Denniske1976
Experienced Member
Hi all,
I am in need of a little help. Here's the thing:
Last week I wanted to power up my IBM XT again, you know, something with "Commander Keen" and such ;-) Plus I picked up an old 5153 color screen somewhere and wanted to see if it still worked...
So, I switched the machine on and the only thing that happened was "poof!" :shock:
Opened up the case and it seemed like the mainboard had a bad case of "C56-blown-ness" (the tantalum cap near the keyboard connector). Searched the internet only to find that "actually" the machine should power up without C56 because it only filters the PSU power range for the mainboard (correct me if I misunderstood). Only thing is: when I power up the computer with that mainboard, only the PSU fan starts and nothing else happens (no screen, no floppy noise nuttin' else).
So, since I'm quite a-technical and also don't have any tantalum caps around so solder in, I replaced the mainboard with an old mainboard I had from a 5150 Portable (looks to be the same mainboard anyways). Installed all the cards, set the DIP switches, connected screen and keyboard. But when I turned the PC on, I get no screen :-( Eerything else seems to happen, because I see it reading the floppy drive and then switches to read a bit from the 10MB harddisk (probably loading DOS 3.10 I think that's what's on it).
So, connected the 5153 to my HeadStart LX-40 (that still won't read HD floppies) and got screen there... conclusion? The CGA card probably also blew up.
So now the bottom line of my question is: Does anyone have one of those old full length IBM CGA adapters? Or can I somehow figure out what's happened to this one? Looking at the card, I don't see anything blown or black or something. Card looks 100% OK. I did look on ebay and the cards are there, but $186 for some old CGA card (plus $45 shipping!!) just because it's IBM made? I mean if that's what those things are worth, I think I have about 233,000 bucks of other IBM cards in the basement :D
Anyhoo, anyone know what to do? Ever repaired one of those cards? I might just have one somewhere in the basement but I'm pretty sure I don't. The only other one I have is in my 5155 Portable and I would like to keep that in there (they were stock IIRC). I'd like to keep my XT original if possible, especially now that I have another 5153 screen to go with it that actually works
So, thanx for reading and let me know your thoughts
I am in need of a little help. Here's the thing:
Last week I wanted to power up my IBM XT again, you know, something with "Commander Keen" and such ;-) Plus I picked up an old 5153 color screen somewhere and wanted to see if it still worked...
So, I switched the machine on and the only thing that happened was "poof!" :shock:
Opened up the case and it seemed like the mainboard had a bad case of "C56-blown-ness" (the tantalum cap near the keyboard connector). Searched the internet only to find that "actually" the machine should power up without C56 because it only filters the PSU power range for the mainboard (correct me if I misunderstood). Only thing is: when I power up the computer with that mainboard, only the PSU fan starts and nothing else happens (no screen, no floppy noise nuttin' else).
So, since I'm quite a-technical and also don't have any tantalum caps around so solder in, I replaced the mainboard with an old mainboard I had from a 5150 Portable (looks to be the same mainboard anyways). Installed all the cards, set the DIP switches, connected screen and keyboard. But when I turned the PC on, I get no screen :-( Eerything else seems to happen, because I see it reading the floppy drive and then switches to read a bit from the 10MB harddisk (probably loading DOS 3.10 I think that's what's on it).
So, connected the 5153 to my HeadStart LX-40 (that still won't read HD floppies) and got screen there... conclusion? The CGA card probably also blew up.
So now the bottom line of my question is: Does anyone have one of those old full length IBM CGA adapters? Or can I somehow figure out what's happened to this one? Looking at the card, I don't see anything blown or black or something. Card looks 100% OK. I did look on ebay and the cards are there, but $186 for some old CGA card (plus $45 shipping!!) just because it's IBM made? I mean if that's what those things are worth, I think I have about 233,000 bucks of other IBM cards in the basement :D
Anyhoo, anyone know what to do? Ever repaired one of those cards? I might just have one somewhere in the basement but I'm pretty sure I don't. The only other one I have is in my 5155 Portable and I would like to keep that in there (they were stock IIRC). I'd like to keep my XT original if possible, especially now that I have another 5153 screen to go with it that actually works
So, thanx for reading and let me know your thoughts