VOGONS


Reply 20 of 37, by zlucarson

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So I'm testing the caps currently. When touching the black lead to the 5V power contact and the red lead to the positive contact on some of the caps:
A majority of them zero out.
Two in particular (C17 and C14 near the power supply connector) have resistance values which cannot be measured by my multimeter (my multimeter can only measure as low as kilo-ohms unfortunately)
However all the other ones I measured charge up to .845 kilo-ohms.
I don't know if I'm checking them correctly, but I believe C17 and C14 are the issue, especially considering they're quite close to the power connector.

Reply 21 of 37, by Eep386

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I'd replace both of 'em, if you've got the parts on hand. If you've got the time and parts, you may consider replacing all the tantalums anyway for good measure.
I like to use aluminum electrolytics to replace tantalums as they seem slightly less likely to violently fail. (Had a few rough, smoky snaps in my day...)

Removing those surface mounted caps may be a little tricky.

Life isn't long enough to re-enable every hidden option in every BIOS on every board... 🙁

Reply 22 of 37, by zlucarson

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Eep386 wrote on 2021-02-11, 02:39:

I'd replace both of 'em, if you've got the parts on hand. If you've got the time and parts, you may consider replacing all the tantalums anyway for good measure.
I like to use aluminum electrolytics to replace tantalums as they seem slightly less likely to violently fail. (Had a few rough, smoky snaps in my day...)

Removing those surface mounted caps may be a little tricky.

Well in that case.. time to go capacitor shopping!
I'm having a bit of a tough time finding replacement aluminum electrolytic capacitors that match the specifications of the ones on the board, let alone tantalum replacements.
PXL_20210211_032622835.jpg
I'm certainly no expert in reading cap values, but these are rated for 16 volts, correct?

Reply 23 of 37, by Eep386

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10uF, 16V.

The first, three digit code is the rating in pF. In this case, the first two digits are 10, so 10. The third digit is 6, which is how many decimal places to the left the value is. 106 = 10000000pF, or 10uF.
The second code underneath is the voltage. 16 volts.

Life isn't long enough to re-enable every hidden option in every BIOS on every board... 🙁

Reply 24 of 37, by zlucarson

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Eep386 wrote on 2021-02-11, 04:09:

10uF, 16V.

The first, three digit code is the rating in pF. In this case, the first two digits are 10, so 10. The third digit is 6, which is how many decimal places to the left the value is. 106 = 10000000pF, or 10uF.
The second code underneath is the voltage. 16 volts.

Alright, I think I found some that should do the job, do these look good?
https://www.kemet.com/en/us/capacitors/alumin … M016ATE045.html

Reply 25 of 37, by Eep386

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They might just work.
I wonder what the physical dimensions of the original caps are?

Life isn't long enough to re-enable every hidden option in every BIOS on every board... 🙁

Reply 26 of 37, by zlucarson

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Eep386 wrote on 2021-02-11, 04:29:

They might just work.
I wonder what the physical dimensions of the original caps are?

They're approximately 8 mm x 4mm, which I think should just about work!

Reply 27 of 37, by Eep386

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Be sure you grab enough caps to do a full recap if needed. I think Mouser or Digikey have better price breaks above a certain quantity: do some shopping!

Life isn't long enough to re-enable every hidden option in every BIOS on every board... 🙁

Reply 28 of 37, by zlucarson

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Eep386 wrote on 2021-02-11, 06:04:

Be sure you grab enough caps to do a full recap if needed. I think Mouser or Digikey have better price breaks above a certain quantity: do some shopping!

I will!
I'll provide an update once I've got the caps and I've begun the recapping process.

Reply 29 of 37, by zlucarson

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Eep386 wrote on 2021-02-10, 18:14:

No worries. I hope to see this beautiful old box up and running someday.

So I've got some news on the motherboard.
I replaced the caps, and I still have the same issue...
However, I tested my power supply with the AT to ATX power supply on a different AT motherboard that I know for a fact is functional... and I got the issue with the power supply shutting down immediately again!
So now I'm wondering if it's the power supply or the adapter, because I've tested the power supply on ATX boards, and it works fine, however I've had no luck using it on AT boards.
I can't really afford to buy a new AT power supply at the moment.. I have one currently that I used to test the working motherboard, but it's under the required wattage..
I'll see if I can power it on with that power supply, probably won't be able to do much on it, but if I can at least get it to power on for more than a second, we should be able to find out the issue.

UPDATE:
The low wattage power supply stays on!
I only had the motherboard plugged in though, so it's time to check out the rest.

More news! Hard drive.. powers on..? It's super obnoxiously loud, I'm pretty sure it's screwed..
Guess I'll have to plug in the video card and see..

Reply 31 of 37, by Eep386

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Hey! That's some good progress at least! 😀

Nice to see that thing have an Award BIOS with an accessible setup program too. I was a little worried that it'd be one of those oddball boards which requires a DOS program to set up the CMOS.

Life isn't long enough to re-enable every hidden option in every BIOS on every board... 🙁

Reply 32 of 37, by zlucarson

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Eep386 wrote on 2021-02-17, 04:29:

Hey! That's some good progress at least! 😀

Nice to see that thing have an Award BIOS with an accessible setup program too. I was a little worried that it'd be one of those oddball boards which requires a DOS program to set up the CMOS.

Yep!
Now I'm gonna have to figure out how to mount the new power supply I'm using into the back.. It doesn't exactly fit. The original was one of the L shaped ones, and this one has the form factor of a modern day ATX power supply..
However I did find a person selling the original IBM style power switches like the one this computer's original power supply uses.

I'm also gonna need to find a new hard drive.. and possibly some floppies.
It does have a CD drive, but it doesn't seem to open.. I'll have to take a look.

Reply 33 of 37, by bostonvintage1993

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These EISA machines are quite rare and really cool! I hope you get it fully restored! Let me know if I can help in any way, I have a fair bit of knowledge on these old machines!

Last edited by bostonvintage1993 on 2023-08-16, 02:54. Edited 1 time in total.

Have any questions related to Gateway 2000? I'm here to help - send a PM!

Reply 36 of 37, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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evasive wrote on 2021-07-05, 17:41:

Yes indeed, also for UH19

Doesn't appear that @zlucarson ever came back on the 4.26A BIOS for the Anigma AN486EISA board, but you can still get 4.28A & 4.32A plus all the associated EISA ecu & config files (for TRW downloads) from the attached package from the Gateway archive

Filename
ecfg432.zip
File size
401.5 KiB
Downloads
21 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception