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1986 IBM PS/2 troubles!

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Fireflite

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Sep 24, 2015
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Florida :D
Hi all! Let me start by saying I'm new here, and thanks for having me on this site! :p

I found this PS/2 on the curb YEARS ago. I never could get it to run, which might not be a bad thing considering what I have planned for it! I don't have a clue what's wrong with it, but considering I know next to nothing about vintage computers that's not surprising xD

Whenever I gave it power, about nothing happened. the fan in the PSU would try to spin, but stop, and a orange LED on the Hard drive front would blink once. There's two cables that run from the PSU to the Motherboard, labeled P3 and P4. if both cables are connected, nothing happens. if only P3 is connected, nothing happens. BUT if only P4 is connected, the PSU roars back into life (you should've seen me when that thing fired away, I thought I had a runner!). Nothing ever showed on the Monochrome Display during any of this, never heard the HDD spin, and if you put a diskette in the driver nothing spins or lights. any ideas? It's ok if she can't be saved, my plan was to buy a color PS/2 display and replace the computer's insides with modern gaming PC parts, that way my little old PS/2 will no longer sit alone on the same table it's sat in the corner of the garage for all these years, but will be the crown jewel of my bedroom. in daily use, always receiving looks and plenty of love :p

But that leads to my other and main question, the PS/2 Displays! Despite some pretty gnarly screen burn (looks like this PC might've been a Point-Of-Sale or Transactions machine? You can read the burn in some places, but faintly. The only word I can make out is "TRANSACTION" at the top, followed by a list of text flowing down the screen. near the bottom is a series of lines and what looks like a time and damp stamp, like a POS monitor would have. any ideas? I'm including some pictures of it, it's not likely but would be amazing to finally know what my PS/2 spent so many years displaying!

Anyhow, sorry! back to the original question, the Display! when I build the computer, I was going to use an original VGA colour PS/2 display from IBM, only I've hit a snag. when I connect my Monochrome monitor to a modern computer, it runs beautifully! that is until it gets to the Windows start screen....then the picture goes haywire xD (including pictures of that, too)

What causes this and how can i fix it? I'm betting it's just because the monitor is smaller than anything the computer was built for, I've tried putting the screen resolution of the modern PC to the lowest settings, but to no avail. I REALLY do not want to have to put a modern LCD in this baby, it'll ruin the look of the computer (gotta love that fishbowl!)

101_0547.jpg101_0548.jpg101_0549.jpg101_0550.jpg101_0551.jpg

I just noticed the monitor seems to boot fine in Safe Mode! The 4th picture is the frizzley-stuff I get if I boot normally...is there a word for that? xD

Thanks to anyone who's made it this far, looking forward to the replies! ;)
 
You have to set Windows to use both a resolution and refresh rate that the monitor supports. Probably 640*480 at 60hz. That is what safe mode uses. I'm not sure what other resolutions that particular monitor supports.

Some video cards may also change other various detailed sync properties, if that is the case then you would have to use any vendor supplied control panel provided with the drivers for your video card.
 
Those monitors can't sync at a high enough frequency to match whatever your newer computer is pushing out.
It's minimum is probably higher than what the screen can handle - if you can create a custom mode, go for 640x480 @ 60Hz.
Safe mode loads in VGA which will be 640x480 @ 60 or close to it.

Edit: this was already covered by previous poster, missed his post

To view the screen burn, the best way to see it will be to display an all-white screen. You might even be able to achieve that by simply turning up the brightness/contrast settings high enough. The amber display I use on my workbench spent 20 years running a welding machine - and you can tell - X Y and Z axes are still all at 0.00 lol

Sounds like your PS/2 has/had a short - often this is just a tantalum capacitor that has dried out (the orange/yellow ones). If you've got a multimeter, it's not hard to track down the potential suspects and snap them off (proper procedure is to replace - but if you just want to get it running again, then a quick snap does the trick) until the resistance returns to normal.

