Pentium 100, and it works fine with the same CHS settings and IDE cable.

Any other ideas on figuring out the source of the controller error on my PB400 board?

Reply 4 of 11, by vga256

Posted on 2019-05-19, 14:47

vga256 Offline

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Update:

A few pics of the motherboard:

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Reply 5 of 11, by oeuvre

Posted on 2019-05-19, 14:52

oeuvre Offline

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you might need to solder on a few SATA ports

HP Z420 Workstation Intel Xeon E5-1620, 32GB, RADEON HD7850 2GB, SSD + HD, XP/7

Reply 6 of 11, by vga256

Posted on 2019-05-19, 15:04

vga256 Offline

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oeuvre wrote:
you might need to solder on a few SATA ports

I'll probably go with PCIe if it comes to that.

Reply 7 of 11, by JonF

Posted on 2023-03-06, 23:00

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I know this is an old topic, but I have the same board with the same problem. Turned it on for the first time in awhile and get the same fixed disk controller error.

Reply 8 of 11, by vga256

Posted on 2023-03-06, 23:18

vga256 Offline

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FWIW, I sold this board to someone with better soldering skills than I - he repaired several corroded traces on the PCB due to the leaky battery. It took him days to figure out where the traces were broken.

Reply 9 of 11, by JonF

Posted on 2023-03-07, 03:42

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Thanks for the update. I guess I'm pulling the board and inspecting.

Reply 10 of 11, by JonF

Posted on 2023-03-08, 05:22

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Update, turns out it was a weak power supply!

Reply 11 of 11, by vga256

Posted on 2023-03-08, 14:18

vga256 Offline

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Awesome. Glad it turned out to be a simple fix.

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