VOGONS


First post, by red_avatar

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Okay, I can really use some help here.

Basically, my very first PC was an IBM PS/1 2133. A 386SX 25mhz with 2MB RAM and no CD drive + IBM DOS 5 + Windows 3.1. It wasn't anything fancy, had no soundcard, but it was my first PC so for nostalgic value I really want to get it back in working order.

The problem is as followed: back in 2000 I gave it to my grandfather who used it for a few years until he decided to go for a more modern PC so he could play more recent games. Because he had saved all sorts of stuff on the hard drive, I had to extract the files from the drive by plugging it into my own PC. Problem is: those PCs are not really made for swapping drives so I had to dismantle the entire drive bay, PSU and part of the front panel to finally be able to remove the drive. Since it was pointless putting it back together without a drive, I put the spare parts in a bag and the PC ended up in the attic. Now, my father's girlfriend one day was cleaning the attic, thought the bag was junk and threw it out so bye bye drive bay and PSU.

A few years ago, I recovered the PC (or what was left of it) from the attic and took it to my own place and found a near identical one on eBay from Italy. The exterior was dented but since I had my own PC in much better condition, I could just swap the hoods and panels but ... the Italian one won't boot. And that's where the trouble starts. The PSU works fine, I can hear the drive spin up and the keyboard gets power since the light blinks on (the motherboard is getting power clearly) but I don't get ANY beeps. The disk drive also gives no response at all. I replaced the CMOS battery without any luck. I checked all the caps - none are bulging that I can see. Does anyone have any ideas?

Retro game fanatic.
IBM PS1 386SX25 - 4MB
IBM Aptiva 486SX33 - 8MB - 2GB CF - SB16
IBM PC350 P233MMX - 64MB - 32GB SSD - AWE64 - Voodoo2
PIII600 - 320MB - 480GB SSD - SB Live! - GF4 Ti 4200
i5-2500k - 3GB - SB Audigy 2 - HD 4870

Reply 1 of 12, by jheronimus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

1) remove all hardware except for CPU, RAM, videocard and keyboard. For the purpose of diagnostic you should disconnect all other devices, including hard disks, FDD and all expansion cards. You can even try removing the RAM, the system should at least POST without it;
2) check PC speaker. Is it connected to the motherboard? Is it plugged the right way?
3) check IDE/FDD connectors. I had some machines behave the way you're describing just because an IDE cable was plugged the wrong way.

MR BIOS catalog
Unicore catalog

Reply 2 of 12, by red_avatar

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
jheronimus wrote:

1) remove all hardware except for CPU, RAM, videocard and keyboard. For the purpose of diagnostic you should disconnect all other devices, including hard disks, FDD and all expansion cards. You can even try removing the RAM, the system should at least POST without it;
2) check PC speaker. Is it connected to the motherboard? Is it plugged the right way?
3) check IDE/FDD connectors. I had some machines behave the way you're describing just because an IDE cable was plugged the wrong way.

First thing I did was unplug all IDE cables to make sure but that didn't work - the PC is very bare bones, it doesn't even have a RAM stick attached, it's all chips. My old one had an extra 4MB RAM but this Italian one has practically nothing else you can unplug. The PC speaker is probably underneath the board because I can't see it anywhere else. But even if it was unconnected (unlikely), the screen should show something (unless the error involves the display of course, again unlikely since that means two problems coinciding).

I googled and found someone with the exact same problem and people mentioned EPROM chips potentially being dead or the PSU not giving enough power. The latter would suck since I bought that PC mainly for the PSU - these old PSUs are very hard to find. The first one I should be able to fix since the two motherboards are almost identical so I could swap EPROM chips.

Retro game fanatic.
IBM PS1 386SX25 - 4MB
IBM Aptiva 486SX33 - 8MB - 2GB CF - SB16
IBM PC350 P233MMX - 64MB - 32GB SSD - AWE64 - Voodoo2
PIII600 - 320MB - 480GB SSD - SB Live! - GF4 Ti 4200
i5-2500k - 3GB - SB Audigy 2 - HD 4870

Reply 3 of 12, by Deksor

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

I've got the same PC but in black color that works fine. I can try to dump my bios if you need the replacement rom.

