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Need help with my old IBM XT 5160

E

elton121

New Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2009
Messages
9
Hello!

First I want to excuse me for my bad English but I'm from Germany.. ;)
Some time ago I wanted to start my old IBM XT 5160, which has always worked before. But now, when I want to start up the system only the fan of the power supply unit starts up and the 10mb harddrive also makes "some noise" :).
Nothing else happens so I cannot see anything on the monitor or hear any beeps from the small speaker. It also doesn't react on any commands frome the keyboard...

The System is an old IBM XT 5160 which has a full size 5 1/4"" floppy drive and a full size hard drive. It also has a color graphics card and a color monitor.

I am not familiar with this kind of old hardware so I hope that someone around here can help and tell me, what I can do or what is broken on this old machine.

I would like to give you some further imformation, but I don't know what I can tell you about the machine, that will help you!

Thank you in advance!
 
hmm.. hört sich nicht gut an..

Have you tried disconnecting all pheriperals (remove all cards and disconnect drives), then start with only graphics card, and so on?
 
Yes that is what I've done first. I've removed all the cards except the graphics adapter and disconnected all the drives so that only the monitor and the keyboard where connected to the XT and from the power supply only the two plugs to the mainboard.

PS: Hi Jorg! Schön hier auch auf einen deutsch sprechenden zu treffen! :)
 
When you say 'nothing happens' does that mean no blinkenlights on the drives, even when the hard drive makes 'some noise'? Do you have a meter to check the voltages at the power supply to mainboard connectors?
Do you have a bootdisk?

--T
 
The red light on the harddrive blinks when I switch on the Computer. As far as I could measure, the voltage the power supply provides should be fine. I have some boot disks available but I think the floppy disk drive is also broken because it doesn't do anything (no lights, no sound, even if i close it with a disk inserted)... I will try to connect the old floppy drive to another power supply to check if it works. But shouldn't the XT display anything anyway?

What can I do if something is wrong with the power supply?

Thanks for your help so far
 
When you say that the hard disk "makes some noise", does it make a brief noise, or can you hear it spin up to speed? If it's just a brief blink of the LED and no spin-up, try disconnecting the power supply from the motherboard, but leave it connected to the hard drive. Try again.

(We're trying to isolate the cause here)
 
Hi

No, the hard disk spins up und and keeps running and the LED blinks from time to time.
 
Good. That says you've got power.

Try powering up without the graphics adapter (and all other cards). Do you get a error in the form of a beep? If not, it sounds as if your CPU isn't even getting started.

The next thing that I'd try is to remove (one by one) any IC's in sockets, inspect them for bent pins and carefully re-insert them. Try again, with no cards inserted (but with speaker connected).
 
It's interesting that your drive is powering up and things flash once and a while. I don't recall if the 5150 beeps on a successful boot or not.

I'd also try it without any cards and see if it complains. If it does, then you have a good idea things are working properly and could be a problem with your video card or monitor possibly. A test to check that is if caps lock turns on and off after the computer has been on for a minute. It's not an intelligent test, but would give you a good idea if it may be sitting there waiting for a date or for you to type and just can't display anything on the monitor.

Really really obvious check but you've checked the contrast and brightness on the monitor too right? (only pointing out something that us with scopes and multimeters might jump past).
 
Make sure to check for bad capacitors, since they can cause a PSU to shut off (the fan usually still works in this case). I had a 5150 with the C7 capacitor in the corner of the motherboard next to the power connector blown. I never determined what that capacitor did exactly (something with the power connector?), or whether I could get the motherboard to work by just snipping it off.

In my case, the hard disk (an ST-225) spun up with the motherboard disconnected, but the drive light wouldn't come on.
 
elton121 said:
I have some boot disks available but I think the floppy disk drive is also broken because it doesn't do anything (no lights, no sound, even if i close it with a disk inserted)...
Click to expand...
If the motherboard is not starting (and that can be because of a few reasons), then it is normal not to see/hear any activity from the floppy drive.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Try powering up without the graphics adapter (and all other cards). Do you get a error in the form of a beep?
Click to expand...
With no video card in a 5160, a beep (actually three beeps of long-short-short) is only expected if the motherboard switches are set to monochrome or CGA.
If motherboard switches are set to EGA, there will be no beeps (beeps generated due to no video card).
 
5160 boot sequence

5160 boot sequence

5160 with a full height hard drive - hard drive very likely to be an ST-412.

This is the boot sequence on my 5160:

1. ST-412 light flashes on momentarily: see Note 1
2. I hear ST-412 starting to spin up.
3. Video appears showing memory test.

After about 50 seconds (time will vary dependent on amount of RAM, BIOS revision):

4. ST-412 light flashes on momentarily
5. A: drive light flashes on momentarily
6. Speaker beeps once.
7. Attempt to boot from A:
8. Boot from C: starts.

Note 1: At this point, the ST-412 doesn't need control/data cables connected to do this, only power.
 
