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Moved 5160 XT having issues - HELP

S

Smack2k

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Jan 8, 2013
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Location
Pittsburgh, PA
OK,

I moved my 5160 from its old home to my man cave...plugged it in and turned it on..

I get one loud beep and then two beeps...it seems to keep running after that, but

My 5153 Monitor just has a rolling picture and whatever is on the screen isnt much info. I tried the Vertical and Horizontal Holds to no avail..

Also, and more important, when I turned it off and reached in the back to pull the power / keyboard and monitor, I could feel the electricity on the outside of the case, on the metal part of the monitor cable and on the serial portion of the keyboard plug-in (The DIN was plugged in).

Once I unplugged everything, it obviously calmed down...

Do I need to get inside and reseat everything or is there something else I need to look at?

1 long and 2 short beeps point to Video Adapter, but why all the electricity as well? Something not seated right? I am cracking it open tomorrow after work, but wanted to see anything else to look for from you guys..
 
Smack2k said:
Do I need to get inside and reseat everything ...
Click to expand...
The first thing that I would look for, considering that you moved the 5160, is a loose CGA card.

Something that sometimes happens to me is that I will bring a 5150 or 5160 out of storage, temporarily put in a different video card type, and then set the motherboard's video switches accordingly. Later, after I am finished, I will restore the original video card but forget to restore the video switch settings. Back into storage the machine goes, to cause me confusion when I next power it on.

Smack2k said:
Also, and more important, when I turned it off and reached in the back to pull the power / keyboard and monitor, I could feel the electricity on the outside of the case, on the metal part of the monitor cable and on the serial portion of the keyboard plug-in (The DIN was plugged in).
Click to expand...
With electricity, everything is relative/differential. So, when you 'feel electricity', either:
* You are grounded and have then touched something that has voltage on it (voltage compared to ground); or
* Your body has voltage on it (voltage compared to ground) and you have then touched something that is grounded; or
* In between. E.g. Your left hand is touching a 5 KV line (compared to ground) and then with your right hand, you touch a 10 KV line (compared to ground).

I experience the second one when connecting the 15-pin VGA connector on my NEC MultiSync 2080 monitor to one of my computers. The shield on that connector has 'floating' AC volage on it (a voltage compared to ground), and I feel a tingle if I am holding the metal connector at the end of the MultiSync 2080 video cable, and then brush up against a metal part of the computer (which is grounded). You can read some technical info on that [here].

So perhaps you were somehow grounded, but your 5160 wasn't, and you were experiencing some leakage current.
 
Thanks...will be cracking it open tonight to check the card...

As for the voltage, the CGA Connector was the "hottest" part when I felt all that voltage and the ground thing makes sense...
 
OK,

Good and Bad

Good - Had to reseat the CGA card and it comes up fine now...but I cant put the screw into the case to lock the card in place as it lifts the card a little bit and causes that issue..

Bad - The HDD is making a kind of noisy squeal when loading..not sure if its just age or something else, but figured I'd ask...the Drive loads completely, but like I said, kind of noisy...afraid its going possibly...

Electricity is still kind of there, but not nearly as bad...
 
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Do you have three-prong plugs on both the 5153 and the 5160?

The 5153 is not plugged into the 5160 power supply is it? I don't recall if those worked that way. If it is, you have an interesting problem.

If not, and you do have three-prong plugs, you have a bad ground (and more) in your house wiring somewhere, and if you don't know how to look for that, then MikeS is right: Call an electrician. You can start though with one of those outlet testers with the diagnostic LEDs on them. Ground and neutral should never be connected together at the outlet, and you may have that, plus a hot/neutral reversal. Das ist nicht so gut, mein Freund.

If you don't have three-prong plugs, you may have a hot/neutral reversal, (possibly electrician time again), bad isolation capacitors in one of the power supplies (electrician won't likely fix that), or something else.

Either way, you should be using three-prong plugs with properly grounded outlets.
 
I am using 3 Prong Plugs for the monitor and the machine.

