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Tandon TM-100-2A on 5150 - grunting sounds

phreakindee said:
It didn't have a name, it's a cleaning kit that I got recently for old computers, comes with disk cleaning solution, little application swabs and spray bottle of parts lubricator. Doesn't even seem to have a real brand, maybe 3M. I just put a Q-tip head's amount on each half of each rail, moves pretty smoothly now. Just still doesn't work.


I'm about to just give up, at least for now, as I've put too many hours into this already. I have another drive on the way that should hopefully work for the time being (a Mitsubishi) but I'd still like to get this Tandon fixed sometime, by someone who knows what they're doing. It's really annoying me. I'd love to figure out how to fix these things myself, but just don't have time at the moment.
Click to expand...

I have similar problem with my two TM-100s and I have done all you have. As it turn out in the end it was found that the problem is not the drive it is the motherboard. This was confirmed by putting drive into a working Kaypro.
My drives cannot read the DIR at all, so you may have intermittence in the motherboard. My two cents is stop beating your drive to death, just wait for the Mitsubishi to confirm which is which.

Dougtronics
 
Dougtronics said:
I have similar problem with my two TM-100s and I have done all you have. As it turn out in the end it was found that the problem is not the drive it is the motherboard. This was confirmed by putting drive into a working Kaypro.
My drives cannot read the DIR at all, so you may have intermittence in the motherboard. My two cents is stop beating your drive to death, just wait for the Mitsubishi to confirm which is which.

Dougtronics
Click to expand...
But what do a motherboard of an IBM 5150 do in order to jam the floppy disk head assembly?

I would rather say it may be the Floppy Disk Controller or the PSU.
 
per said:
But what do a motherboard of an IBM 5150 do in order to jam the floppy disk head assembly?

I would rather say it may be the Floppy Disk Controller or the PSU.
Click to expand...

Don't know about IBM 5150 yet, I was working with Kaypro and its Floppy Disk Controller and the PSU checkout ok. I just completed building a logic probe. It works like a charm. I will soon probe around the motherboard and looking for the missing link.

Dougtronics
 
Dougtronics said:
Don't know about IBM 5150 yet, I was working with Kaypro and its Floppy Disk Controller and the PSU checkout ok. I just completed building a logic probe. It works like a charm. I will soon probe around the motherboard and looking for the missing link.

Dougtronics
Click to expand...

Then I guess the Kaypro has a buildt-in floppy disk controller in the motherboard.
 
Okay, forgive the stupid question--but...

Is this the only floppy on your system? If so, does it have the terminator pack installed on the drive PCB?

If there are two floppies on your system, does at least one of them have the terminating resistor pack installed?
 
Chuck(G) said:
Okay, forgive the stupid question--but...

Is this the only floppy on your system? If so, does it have the terminator pack installed on the drive PCB?

If there are two floppies on your system, does at least one of them have the terminating resistor pack installed?
Click to expand...

Ok chief, no question here is stupid, we are all here try to learn someting. My Kaypro has two floppy drives and the resistor pack is on the B drive. After some rearch I was confirmed that the resistor pack must be installed on the last drive.

Dougtronics
 
As a complete NOOB a year ago, I'm going to pipe up and ask; isn't the terminating resistor pack supposed to be on the last drive on the ribbon cable? IE: not the last drive letter.
If so, that would probably make it drive drive A in a PC.
No?
 
Dougtronics said:
Ok chief, no question here is stupid, we are all here try to learn someting. My Kaypro has two floppy drives and the resistor pack is on the B drive. After some rearch I was confirmed that the resistor pack must be installed on the last drive.
Click to expand...

And that's as it should be (actually, the resistor pack on either drive is probably fine; it's just a 150 ohm pullup. Floppy signals are slow and cables are fairly short, so ringing and reflections don't pose a problem).

However, my question was directed at the original poster.

Sometimes, however, simply swapping drives and having one work on one system and not another doesn't mean that there's nothing wrong with the drive.

Unlike hard drives, floppies don't buffer step pulses. iF your drive is gunked up, it's entirely possible for it to work on the system that puts out the slower step pulses, but not the faster one.

I seem to recall that the 5160 puts out step pulses at 6 msec. intervals by default. I don't know what the Kaypros do--I'd have to look at the CBIOS source to determine that.
 