Xt

Xt

modem7 said...then it is normal not to see/hear any activity
Click to expand...
Depends on what's going on with the hard drive. If it keeps trying to load, minutes can go by before the floppy gets accessed, if at all.

Einige fragen, wenn ich darf.
Von der floppy geht das strom kabel ab, und dann ein breiters flachkabel.
Von der festplatte geht das strom kabel ab, und dann zwei schmale & breite flachkaebel ab.

Gehen nun the flach kabel von der floppy und der festplatte zu der selben erweiterungs karte, oder zu zwei vershiedenen ? Wenn es zwei vershiedene erweiterungs karten sind, wuerde ich den festplatten-controller (die erweiterungs karte zu der die flachkaebel von der festplatte verlaufen) heraus nehmen, die stromversorgung von der festplatte abmachen, alles was mit der floppy zu tun hat drinlassen, und dann das booten versuchen. Nach ein paar minuten sollte die floppy rot leuchten und starten.
Am shluss sehen sie die beep codes fuer den 5160.


A few questions, if I may.
The power cable and a wider ribbon cable lead off from the floppy.
The power cable and two cables, a narrower one and a wider one, lead off from the floppy.
Do these cable sets go to the same expansion card, or to two different ones. If they're different, pull the HD controller (the one the cables from the HD run to) out, disconnect power from the HD, leave all the floppy stuff in, and boot. After a few minutes you should see the floppy llight up and start up.

beep codes for the 5160
No display and No beeps Power
Continuous Beep Power
Repeating Short beeps Power or stuck keyboard key
1 long and 1 short high beep Clock speed too fast
1 long and 2 short beeps Display
1 short beep Display
2 short beeps Display
1 long and 3 short beeps EGA -- check the video RAM

patscc
 
patscc said:
Depends on what's going on with the hard drive. If it keeps trying to load, minutes can go by before the floppy gets accessed, if at all.
Click to expand...
The line was prefixed by, "If the motherboard is not starting".
If the 5160 motherboard is not starting, there is no code running and therefore no way for the floppy drive to get selected (causes LED to light) or turn on the motor.

Hard drives are a different story.
 
So what can we deduce so far?

Hard drive spinning: must have +12V (but it could be low)
LED on hard drive flashes: suggests that +5V is present

"As far as I could measure, the voltage the power supply provides should be fine." doesn't inspire confidence in me that the voltages have been determined to be good.

Combination of power suppy, motherboard and video card doesn't work. So one of those is the cuplrit (however, always good never to rule out the possibility of a multiple failure).

Note that the power supply hasn't been ruled out. For example, if the +12V is low, that can be enough to turn the hard drive spindle but low enough for the power supply to fail to raise the POWER GOOD signal to the motherboard (resulting in the motherboard not starting).

Elton121,

Try this:
1. Have just the power supply, 5160 motherboard (with no cards) and speaker connected.
2. If the motherboard switches 5 and 6 on SW1 are BOTH on (note for later restoration), then turn them off.
3. Turn on the power supply.

If both the power supply and motherboard are (at least mostly) good, you will hear three beeps from the speaker within a few seconds.
What is the result?

If no beeps, please tell us what you measure the +5V to be (with the motherboard connected to the power supply).
We would also need for you to measure the POWER GOOD line for us. On a 5160 power supply, the POWER GOOD line is normally coloured orange.
 
modem7 said:
Try this:
1. Have just the power supply, 5160 motherboard (with no cards) and speaker connected.
2. If the motherboard switches 5 and 6 on SW1 are BOTH on (note for later restoration), then turn them off.
3. Turn on the power supply.

If both the power supply and motherboard are (at least mostly) good, you will hear three beeps from the speaker within a few seconds.
What is the result?

If no beeps, please tell us what you measure the +5V to be (with the motherboard connected to the power supply).
We would also need for you to measure the POWER GOOD line for us. On a 5160 power supply, the POWER GOOD line is normally coloured orange.
Click to expand...

Ok. This is what I did. I followed your instrouctions but there was no beep or anything like that. The only thing the small speaker does is a very very quiet noise (no beep!) exactly at the point I turn the power on.

I measured again the power from the PSU and I had 12.1V on the yellow (12V)line, 5.11V in the red (5V) line and also a bit more than 5V on the orange (POWER GOOD) line. So are these values ok?

Thanks to all of you for your help!
 
xt

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modem7 said...If the 5160 motherboard is not starting
Click to expand...
Yes, your post was prefixed with that. I wasn't trying to negate that. I was merley pointing out that if the hard drive is behaving in a certain fashion, it can take a *very* long time before the boot gets abandoned, and the floppy drive is accessed. This is why I suggested taking the HD controller card out, and leaving the floppy controller card in, after first ascertaining that in fact they are two seperate cards, and not a 3-rd party combined controller. Appearantly this wasn't sufficiently clear in my earlier post. Sorry. There are more than one way to skin a cat, as te saying goes.

patscc
 
I've also done this but even after 15 minutes nothing has happened and the floppy drive does nothing....
 
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