VOGONS


First post, by echothedolphin

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Good afternoon!

I recently got an Aptiva 2176-C55 off of ebay in an unknown state for a pretty good price. It's the same model as the first Windows PC we had when I was 10. I learned quite a bit on this old system, including my first foray into GPU and RAM upgrades, lots and lots of software troubleshooting, and networking. One of my younger brothers and I have toyed with the idea of trying to find an old working one over the years, but never really gave it serious consideration.

I 'discovered' the retro community about a year ago through the Necroware channel on youtube and he does some really inspiring work on old systems. While I don't have the existing skills or experience other than my 20-year old knowledge, I found this ebay listing to be pretty timely, and a low level of investment to get started.

Some caveats:
While I work in a technical industry, I don't work with microelectronics. I have an academic understanding, but I haven't touched a solder station in years, and most of my electrical knowledge deals with load budgeting and carpentry tools. I also have limited space and time. Space is really the big factor. While I appreciate having lots of parts, my days of having space for multiple bins of spares is behind me and my carpentry work takes up the rest of it. While money isn't exactly a factor, I'm just trying to get a mid-range IBM consumer grade system working, and MAYBE playing Descent 1, Sim City 2000, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and MechWarrior2 on it one day. I'm happy to take it slowly, take my monthly budgeted fun money and save it for a couple months, and buy a part here and there if it's a good deal.

What I've done so far:
I've read the A-level service manual, spec sheet, and consumer-level manual several times, familiarized myself with the basic supported components, quirks of the M-Wave sound card/modem, actually found a type A-1 motherboard for sale with a slightly faster CPU and the hard-to-find VRM module (current system has an A-2 with no VRM module,) and identified the add-in video card (ATI Rage II+DVD 2MB), though it either doesn't work or was disabled.
I've also started it up and booted into BIOS, which surprised me given the external appearance. I did check the inside out for blown/bulging caps or obvious damage and it looked very clean considering it had been in storage for at least 10 years. I tried to boot into Win95, but got some errors. I would like to eventually try to recover data from it on a 939 system own, but this will be a project for much further down the road.

The bad thing I did:
I was super excited that it appeared to work, the PSU didn't explode, and I got as far as the win95 splash screen. I had purchased a Startech IDE to CF board and a 2GB CF module and figured I'd make a bootable DOS CF card and see if it worked. Now for some flavor text: I worked as an aviation crewman about 10 years ago and know the importance of check lists, and for certain things how important it is to follow the checklist even if you feel like it doesn't matter or you have it memorized already. Naturally, I didn't follow my checklist when I detached the old HDD and put the IDE/CF module in WITHOUT unplugging the PSU. When I powered the system up with the IDE/CF module in, it didn't POST and I had no beeps from the motherboard. I tried cycling a few times but got nothing. I then removed the module and replaced the HDD, once again without unplugging the system, and then powered it up to a beep code of 1-1-3. This beep code, according to the manual, indicates "CMOS READ/WRITE ERROR." My understanding is the system keeps the (+?)5v rail powered at all times, so I'm guessing the problem would be related to that. Total guess though.

I have not reset BIOS/CMOS or attempted to reflash. I don't know if it's technically possible as I've only ever reflashed modern boards that were 100% working.

What I'd like to ask is for what you would do if an Aptiva 2176 in (semi)working condition was set at your feet, you had a motherboard coming that likely worked, and the existing motherboard had that problem? I plan on disassembling and cleaning the system as is, repairing the broken plastic parts, removing corrosion from the case and re-bending a few of the bent brackets on the case itself. What would you personally do or how would you approach it?

I appreciate your advice and wisdom in advance!

Photos below:
https://imgur.com/a/JAibBgx

Reply 1 of 10, by Joakim

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Sounds like a fun project. I'm too lazy too look it up but it looks to be a socket 7 with integrated graphics. Not really you normal pc I guess. The downside of this might be that you need to carry some spare parts yourself which is maybe a downside of you are low on space. But I personally dig the idea of staying true to your dream and run with the pc you want.

I would remove the motherboard and remove the rust with some kind of power tool. It looks quite shallow. Don't beat yourself up because you might have destroyed something, everyone make mistakes. Do you have a working bios battery? Some computers don't work without one. Have you checked the voltages of the PSU? You can do it via the ATX connector or a molex.

I think I would have bought a bios flasher if I wanted to reflash the bios chip or ask on a IBM forum if someone can sell you a flashed bios rom.

Reply 2 of 10, by Horun

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Interesting. According to http://ps-2.kev009.com the A1 board does not have a VRM socket, the A2 does:
A1: http://ps-2.kev009.com/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/6d32.htm
A2: http://ps-2.kev009.com/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/922e.htm
The entire multipage archive for 2176: http://ps-2.kev009.com/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/336_128.htm near bottom of page is the start, goes to page 336_139.htm

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 3 of 10, by echothedolphin

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Joakim wrote on 2022-08-18, 17:51:

Sounds like a fun project. I'm too lazy too look it up but it looks to be a socket 7 with integrated graphics. Not really you normal pc I guess. The downside of this might be that you need to carry some spare parts yourself which is maybe a downside of you are low on space. But I personally dig the idea of staying true to your dream and run with the pc you want.

I would remove the motherboard and remove the rust with some kind of power tool. It looks quite shallow. Don't beat yourself up because you might have destroyed something, everyone make mistakes. Do you have a working bios battery? Some computers don't work without one. Have you checked the voltages of the PSU? You can do it via the ATX connector or a molex.