Lorne said:
As a complete NOOB a year ago, I'm going to pipe up and ask; isn't the terminating resistor pack supposed to be on the last drive on the ribbon cable? IE: not the last drive letter.
If so, that would probably make it drive drive A in a PC.
No?
Click to expand...
Yes!

But with those short cables it's not usually critical as long as there's one (and only one) somewhere along the chain.

Still sounds like it might be gunk on the rails, at the very end where it's harder to get at; FWIW, I've worked with dozens of TM100s and have never had problems with the stepper mechanism itself.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Okay, forgive the stupid question--but...

Is this the only floppy on your system? If so, does it have the terminator pack installed on the drive PCB?

If there are two floppies on your system, does at least one of them have the terminating resistor pack installed?
Click to expand...

It is being used as the 2nd drive in my 5150, drive B:

I have no idea if there is a terminating pack, or honestly, what that looks like. I get the general idea, but don't know what to look for, how to see if I have one for this system, etc. I would assume it did/does, since these are all IBM parts, it came this way to me, and the guy I got it from ordered the system from IBM back in the day...
 
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phreakindee said:
It is being used as the 2nd drive in my 5150, drive B:

I have no idea if there is a terminating pack, or honestly, what that looks like. I get the general idea, but don't know what to look for, how to see if I have one for this system, etc. I would assume it did/does, since these are all IBM parts, it came this way to me, and the guy I got it from ordered the system from IBM back in the day...
Click to expand...

If there is a terminator in the socket (see below) on your drive B, take it off. (I don't think that's the problem though).
There should be one on your drive A.

View attachment Terminator socket.pdf
 
Lorne said:
If there is a terminator in the socket (see below) on your drive B, take it off. (I don't think that's the problem though).
There should be one on your drive A.

View attachment 1998
Click to expand...

There is not one on the 2nd drive, looks like the 1st drive A: has a blue one

So, the terminator should be on the first drive (nearest the floppy controller), not the last one? I've also read it pretty much doesn't matter, so long as one of them has a terminator. Oy.
 
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phreakindee said:
There is not one on the 2nd drive, looks like the 1st drive A: has a blue one

So, the terminator should be on the first drive (nearest the floppy controller), not the last one? I've also read it pretty much doesn't matter, so long as one of them has a terminator. Oy.
Click to expand...

I'm getting confused by 1st and 2nd vs. A: and B:; you say the 1st drive is A: and it's nearest the controller?

Drive A is the one farthest from the controller and it should have the terminator, although as you say it probably doesn't matter.

Which version of DOS are you running?
 
MikeS said:
I'm getting confused by 1st and 2nd vs. A: and B:; you say the 1st drive is A: and it's nearest the controller?

Drive A is the one farthest from the controller and it should have the terminator, although as you say it probably doesn't matter.

Which version of DOS are you running?
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2rnbhwo.jpg


Drive A: is the one I boot from, the last one on the floppy chain, the closest to the controller (at least physically), the one that works
Drive B: is the 2nd drive, the "middle" of the floppy cable, the one that is not working, without a terminator

I am running 2.10 most often, though I have also tried 2.20 and 3.3
 
phreakindee said:
2rnbhwo.jpg


Drive A: is the one I boot from, the last one on the floppy chain, the closest to the controller (at least physically), the one that works
Drive B: is the 2nd drive, the "middle" of the floppy cable, the one that is not working, without a terminator

I am running 2.10 most often, though I have also tried 2.20 and 3.3
Click to expand...
------------
Ah, closest to the controller physically, i.e. the left drive, but farthest from the controller on the cable... gotcha.

Just wondering if there's a diskette exerciser program that could maybe pin down just which cylinders are not reading (and maybe stepping) correctly, something like scandisk for instance.
 
Anadisk will definitely tell you what cylinder the drive is positioned at (via Read ID). It can also be used to move the head around (use "Sector" mode).
 
Chuck(G) said:
Anadisk will definitely tell you what cylinder the drive is positioned at (via Read ID). It can also be used to move the head around (use "Sector" mode).
Click to expand...

Tried Anadisk, but I can't read the text at all.. it uses a monochrome CGA display it appears (shows up as white text on a gray background, & I'm using composite out) and it's not clear enough to read unfortunately
 
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