First post, by werfu
I'm restoring my old childhood IBM PS/1 2133. It's an early model that came with the 20MHz CPU and has 8 30-pin RAM slot, a socketed CPU and a i487 FPU socket.
I've been having stability problem.
- I've been unable to get any Soundblaster 16 correctly installed (I tried 3 different models) , the setup program will simply hang during the auto-detect.
- I tried two different network card and I can't get a carrier on them. The switch on the other side will light up, but no packet will go through.
- My CD-ROM drive opens and close, the but drive wont pick up the drive and start to spin. I did try the drive on another computer and it pick it and turn, but as I don't have any IDE computer left I can't test it completely.
- I tried the 5 ¼" drive that originally came with the machine, and it wont read any disk.
Trying to get a common ground for all these problems I ended up checking the voltage with my multimeter. I think I found the culprit as 12V reads 11.4V, but the 5V seems fine (4.9-5). I did open the PSU, there's no obvious blown cap, no leakage on the PCB or burnt fuse. Granted this thing is 30 years old so a bit of voltage sag is to be expected but obviously this is causing issue. There is a pot on the side of the PSU that can be used to adjust the voltages. I did try and can get the 12V back to 12V, however the 5V then get raised to 5.6V.
So the real question is, getting a replacement for a non-standard, tiny AT PSU being nearly impossible, can I run the 5V at an higher level to try to get to a decent 11.7-11.8V or should I try to get this PSU fixed by a profesionnal?
Werfu was here