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Toshiba T3200 - Long beep, black screen, no boot.

dosstojny

New Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2019
Messages
6
Hello.
I recently bought another gas plasma Toshiba, the 286 T3200. After cleaning internals, taking out the hard drive, doublechecking every element on board and making sure the voltages are right I tried to turn it on.
The computer won't boot properly and here are the symthoms. I'll write down everything what I think can be useful for you.
-The power supply is buzzing with no load (I don't know if it does the buzzing with all components plugged in because fans are too loud) but voltages are perfectly fine and stable
-After pressing power button Toshiba generates long single beep. The screen doesn't glow, only things appearing on the screen are little orange spots under top bezel, just like on my working T5100 when the screen is turned off by closing the lid, so I assume that's okay.
-Sometimes the screen does come on, but after a few seconds it shakes and goes black again. It's a lottery. When it glows contrast and brightness regulation work. The screen itself looks perfect without any damage
-System is halted with "KBC SELF TEST ERROR" message that I can see when image on the screen appears.
-CPU is getting warm after a few minutes, I don't know if it's okay or not.

My conclusions so far:
-Voltages are fine
-There are no capacitors leaking, I can see some brown gunk near one of the smaller electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard, but I assume that's just some kind of dirt, not the electrolyte.
-Gas plasma doesn't glow when only HV connector is attached (205V and 5V) , but I think that's normal because my working T5100's screen doesn't too. Considering that I think that motherboard doesn't send the proper signal to gas plasma.
-Every chip is settled correctly


The most important thing for me right now is to test the gas plasma unit, I want to be sure that it's fine. There are no pinouts for this part on the internet. I have functioning Toshiba T5100 and even though the connections look the same and screen fits in it's housing, I'm not going to test it this way, because they're not exactly the same and I don't want to risk my perfectly fine T5100.
Back to the motherboard I'm absolutely out of ideas. I've just ordered the capacitor tester and I'm going to test every capacitor on the motherboard, is there anything else I can do? I'm thinking about logic probe too.

Here's an example video. Generally the screen lights up for a little bit longer time but less frequently.

I'm waiting for your ideas what's wrong with this machine.
 
Did you get anywhere with this? Wish I could help.
I have a T3200 that I never tested yet, as well as a spare PSU and spare display. Planning on having a go at it very soon, I hope I can get it to work somehow.
 
I am having the exact same issue as you have, but my screen doesn't even flicker when turning on. A week ago I replaced the gas plasma screen, and computer was booting up to some memory error. At that time I had the old flat CMOS battery in the laptop, but now I have replaced it for a new battery and the computer is acting worse :-(
Did you know that there is a switch at the screen hinge, that tells the PC if lid is closed or not? You enable/disable it by putting something metallic into the slot. I thought this would be the reason why my screen is not coming back on now, but seems to be something else.
 
Ok, so here's how mine is acting now on bootup. New BIOS battery installed.
Should I try installing a new chip with "new" BIOS, or is my RAM memory fried? 🤔

Really would appreciate any leads on what to do next...

 
@Tom_of_Åland According to manual (https://www.manualslib.com/download/330224/Toshiba-T-Series-T3200.html) this memory location belongs to system working memory.
I guess that self-check test tries to write in the memory and then read it back but does not get the expected value. This is just my guessing.

Maybe one of the RAM chips on the board is bad.
Thank you for the input, much appreciated. I have since used this T3200 as a parts machine for two other T3200, that now both still run on their original HDD. So if anyone need some parts, let me know, I might have it.
 
Thank you for the input, much appreciated. I have since used this T3200 as a parts machine for two other T3200, that now both still run on their original HDD. So if anyone need some parts, let me know, I might have it.
If you're selling parts, I could use a floppy drive. Maybe even 2 if you have them. Do you have one available?
Thank you,
-Shawn
 
Ok, so here's how mine is acting now on bootup. New BIOS battery installed.
Should I try installing a new chip with "new" BIOS, or is my RAM memory fried? 🤔

Really would appreciate any leads on what to do next...

I wonder if the is actually good. But, one of the BIOS chips is bad. It is unable to write the memory test values to RAM. Something to consider.
-Shawn
 
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