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Toshiba T5200 mods and upgrades

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Reply 260 of 534, by Vipersan

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It's great to see there is recent activity on this thread which Ian started ..but I can't help wishing Ian himself visited and commented ..
I'd hate to think this thread was just a legacy..

Reply 261 of 534, by Hamby

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I keep hoping he'll come back, both because I enjoyed his presence but also to get yet more advice 🤣.

I need to replace the barrel battery on my new 286 MB. But I don't know what I can safely replace it with.

More on-topic, I need more advice on my T5200's CMOS battery issue, before I go trying to randomly replace caps...

Hey, maybe my jury-rigged cpu fan is draining the cmos battery?

Reply 262 of 534, by Vipersan

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Unless you have the fan directly tied accross the Cmos battery ..
Most unlikely ..🤣
I do hope you sort this Hamby ..but I can only suggest the current monitoring method ..
a meter in milliamps range in series with the + line of the battery ..
Pull the bios chip ..and see if any current is still flowing ..
If no ..then I guess only the chip is potentially draining the battery ..
If yes ...the hunt is on ..
Disconnect or remove other components./suspects ...until no current flows ..
then apprehend the suspect..
rgds
VS

Reply 263 of 534, by Hamby

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I've been following another message thread about someone whose cmos battery dies after 1-2 weeks.
One suggestion was bad bios chip... I don't have the wherewithal to burn a new one, or even figure out what's wrong with the old one, if it's the bios raping the cmos battery 🙁

Reply 264 of 534, by Jinxter

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Vipersan wrote:

Been busy today making an escutcheon to fit the T3200SX ..carry the lcd screen and hide the fact that it is a little bit smaller than the original Plasma screen.

How did this end? I haven't seen any picture of the completed machine.
I am especially interested in how you fitted the board that came with the LCD.
I have an T3200SX with a cracked screen, so i am contemplating doing the same.

Check out my YouTube channel: Retro Erik https://www.youtube.com/c/RetroErik
My collection: https://retro.hageseter.com

Reply 266 of 534, by LeFlash

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I recently got my hands on one of the very rare T5200 with color lcd. Although it's that rare, it was not really usable in todays perspective so i changed the panel to a modern LED-backlight TTL one.
2 problems still remain:

1) Output to the panel is 4bit, so i can only get the first 16 colors.
2) original panel has 640x400 and mine has 640x480 - so the 2 topmost lines repeat at the bottom.

Maybe i can get around this with a FPGA and directly interfacing the ramdac on the paradise card

Reply 268 of 534, by Auzner

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I have a cheap as-is T3100SX. Clock Ni-Cd leaked all over the PSU. Going to jerry rig some supplies just to see what functions.
Anything special about the IO pins on the power connector? Or will 5V, 12V, gnd do?
Can someone direct me to more info on the description of these signals?

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VCC - Mouser says that CPU model number is 5V.
RAMV - 53C104 appears to be 5V chips.
N9V - -9V for RS232 or IO
DSP - display, PDP is 12V
DI/DL might be the left and right led boards
DCLED might be 3.3/5 for the LED power
BRCNTM Brightness control?

Ah, found another page that helped.

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Update:

I've got some green lights, but forgot to wire a power button!

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Last edited by Auzner on 2018-08-23, 06:33. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 269 of 534, by Auzner

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I tried grounding pin 20 from FLAPO4 PJ5-20 and nothing changed. So I'm tracing the power button through the original power supply.

PCB FLAPS5:
Power switch S1 goes to R9
R9 goes to IC1-39
IC1-40 goes to R10
R10 to R13
R13 to PJ1-47
PJ1-47 to PJ4-47 on FLAPO4

PCB FLAPO4:
PJ4-47 to PJ5-20
PJ5-20 to motherboard

Figuring out what K00 and K01 are up to on PCB FLAPS5 IC1, which is a 4-bit microcontroller tmp47c860f. I would have expected pin 40 to be an output, not input. I'm in trouble going through this microcontroller.
What is PSSD, PSRD, INTDSP, PCLR, INITSW, DCVMC? Is there more than just a pull down, but a digital signal that has to be sent to the main board?

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edit:
some place to put bios dump of AM27C1024
md5 531c2e5c8365afb0319e21f1bea4ce85 t3100sx.bin
sha1 9a949985c2ec526c35a13940a2bdc3d002045112 t3100sx.bin

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Reply 270 of 534, by IanB

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Vipersan wrote:

It's great to see there is recent activity on this thread which Ian started ..but I can't help wishing Ian himself visited and commented ..
I'd hate to think this thread was just a legacy..

Hamby wrote:

I keep hoping he'll come back, both because I enjoyed his presence but also to get yet more advice 🤣.

I am still here, I've been dealing with family matters so haven't had any time for hobby stuff.

Reply 271 of 534, by Hamby

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IanB wrote:
Vipersan wrote:

It's great to see there is recent activity on this thread which Ian started ..but I can't help wishing Ian himself visited and commented ..
I'd hate to think this thread was just a legacy..

