• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

What 5160 parts fail the most?

M

marcoguy

Experienced Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2012
Messages
485
Location
Boston
I have an IBM 5160, and from a recent CPU failure, I have noticed that it is becoming increasingly hard to find parts for these at a reasonable price. I am thinking of stocking up on parts to keep my XT running for the next three decades. What parts are most likely to fail?
 
I'd say that hard drives are the main part to keep your eyes on. Strenuous tests, read errors, and not parking them at the appropriate times will degrade their working-ness.
 
I've seen two CGA boards fail with bad capacitors. One came from a 5160 and the other was in a 5155. Both were aquired from EBAY as non working units at bargain prices. See THIS THREAD.
 
On a given day, any part in a computer is about equally likely to fail as any other part. Thermal short, cascade failure, dried out caps, fatigued resistors, anything that can go, has a good chance of going.

I've built several businesses on that liklihood of events.
 
Oh God, I know all about the HDDs failing. I also have heard of the PSU failing. As a matter of fact, I would like to upgrade my PSU so I can connect multiple hard drives. I have a sale of an ST02 pending, and if that sells, then I might be on the market for one of those.
 
I've had several issues with shorted tantalum capacitors lately.....on motherboards and adapter cards.
One that was shorted on a 386 motherboard, actually lit up like a bulb when applying power. I'm lucky
it didn't blow up in my face. I've been tempted to purchase one of those ESR meters, but haven't
really needed it, I was able to find the shorted caps using an ohmmeter.
 
You don't need to upgrade the PSU to run multiple hard drives. What you need is molex power splitters which are a couple of dollars, and used by IBM themselves when the IBM 5160 turned to half height devices in the mid-late 80's (like mine).

The parts I worry the most about and keep spares of is DRAM and hard drives. Most common fault (already mentioned) is the caps, in which case you might want to practice desoldering ;)

PSU and monitor failures can be repaired by a electronic repair store - although I ask around to try and find someone who has repaired computer equipment in the 1980's and I provide circuit diagrams - but it's pretty basic electronics in those parts. Only thing I've had go wrong in a PSU was the filter caps, and they're only a few dollars and readily available.
 
I thought that the wattage on the old PSUs was not enough to run much more than two floppy drives and a hard drive.
 
5150 came with 63W PSU which wasn't recommended for hard drives but still can (depending on how loaded the expansion slots are).
5160 came with 130W PSU and it's fine running 2xFDD + 2xHDD. Mine came stock with 2xFDD + 1xHDD and it had a D drive connector hanging in the spare bay waiting for another hard disc (these were all IBM labelled parts, including cables).

Edit: in the mid-late eighties IBM switched from full height configurations to half height configurations, mine is the later model but still uses the same PSU. All IBM did was throw in molex splitters (which have cute little IBM cotton tags!)
 
Well... My 5160 is fully loaded in the ISA slots, with just one empty not including the 8th slot.
 
Mine is fairly loaded, running two full length video cards (Hercules + IBM Color Graphics). I have one more slot than you free but that's it.
There is over 60 watts extra over what the 5150 came with, which gives fairly ample breathing room. You can get some of the power consumption data from here which will give you an idea:

http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/5160/misc/5160_power.htm

Edit: if you upgrade the PSU anyway, keep the original
 
I can imagine that my MACH 20 would consume a lot of power. Can anybody confirm this?
 
I don't think that would consume much at all, remember it draws power from the ISA slot, so it has to conform to those limitations as far as power consumption, it may even draw power from the CPU socket itself to supplement itself, that i don't know,
 
I'd like to know the suggested limits for ISA slot power consumption are; I don't think there was anything written on it by IBM. I did find something in a Tandy laptop tech ref, but presumably the stated 200mA there is for reasons of battery life.
 
probably, but i'd say the 200mA is for laptop reference only, not an actual plugged in isa bus, but i am probably wrong, because ISA is ISA unless they made the laptop ISA specifically to use less power than the standard type, but 200mA is a good place to start.
 
You can run a HardCard with a half-height 3.5" hard drive on it from an ISA slot, and those use way more than 200 mA.
 
mikey99 said:
I've had several issues with shorted tantalum capacitors lately.....on motherboards and adapter cards.
One that was shorted on a 386 motherboard, actually lit up like a bulb when applying power. I'm lucky
it didn't blow up in my face. I've been tempted to purchase one of those ESR meters, but haven't
really needed it, I was able to find the shorted caps using an ohmmeter.
Click to expand...
You need an ESR meter for Capacitors that are way out of spec but not shorted (Aluminum electrolytic tend to just fade out of spec, Tants short out and blow up). I am almost to the point of buying one.
 
Back to the original question I would assess the failure rate by the relative size(s) of the stack(s) of dead components I have had in my basement. These are components that I have replaced for clients over the years. Based on that parameter the clear winner is..... modems, followed by floppy drives, hard drives and motherboards, although motherboards are nowhere near the failure rate of the top three. Please note that these are from PCs, XTs, 286s 386s and 486s and I have not attempted to segregate them by computer type.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top