Both are plugged into a grounded surge protector that goes into a properly grounded outlet and I did not plug the monitor into the PC...

Any other machine plugged into that same surge protector has no issues and I feel no electricity on the case(s). Even with just one machine plugged in to test (my 286) there were no issues...

Any info on the Hard Drive noises?
 
Somewhere, your ground is not working, else you'd not have enough potential difference between the grounds to feel it. But, not only is the ground not working, there's also a ground fault, which is probably a line filter cap in one of the power supplies.
 
I have plugged in a few other machines to the same surge protector and don't feel any current…just the 5160..

How would I check for ground faults?
 
Firstly disconnect all the cables from the PC / Monitor (including power cables, CGA cable, Keyboard etc etc) and remove the cover from the 5160. Using a multimeter check the continuity between the ground pin on the 5160 power supply (the male 'center pin' that isn't parallel with any of the others) and the conductive case of the POWER SUPPLY. It should be something like 0 ohms or close to it (anything < 1ohm is fine).

Now check the continuity between the ground pin and somewhere else on the case that is conductive. One of the screws that holds in an expansion card should be fine. Also check the continuity from the ground pin to the CGA card support where you felt the shock. All should be nearly zero ohms (<1ohm is fine).

Now grab your unplugged surge protector and check the continuity from the earth pin that goes into the power point and the earth pin on the other side. Should be zero or close to it....

Finally check the earth continuity of the unplugged IEC power cord from the power plug itself to the IEC connector; again it should be almost zero ohms.

If any of these don't pass the test post up your results. Rectifying earth faults of this nature are pretty easy.

If all of these tests pass I would suggest you have a floating ground circuit in your house. The fact that you didn't feel anything when you touched your other machines just means that they leak less current than the 5160. It's not a safe thing and I would get an electrician to fix the earth bond ASAP.
 
Also do you have an RCD (or I think you might call it a GFI or Ground Fault Interrupter) installed in your house?
 
I am not sure we have one. The outlet I installed was not GFCI outlets...


I have tried like 8 machines with no current felt outside the 5160

I am going to pull down the outlet I put up and check it's grounded again as I know it was when I put it in

Is there an east way to check the grounding on an outlet with a multimeter?
 
I would start with the basic grounding tests on the 5160 first. There is a possibility of a ground fault inside the power supply.

Yes it is possible to test the ground of the outlet with a multimeter.... however if you are not familiar with high voltage I would suggest against it. Also you will need a decent multimeter which I would suggest is at least cat III rated. I have had a cheap one explode in my face (literally) because I accidentally had it set to current instead of voltage. A good Cat III meter will not do that. Secondly a cheap meter is not rated to mains voltage and it will explode in your face. Also your probes need to be PERFECT, any insulation defects will electrocute you. Seriously do not attempt this if you are unsure.

But for the sake of argument set the multimeter to AC VOLTAGE. If your powerpoint is wired correctly you should be able to measure 115V RMS between the active and ground. There should be nearly zero voltage between the neutral and ground. Active-Neutral should again be 115V RMS. If you get < 115RMS between active/ground then you have a problem. Likewise if you measure a significant voltage from neutral to ground.
 
I'd start with a receptacle tester. $5 at Walmart. You should have one in your toolbox anyway. You'd be amazed at the number of nutty installations that you'll find, even in a new house. Missing ground, reversed polarity being two of the more common.

In the US, you'll often find the ground and neutral wires connected together in the breaker box. That's okay, but a good earth ground is necessary. Some places allow connection to a buried cold-water pipe, but many require a ground rod. (NEC requires this). If that ground isn't really good, yes, you can get all tingly.
 
OK, the wall outlets are all good…verified they are all grounded and powered fine with the multimeter…I actually have a really nice one so easy to make sure things are set right (AC) and all was well / grounded appropriately. That HAD to be a mess when it blew up on you!

Next step is to check the machine, and go over the steps 3pcedev and others gave on the 5160 itself.
 
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