Hamby wrote:

I keep hoping he'll come back, both because I enjoyed his presence but also to get yet more advice 🤣.

I am still here, I've been dealing with family matters so haven't had any time for hobby stuff.

Cool, I can understand that.

Hey, Ian, I found out Amazon has the same Toshiba Lithium batteries that I pulled from my T5200, but I don't think it has the resistor (?) the CMOS battery had. I was thinking of getting one, since it's 3.6v vs the 2032's 3.0v, but don't know what the function of the resistor might be...

Reply 272 of 534, by IanB

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Hamby wrote:

Hey, Ian, I found out Amazon has the same Toshiba Lithium batteries that I pulled from my T5200, but I don't think it has the resistor (?) the CMOS battery had. I was thinking of getting one, since it's 3.6v vs the 2032's 3.0v, but don't know what the function of the resistor might be...

It's to limit current draw from the battery and also to limit any reverse leakage current from the motherboard that might damage the battery by trying to charge it.

Have you tried measuring the resistance of the motherboard battery header?
i.e. remove the battery connector, set a multimeter to resistance mode and connect it to the + and - pins of ther battery header.
On mine this shows a low resistance initially, climbing to several megaohms after a few seconds. This is due to a capacitor charging and after it has charged you get the high resistance. If you get a low resistance all the time then that might indicate the capacitor is leaky.

Reply 273 of 534, by OldCat

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IanB wrote:

I am still here, I've been dealing with family matters so haven't had any time for hobby stuff.

Relieved to hear that, Ian. Hope the storms calm down in your life. All the best from fellow Vogoners.

Reply 275 of 534, by raindog

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Apologies for the cross-post but just in case an expert is just looking at this thread, can anyone help with "Toshiba t5200 screen display stops after a few seconds"
Toshiba t5200 screen display stops after a few seconds ?

thanks
Robert

Reply 277 of 534, by IanB

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OldCat wrote:

Have you, by any chance, modded / changed / dabbled in Toshiba T3200 as well? If so, how close are the insides to T3200SX? Enough to reuse, say, power supply or memory banks?

Sorry I haven't looked at the T3200. I recently picked up a T3100e though to which I've added extra memory and compact flash and I'm looking at modding the BIOS to add XTIDE.

Reply 278 of 534, by yourepicfailure

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I have a T3100sx and looking to mod it a little.
I am probably late to the party, and I'd hate to hijack a t5200 thread with a t3100sx, but this is the only thread I've seen that covers modding these laptops extensively. And has a dedicated knowledge base surrounding them.

Could you provide any suggestions?
What I'm looking to do to my t3100sx:
Upgrade the 386SX to a 486SXLC2. This would probably require a bios mod. I'm no good at soldering qfp so I'd risk damage if I solder directly to the board, however the t3100SX happens to conveniently posses exactly 100 holes around the processor which just so happen to connect right to the pads (homemade qfp to whatever pga format that is?). I don't know if the rest of the board will be happy with a 24mhz jump though.
Change the hard disk. Even though the original 40mb drive still works, it will fail some time. I've seen the other bios mod someone posted on this board, however it does not remove the disk addressing limit. XTIDE possible? Its bios appears to bear a resemblance to the t3200SX bios.
Memory upgrade. I happen to have two original 2mb modules installed, so I could probably replace the tm256kbk chips with same series tm512lbk. But a third board...
I've also located a datasheet for the onboard chips, which appear to have equivalents 4x the capacity. In theory allowing the computer to get up to 15mb if the board permits.
Recelling the batteries or build an equivalent. Sure the original batteries work, for maybe 10 minutes. And in turn power distributer also still works *knock on wood* and right know I'm recapping it to keep it that way (already found leakies).
LCD swap. I will probably try to 3d model and print a new bezel+lid so I can easily switch from the gas plasma to the color lcd by unscrewing the display and plugging in the other. Such ingenuity on Toshiba's part. Easily swappable displays.
May anyone have details on the funky Toshiba bus interface? Like it's impossible to find the Toshibalan thingy for it, and mine doesn't include a modem either.

I've attached a dump of my original unchanged bios if it's of any use. It comes from a German model, but is still the same old Phoenix bios as an English one. I've heard of some having y2k problems with t3100sx, but mine has no qualms going up to 2099. I also see someone else has posted a copy, which is exactly the same as mine. But I'll leave it up in case.
SHA256 for the bin: 0C9DAE7B3422ED2438AB74E9B012CCFB1FCC1B4AE40DFB7590DEAD86B819225E

This machine was my father's, and I've had good memories using it as a child throughout the 90's when he let me. Even brought it with me through college well past its era in the 2000s (had a supplementary computer to make up for its shortcomings). Good times and memories with this, and I want to keep it for a very long time.

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Reply 279 of 534, by OldCat

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LCD swap. I will probably try to 3d model and print a new bezel+lid so I can easily switch from the gas plasma to the color lcd by unscrewing the display and plugging in the other.

Why would you do that? (O__o)