First post, by geiger9
- Rank
- Newbie
I was very fortunate to find a 386 locally. I can't stress enough how rare it is to find this locally. I've been searching for a long time and I don't know if I would ever come across this again. The PSU died the day after I bought it. I turned off the machine, I heard a pop and crack, then all kinds of smoke came out. Here are albums full of pictures of the PSU both the top PCB and the bottom.
I spoke to some people in a Discord chat about this issue and they identified three blue RIFA caps on the bottom PCB that had blown and suggested they be replaced. I have no soldering skills so I had to take this to someone to get the work done. They replaced the 3 blue caps but when I power this on now, the fan spins up for not even a second and then stops. I tried connecting a HDD and when I flick that big red power switch, the drive and the fan spin up and then promptly spin back down. The guy at the electronics store seemed very hesitant to fix this. When I first brought it in he told me that they would not do any diagnosis. I would have to tell them exactly what I wanted replaced and then they would only do that. He didn't even test it after he did his work to make sure the PSU worked. I won't be bringing it back there so now my only options are two acquaintances who are familiar enough with soldering who say they will try to help me. They probably would diagnose but they are not used to working with PSUs. They can solder though.
The way the case of my computer is designed (it looks like a clone of the IBM AT 5170), the PSU's red switch sticks out the side. I REALLY don't want to replace it for monetary and aesthetic reasons. To buy another one like this on eBay would cost a couple hundred.
Can anyone out there please help with this? I will send you more pictures or a video, or whatever you need to help me diagnose this.