VOGONS


First post, by werfu

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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

Reply 1 of 1, by Deunan

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First, running the system with 5.6V on logic is not good. It's above +10% already and a good PSU is one that keeps it voltages within +/- 5%.
Second, 11.4V is low but not dramatically so, things should still work. You could, as an easy thing to check, turn the 5V to some 5.2 and see what that does to 12V rail and does it help any. So middle-ground approach so to speak. But even if it does fix the problem, I'd say the PSU needs some work.

So as you've noticed old AT PSUs (and frankly also many cheap ATX ones) only regulate one rail, then scale the rest accordingly. Now typically you'd regulate the highest voltage but since in these PCs the 5V rail sees most power draw and is the most critical, it gets to be the regulated one. However, the scaling of the other lines should be almost linear, and in your case going from 5V to 5.6V should bring up 11.4V to well above 12V, and it doesn't.

Did you check the -12V (and -5 if present) rails, and not just on PSU itself but in the system as well? Too much load on these (a shorted capacitor) is not always detected by some PSUs and the power it can provide is typically low and won't blow stuff up, not right away. But the shorted line can affect the PSU outputs.
You most likely have dry or high-ESR caps on the secondary side and tons of noise on the rails, that can easily screw up not only regulation but also prevent things from working, and is dangerous in the long run (when the caps go completly the spikes can get really nasty). You don't need a pro service (though that would be nice, but expensive) to replace capacitors on 5V, 12V and -12V/-5V lines - just make sure you know how to safely handle a PSU like this (how to make sure the primary capacitors are discharged). To actually measure the level of AC on the power rails you need a decent meter, something with 30+ kHz bandwidth and preferably true-RMS.

It could be a drifted resistor in the feedback divider for 12V rail, but that should still provide a better linearity I think. That howerver is no longer a trivial replacement unless you know where and what too look for, measuring these resistors in-circuit will not be trivial, if at all possible. So if the simple recap job doesn't fix it, it's another PSU or a professional service. Which, again, is a good idea but not always cost effective.