First post, by Darwiniandude
Hi folks. I’m the lucky owner of a new (to me) 5151 monitor, 5150 PC, fitted with original MDA card. No signal on monitor. I’m trying to work out if the monitor or the card has failed. My question at the moment is can anyone identify the attached CGA type card, and the jumpers, I’m wondering if it has a hercules or monochrome mode I can use with the 5151.
Back story / diagnosis:
I’ve read 5151 can be killed by CGA signals, which is why i’ve not just pluged it in and fiddled with jumper settings
My MDA card in the PC is slighty bent, it could be the card which has failed.
I’ve read the 5151 won’t display a raster or any output at all without a valid sync signal, so it is possible my blank ‘dead’ monitor works. Fuse is ok, and I can hear a hum when power is applied, but no CRT noises. (no static etc like on some)
I have installed a VGA card i borrowed, jumpered the motherboard acordingly, and the PC works. Even without doing this i can type in DOS and make the PC speaker beep etc. The PC works. The only unknown is if the video card or monitor is at fault. If the monitor works i want a Hercules card. If not, i want to fix the monitor and get a Hercules card. If i can’t fix it, only then do i want some other sort of card in there. But really want the 5151 working.