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Gateway 2000 4sx-25 catastrophic floppy controller failure

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First post, by vintageGuy81

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Hello All,

Got a 4SX-25 from eBay that was in rough shape externally, but the board was in good shape except for the IO connectors on the back (decent rust and corrosion). I replaced the supply with an ATX mated to an AT adapter, alcoholed the boards and even painted the case. Got everything back together, posted, installed Dos 6.22 and mouse drivers. I was about to load a CD as a test and looked over to notice the floppy drive light was on. I looked further back and noticed smoke rising out of the case. I shut the supply off at the main switch and checked. An IC on the board looked like it had a puddle on it. I turned it back on to see what it would do, and it posted with a Diskette drive failure.

I'm assuming the IC that let the smoke out is the floppy drive controller IC. (I haven't tried to get the number off it yet.) Has anyone else ever heard of failures like this on this kind of board? (Bios says it's an Anigma)

Shame it burned up like that, for no apparent reason other than age. I don't want to just throw a floppy controller card in and go because if one component burned up, I'd imagine more are on their way.

Just thought I'd share and ask.

Reply 1 of 2, by terrorinstinct

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I would definitely trace the voltage lines backward from the roasted floppy controller. That sounds like a symptom of either an internal short on the floppy controller (which could have fried other chips or VRMs on the board) or multiple voltages being bridged together on the board or PSU. In either case I wouldn't plug anything into that motherboard you couldn't afford to lose.

Reply 2 of 2, by vintageGuy81

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terrorinstinct wrote on 2023-12-22, 06:01:

I would definitely trace the voltage lines backward from the roasted floppy controller. That sounds like a symptom of either an internal short on the floppy controller (which could have fried other chips or VRMs on the board) or multiple voltages being bridged together on the board or PSU. In either case I wouldn't plug anything into that motherboard you couldn't afford to lose.

Thanks so much, I was thinking the same thing. I figured maybe the IC was toast because of its age, I don't know how warm it gets during normal use, etc etc etc. I have the power unplugged (from the wall), and will end up removing the board from the machine. As far as what to do with the board, I guess it has earned its retirement.

I was lucky enough to find a board out of a 4dx-50 machine that looks like it will fit the case. It's a year and ten months newer, and an Intel chipset instead of Opti. I also see jumpers for "P24D" around the ZIF socket, so I'm wondering if it will go DX4-100. Maybe I'll be able to make a "era correct sleeper" out of it. 😀

Thanks for confirming my lack of trust in the board. Nothing lasts forever.

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