My 50Z did this to me a few months back, and it's common.
 
So now you've got the answer as to why the old mono monitor isn't working well with your newer machine. Fill us in on what you have planned for the system!

What model/type is this? Will you be gutting the machine and attempting to fit a modern motherboard? Or just doing a tube swap and using a newer color tube with the original system?
 
Hey everyone and thanks for all the replies!

Maverick, I guess I forgot to put that info in my original post! It's an '86 IBM PS/2 Model 30, the one with the red power switch. My plan was to remove the PS/2's original computer hardware from it's case, and put a modern machine inside. I have a Model M keyboard rebuilt and waiting, and I was going to track down an original PS/2 colour display...only with the Monochrome display my system came with, hooking these babies up to a modern machines isn't exactly plug and play, apparently :p
Of course, I would later purchase a functioning IBM PS/2, just for kicks-I am the king of dated technology after all (well....maybe not the electronic stuff!)

How can I convert the computer down to run in a 640*840 screen? I tried going to the screen properties and changed the resolution down to 800 something, I forgot what it was but apparently it wasn't small enough! :p
SpidersWeb, how can I create a custom mode?

I'll poke around the IBM in a bit and look for the capacitors, if i find my multimeter, how can i test them?
Sorry if these questions sound silly, this is coming from the guy who does all his paperwork on typewriter xD

Thanks everyone!
 
Just to be clear, there are no 1986 IBM PS/2 systems. The PS/2 line was officially announced in April of 1987. I worked for IBM in late 1986 and we had internal use only pre-production PS/2's. I don't remember, but the internals may have 1986 copyright notices on them, but officially any PS/2 is a 1987 or later model.
 
Hi Lisa, thanks, you're absolutely right! I thought I got 1986 from the bottom of the keyboard that came with the machine, but I just checked again and it says 03JUN88, so 3rd June 1988...whoops!

I went to look for the capacitors but only found what looked like little orange nubby ones. There was a few codes on the cover of the machine, I took picture of those since codes can usually be decoded :p

There is a date stamp too, but it is out of focus. it reads: MONTH: M, YEAR: L, and DAY: 25. Thanks!101_0561.jpg101_0562.jpg101_0563.jpg101_0564.jpg101_0566.jpg
 
Fireflite said:
How can I convert the computer down to run in a 640*840 screen? I tried going to the screen properties and changed the resolution down to 800 something
Click to expand...

800x600 is the lowest resolution that Windows XP officially supports. But sometimes if you go to Display Properites -> Settings -> Advanced -> Adapter -> List All Modes you will see 640x480 on the list, and you can select it there.

Or you can press F8 when Windows it first starting to load, and then select "Enable VGA mode" from the boot menu.

vgamode01.jpg
 
Thanks vwestlife! I used to watch your youtube videos! :p

I'm so excited, I got it working! doesn't fit the screen exactly but I'm counting myself lucky at this point!
I'll be putting the monochrome monitor trough it's paces, maybe try playing some videos or something and see how
it copes. anything i should be wary of? anything to be wary with a colour display?

Thanks again everyone!101_0580.jpg
 
Fireflite said:
anything i should be wary of? anything to be wary with a colour display?

Thanks again everyone!View attachment 26868
Click to expand...
Very nice to see one of those running again. Very cool stuff. I recall helping to set up an office with a bunch of those IBM white mono VGA monitors once. Never actually used them myself, but they had nice sharp looking text.

A lot of "modern" user interfaces do not take monochrome monitors in to consideration. Heck, they don't even care that some people's eyes can't see full color (but that is "less than 1%, so we don't support that").
 
tipc said:
there was a post on another forum where this, apparently, older gentleman was eulogizing his departed friend who is alleged to have gotten Win95 to work w/CGA. Where there's a will there's a way . . .
Click to expand...

CGA is unlikely, but Windows 95/98 can be made to work with EGA...

miscega1.png


...and MCGA/VGA monochrome:

miscw95bw.png
 
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