I think I would have bought a bios flasher if I wanted to reflash the bios chip or ask on a IBM forum if someone can sell you a flashed bios rom.

Thanks! I'd like to upgrade it as much as is reasonably possible eventually. We had a 3DFX card we put in our system back in the day, but they seem to be in high demand these days so it will have to wait.

The bios appears to be on a socketed square PLCC chip, is there a particular bios flasher tool for that style chip that's recommended? I've seen the DIP style flashers all over the place.

Horun wrote on 2022-08-18, 17:59:
Interesting. According to http://ps-2.kev009.com the A1 board does not have a VRM socket, the A2 does: A1: http://ps-2.kev009.co […]
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Interesting. According to http://ps-2.kev009.com the A1 board does not have a VRM socket, the A2 does:
A1: http://ps-2.kev009.com/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/6d32.htm
A2: http://ps-2.kev009.com/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/922e.htm
The entire multipage archive for 2176: http://ps-2.kev009.com/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/336_128.htm near bottom of page is the start, goes to page 336_139.htm

You're absolutely right. I'd only looked at the A2 in detail as that's what I had.

So it looks like I read the listing wrong, the board I bought actually is an A2! I'll plan on swapping them out after a good cleaning and doing further checks. Thank you!

Reply 4 of 10, by Joakim

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Well that's good! At least if they are the same you have a spare if some component fails.

I hope someone more knowledgeable can help you with the bios questions.

IBM bios are probably well documented but it seems often they did it like Sinatra sang, "my way". I guess they set the industry standard but not all of it caught on. 😀

Reply 5 of 10, by echothedolphin

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Thread revive for the sake of an update:

I've gotten the case exterior and interior components cleaned, broken plastics re-glued and retextured. I even got the front door mechanism repaired and working again. As far as functionality, I finally had windows 95 OSR 2 up and running a few days ago. I even had Sim City 2000 working, though was still working on getting the MWAVE card fully functional. However, I left the system running and it hardlocked during the day yesterday. I physically restarted the system via the front panel and, while the fans and drives spin up, no beeps, no video no post. Near as I can tell, leaving it running all day killed something.

So I now have the old motherboard that is giving beeps indicating bad CMOS CHECKSUM, and the current one which appears dead. I could certainly source another board, they seem to be popping up relatively inexpensively on EBAY, but I'm concerned that with my relative inexperience I'll end up with another dead board and right back where I started. Other option appears to be get a TL886C programmer or equivalent with the capability to take PLCC chips, though I have zero experience here. I'd be willing to try it, especially if it turns out it's likely some sort of bios corruption for both systems. I'd love to hear any advice anyone would like to give! Thank you!

Reply 7 of 10, by echothedolphin

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AlessandroB wrote on 2022-12-22, 18:00:

It is a 486 with ISA/PCI riserboard???

It's a socket 7 Pentium 1 with the ISA/PCI riser board. It's the same board as the 2134 just with the riser oriented for the mid-tower. Really fun to have to take that riser apart every time I need to get underneath 🤣!

Reply 9 of 10, by echothedolphin

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AlessandroB wrote on 2022-12-22, 18:52:

It is the same mainboard used in the desktop oriented pc?

Yes, I know there is an earlier board with SiS integrated video, but mine is ATI, and I believe the desktop only carried the ATI integrated video.

Chipset for all boards was Intel 430VX.

Reply 10 of 10, by echothedolphin

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Update:

While trying to review the process I had been going through to get the system working I decided to work on the chassis, drives, and wiring to get things cleaned up and functional. I was able to CA glue the front cracks and separated parts back together, got the sliding door mechanism functioning smoothly again, and was able to removed the rust/corrosion deposits all over the frame sanded down. Cleaned it all up, blew it off and wiped it down, and got everything back together.

I decided to go over the original motherboard with the CMOS checksum error. Turns out it just needed a new battery, which was really humbling as I should've checked that first.

I ran down testing the system with minimal components, increasing by one until I was able to replicate the earlier issue I had with the second board (system powers up when plugged in, but no POST or beeps.) The board POSTed on its own, then with the added riser card, then with all drives and CF adapter attached. I added the ISA MWAVE card and I immediately have my original problem, system self powers on after I plug it in and no amount of restarts/CMOS resets change anything, it doesn't POST or beep. The issue persists in different ISA slots as well. I went through testing with the rest of the system, got Windows 95 and all components fully working, and am even able to use the USB 1.1 port with flash drives!

I tried adding a PCI gpu and that doesn't cause any issues as far as I know. I haven't fully tested the PCI gpu yet, but it doesn't immediately break the system. I don't have another ISA card to test at this time, but an ISA ethernet adapter is on my to-do list.

So I now have two motherboards with the same issue with the MWAVE ISA card installed. I'm guessing the card is the issue (likely), I need to change something in BIOS regarding ISA that I am simply inexperienced with, or POSSIBLY the IBM powersupply cable that connects to the riser card is bad or causing some issue with just ISA cards. I'm hoping it's not that, as that specific unit is very difficult to find outside of a whole system. I'm also not sure how I'd go about repairing it outside of finding someone with more specialized skills.

My questions are: Is there something one of you would do first given this situation? Has anyone worked on these systems before and come across this issue?