If the PSU has a problem, but that it can still give enough power to act as if it was alive, replace the caps, after 25 years, that's not a big surprise if they die.

Maybe the caps on the board did die too ? IIRC on my PS/1, there was some tantalum capacitors and they can also go bad after a while unfortunately

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 4 of 12, by red_avatar

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Deksor wrote:

I've got the same PC but in black color that works fine. I can try to dump my bios if you need the replacement rom.

If the PSU has a problem, but that it can still give enough power to act as if it was alive, replace the caps, after 25 years, that's not a big surprise if they die.

Maybe the caps on the board did die too ? IIRC on my PS/1, there was some tantalum capacitors and they can also go bad after a while unfortunately

Thanks for the info but I'd rather not mess with a 25 year old PSU 😉

I guess my best plan now, is to just dismantle the Italian one, hook up the PSU to the old shell and see if that one boots. If it does, it's the motherboard on the Italian one. If it doesn't, it may well be the PSU itself and I'll just have to look for a replacement but these seem pretty hard to find on their own. It's amusing to see they are just 65W - to think my current PC has a PSU with ten times that amount. Those old ones were sure power efficient!

Retro game fanatic.
IBM PS1 386SX25 - 4MB
IBM Aptiva 486SX33 - 8MB - 2GB CF - SB16
IBM PC350 P233MMX - 64MB - 32GB SSD - AWE64 - Voodoo2
PIII600 - 320MB - 480GB SSD - SB Live! - GF4 Ti 4200
i5-2500k - 3GB - SB Audigy 2 - HD 4870

Reply 5 of 12, by keropi

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

heh, my pc back in the day was the 2123 PS1/pro - with a 386sx20mhz cpu and the rest hardware probably the sameas your 2133 (2mb ram, onboard vga, pc-dos5.0 / win3.0) 😁
a BIOS dump for the 2133 can be found here: https://ps1stuff.wordpress.com/download/downl … -for-type-2133/

🎵 🎧 MK1869, PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 6 of 12, by Deksor

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

IIRC, the old PSU uses the AT/XT power connector, so maybe you could do something with a PicoPSU + an ATX to AT adapter ? I never did this, however I don't see why it wouldn't work ^^ and it should fit in the case

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 7 of 12, by red_avatar

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
keropi wrote:

heh, my pc back in the day was the 2123 PS1/pro - with a 386sx20mhz cpu and the rest hardware probably the sameas your 2133 (2mb ram, onboard vga, pc-dos5.0 / win3.0) 😁
a BIOS dump for the 2133 can be found here: https://ps1stuff.wordpress.com/download/downl … -for-type-2133/

Yeah, that was pretty much what I got - Win 3.1, however. Considering my father bought it in March 1993, it was a pretty puny machine for what he paid for it.

A year later, my niece got an IBM Aptiva 486 SX 25mhz multimedia machine that completely blew it away and it cost about the same as what my father paid for this very bare-bones 386. No sound card, no VESA, tiny hard drive, etc - it was the cheapest version available and there I was, discovering PC games, having a PC that couldn't handle most of the newer games. By the end of 1994 I had my own IBM Aptiva which lasted another two years (boy, PCs back then went obsolete REAL fast).

The 486SX Aptiva is by far my favorite retro PC because unlike the next three PCs I bought, this one is still in perfect working condition and also gave me the best memories since it came with the rise of CD ROM games. This PS/1 ... well it was my first and for that, I feel I should restore it. I'm not even going to upgrade it in any way (I have a spare SB16 that should fit inside but meh). I'm just going to make it work and then stick it on the shelf.

