IBM 5150 troubleshooting

[RC14]

I just picked up an IBM 5150, but it doesn't appear to power on (no "short beep" as described in the IBM Guide to Operations). How can I troubleshoot it? What should I be looking for? I'm an absolute novice to PC and PC compatibles having stuck to Apple so far, so sorry about any dumb questions!

 

[per]

How long did you wait? The 5150 doesn't show the memory count during self-test, and getting to the point of the beep might take a few minutes if you have maxed out the memory.

 

[lafos]

There is a lot of useful information including troubleshooting a 5150 at

http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/index.htm

 

[Cmolson]

There is a lot of useful information including troubleshooting a 5150 at

http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/index.htm

I second this. I repaired a broken 5150, had multiple shorted tantalum capacitors. One was on the motherboard, another was on one of the floppy drive.

The tantalum on the motherboard had a slight crack/hole on the top so it was an easy guess as to which one failed. A lot of times they just look normal though.