VOGONS


First post, by adalbert

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Hello,

few months ago I got an untested Am386DX-40 mainboard (Unichip 367c, or 386WB), which apparently had suffered a battery leak. It didn't turn on, it had some traces covered with rust and green substance. I washed it in distilled water with citric acid, then cleaned it with alcohol but it didn't help. Recently i desoldered keyboard controller, keyboard connector, PSU connector and all memory slots. I fixed 4 or 5 traces using a wire. I checked other suspicious traces with multimeter but most of them would conduct electricity even when they were covered with rust, so I put some solder on them, to regenerate and protect them. Then I soldered one memory bank and power connector. I soldered a socket for keyboard bios.

Now, after turning the power on, i get some sound from PC speaker! I get two fast, high pitched beeps, then 8 lower pitched beeps. It has AMI bios, so it suggests video problem. But i tested it with two video cards and it doesn't work. I tested these video cards with ultra-low-end 386SX PC chips mainboard (it has got only chipset, bios and CPU 😜 and the PCB doesn't have any internal layers, i can't imagine cheaper construction) and they work. And when I start that PC-chips board without video card, it gives exactly the same beep code (it also has AMI bios).

Does anybody have idea how could I fix that? Does that beep code mean that it must be video problem? If so, then i would check connections between ISA slots and the rest of hardware. But that error can still be caused by other factors, like memory or cache?

This is the error sound.

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With one or more memory modules missing the error sound is different (repeating 3 low pitched beeps), so apparently the mainboard is detecting the memory.

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Repair/electronic stuff videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/adalbertfix
ISA Wi-fi + USB in T3200SXC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs
GUI programming for Windows 3.11 (the easy way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6L272OApVg

Reply 1 of 5, by h-a-l-9000

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Yea, that's the video beep.

Did you try the video card in multiple slots?
You can do a rather quick test by measuring in diode test range. Plus of the MM to GND on the mainboard, with Minus you probe each ISA pin. On nearly all data lines there should be a parasitic diode. Power pins don't have them, but you can do a continuity check to the power connector.

1+1=10

Reply 2 of 5, by adalbert

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Thanks for advice. Yes, i tried every slot but it didn't work. I did the testing and noted voltage drop values (i can compare that with working mainboard, but i'm not sure if it will help).
Here is what i measured. There are no unconnected pins and most of pins have ~650mV voltage drop. But some of them have ~860mV voltage drop, i don't know if that is okay or if its due to corroded traces.

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Repair/electronic stuff videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/adalbertfix
ISA Wi-fi + USB in T3200SXC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs
GUI programming for Windows 3.11 (the easy way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6L272OApVg

Reply 3 of 5, by h-a-l-9000

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Hmm, the A26/addr05 looks suspicious. It differs from the other address lines. I read it as being connected to something, but not to everything. But it's just a guess.

The differences to ~860mV means that they are connected to different chips/pull up resistors/input or output types. But they roughly match by function, except addr05.

Here you might find the pinout of the 82C206: http://www.datasheetarchive.com/HM82C206-datasheet.html
This chip contains the on-board functions like timer, IRQ controller, DMA controller, memory mapper. It is either directly connected to the ISA bus, or bus drivers are in between (the 74*244, 74*245):

'Northbridge' <--> 82C206, bus driver <--> ISA slots
or
'Northbridge' <--> bus driver <--> 82C206, ISA slots
or maybe another combination. This info might help you to trace down the connections.

1+1=10

Reply 4 of 5, by tayyare

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Just a quick suggestion: There is a mono / color jumper on the board. Could it be related?

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120GB IDE Samsung/80GB IDE Seagate/146GB SCSI Compaq/73GB SCSI IBM
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Reply 5 of 5, by Malvineous

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I just fixed a 286 motherboard with AMI BIOS and during the process also got two high-pitched beeps followed by eight lower-pitched beeps.

In my case, connecting a video card was all it took to get a picture. However without the card, the machine still continued to boot after playing the beeps. I could still hear the PC speaker clicking as it was performing the memory check. Do you have a POST card? I was able to use mine to see when it was performing the memory check, asking me to press DEL to enter setup, and displaying an error message all without having the video card present.