Retro game fanatic.
IBM PS1 386SX25 - 4MB
IBM Aptiva 486SX33 - 8MB - 2GB CF - SB16
IBM PC350 P233MMX - 64MB - 32GB SSD - AWE64 - Voodoo2
PIII600 - 320MB - 480GB SSD - SB Live! - GF4 Ti 4200
i5-2500k - 3GB - SB Audigy 2 - HD 4870

Reply 8 of 12, by red_avatar

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

UPDATE:

Well, I finally took the Italian version apart, used all the parts to remake the original, replaced the CMOS battery, screwed in the PSU and to my surprise, it booted without a hitch. I still had the 25 year old 85MB hard drive lying around, popped it in and again, works flawlessly! It seems the Italian's motherboard was dead because all the other parts I swapped out work just fine.

Hearing the familiar purr of the PSU coming to life, the ticking of the hard drive and seeing the PS/1 welcome screen pop up gave me shivers - the drive still had stuff from waaaay back including drawings I made from when I was 13, old school stuff and so on. And the PC speaker ... *drools* ... hearing the authentic PC speaker music and sound ... that's the main thing I miss about DOSBox - realistic sounding PC speaker sound. Bless nostalgia.

Retro game fanatic.
IBM PS1 386SX25 - 4MB
IBM Aptiva 486SX33 - 8MB - 2GB CF - SB16
IBM PC350 P233MMX - 64MB - 32GB SSD - AWE64 - Voodoo2
PIII600 - 320MB - 480GB SSD - SB Live! - GF4 Ti 4200
i5-2500k - 3GB - SB Audigy 2 - HD 4870

Reply 9 of 12, by Deksor

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

hm, if the PSU didn't start with the PSU connected to the motherboard, it's probably just a tantalum capacitor issue. You should sell for parts the motherboard, (or keep it if you want obviously), it should be an easy fix if that really a tantalum capacitor fault.

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 10 of 12, by red_avatar

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Deksor wrote:

hm, if the PSU didn't start with the PSU connected to the motherboard, it's probably just a tantalum capacitor issue. You should sell for parts the motherboard, (or keep it if you want obviously), it should be an easy fix if that really a tantalum capacitor fault.

The PSU works fine - the original PSU died over a decade ago so I had to hope the Italian worked and it did and since everything works on my original PC, the Italian one must have a dodgy motherboard. I can't see any bulging caps on it and since I never had it running, it may have been died before I even bought it. It's funny the one that was in a poorly isolated attic for 10 years still works perfectly though.

Retro game fanatic.
IBM PS1 386SX25 - 4MB
IBM Aptiva 486SX33 - 8MB - 2GB CF - SB16
IBM PC350 P233MMX - 64MB - 32GB SSD - AWE64 - Voodoo2
PIII600 - 320MB - 480GB SSD - SB Live! - GF4 Ti 4200
i5-2500k - 3GB - SB Audigy 2 - HD 4870

Reply 11 of 12, by Deksor

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Tantalum caps don't bulge, they just short themself. You can track them easily with a multimeter. Sometimes they can explode (It happenend once to me with an old MFM hdd. Now it has been replaced, this hdd works just fine).

These thing are becoming more and more rare, days after days. Anything that might be still repairable should be saved imo 😉

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 12 of 12, by red_avatar

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Deksor wrote:

Tantalum caps don't bulge, they just short themself. You can track them easily with a multimeter. Sometimes they can explode (It happenend once to me with an old MFM hdd. Now it has been replaced, this hdd works just fine).

These thing are becoming more and more rare, days after days. Anything that might be still repairable should be saved imo 😉

I'm not at home right now but I don't think the motherboard has any tantalums - just all sorts of chips and 5 or so caps which look fine. I know little about electricity though, so not sure how to check them anyway. If anyone is interested in the motherboard, they're free to have it.

Retro game fanatic.
IBM PS1 386SX25 - 4MB
IBM Aptiva 486SX33 - 8MB - 2GB CF - SB16
IBM PC350 P233MMX - 64MB - 32GB SSD - AWE64 - Voodoo2
PIII600 - 320MB - 480GB SSD - SB Live! - GF4 Ti 4200
i5-2500k - 3GB - SB Audigy 2 - HD 4870