Two thing to keep in mind when repairing old designs: 1.When dealing with audio circuits, voltages are not always positive with respect to ground. In this case, the datasheet clearly shows that pin 1 is positive. 2. "Shaded is negative" is by convention, not by standard. (At least it wasn't back then.) I've seen quite a few '80s PCBs that had the positive side filled in. From what I can remember (I built a few kits back in the late '70s), the PCBs used to be light brown, and the silkscreen ink was black, making positive the lighter side. When the industry went to the dark green solder mask and white silkscreen ink, there was some confusion... was negative denoted by the color, or the presence of the ink? Fortunately, most designers put a "+" in the silkscreen as well. In this case, whoever did the layout may have simply "stuffed up".

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

Yeah, I didn't want to throw a capacitor in just based on which side was connected to ground. But the datasheet confirmed it was backwards. They did also mark the positive side on the board, too bad they got this one wrong 😄

Owner of a CDS524 and a 5526. Been trough rough struggles for setting this up for maximum hardware 😬. Noce to see the restore video (part2) . I gave up using serials that are floating on the web. I might check this again now

In my childhood I had a similar system in terms of form factor. It was a Siemens Nixdorf FD200. A very good device with TV tuner, Pentium 100 MHz, 8Mb RAM. Onboard soundblaster 16 and an onboard Tseng Et4000W32p with 2 MB memory. I loved the PC. I later installed an Idt Winchip with 200 MHz and 64 MB RAM and a Voodoo 1. What a great time. greetings from Germany

These machines were the beginning of the end for Compaq. It was the race for the bottom in terms of build quality, as they tried to compete with Dell and HP. They really fell off the cliff after HP bought them.

@joerhorton

5 ай бұрын

Depends on if you are talking about home computers or servers. Some mainframe stuff and Proliant servers were amazing from HP/Compaq up until 2005-2010 when Mark Hurd basically killed the company by laying off a shed load of good people.

@dennisp.2147

5 ай бұрын

@@joerhorton I'm talking about home computers. But I still have a grudge against Carly Fiorina for taking two good companies and making one lackluster one...

Good grief. These interrupting KZread ads are out of control these days. I acquired the the 486dx2/66 flavor of that machine myself back in 1998 or so. I set it up for my grandmother just so she could play solitaire to learn how to work a mouse and learn how to email to keep in touch with her family in Atlanta. She was in her 80s at the time, didn't take much interest other than solitaire, and then we had to stop that as the PS/2 ports just quit working on that machine out of the clear blue. I was never a fan of these machines back in the day, but I wouldn't mind having one in my collection now just as a nostalgic factor ;)

Nice find on the reversed capacitor.

Here is a tip: Before starting recapping something, take a sharpie and make a dot or mark on each capacitor. The mark should be in the same direction, facing the front of the equipment under repair. This way it’s easy to know how each cap was facing before it was taken out.

I LOVED. Well done! I learned from you about VGA Video cable. Congratulations!!! I write from Brazil!

Years ago when I work at a computer repair shop. We used to work on these for a local school. The maintenance man used to bring them to us for repair. He would say, "I got more of those kumquat presimmons for you." Also I remember working on that had a VGA connector installed. If you hook both up at the same time you'll get a video signal but the picture is darker on both monitors.

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

Good to know. Yeah I figured the VGA connector would only be able to properly drive one monitor, hence the image gets darker with two connected

@12:25 where you are checking the leads on the ESS audio chip, you poke at the pin with the crud on it and say that it isn't moving, but it actually was.

Nice to see some retro PC content on this channel!

The Violet, 150µF Sanyo Cap at the edge of the Board might be an early Polymer Type Cap. They started to pop up around that time and were used here and there, though rarely.

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

Ah yes, it does look like the right colour for one. Or at least the colour that most manufacturers use for them

To be fair Murcon were (possibly still are) a Japanese brand, part of Murata and I would say equal to Rubycon. Common in a lot of Toshiba and Aiwa kit down the years.

I had that exact model. Thanks for the info and video. ❤

Bring back the 2C! Classic bait and switch tactics. Our first PC was a 386sx Compaq with 40Mb hard drive. Many hours of Civilisation was played on that thing.

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

Sorry, the Apple is already back on the shelf and it would be way too hard to lug that giant thing back over

That capacitor issue would be a very useful piece of information to show on TRW :D Make sure to share that piece of info when you send it to us :)

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

Oh yeah, almost forgot about the pics I took 😄. I'll also have some more potentially useful information in the next video

Great work on this old Compaq PC?

Lovely relaxing vid sir!

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

Thank you sir

You can grab a drop in replacement cr-2032 battery holder that is a perfect drop in replacement for pennies, makes for a nicer fix for the battery situation tbh. And do yourself a favor and a grab one of those screwdriver sets with 60 interchangeable bits from lidl for 10 quid or something. Watching those torx screws being attacked with a flathead gives me the heebee jeebies. ;)

@rubberduck4966

5 ай бұрын

Using a CR2032 Socket in the place of the soldiered in CR2032 should be the best replacement possible. Still a CR2032 but now easy replaceable (they die so often - at least every ~10 Years!).

@KAPTKipper

5 ай бұрын

Compaq case screws are both TORX and "flathead" compatible..

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

Of course, I just don't have any of the battery holders on hand and didn't want to stop the video until I sourced some, so I improvised. And it was easier to grab a flathead screwdriver than going through my torx bits to find the correct size. Mind you, I needed to find one later anyway to take out all the non slotted screws

i really want to see this one with a pci 3d accelerator on that pci slot (used by the riser)

your fr-301 motor is more higher pitched than mine, mine has a more deeper noise to it since i have the US spec 110V version and live in the US

I'd actually omit the modem since it's not going to be used and does use up adress space. May even cause audio conflicts depending on the spec. As I remember we had alot of problems with especially voice modems when I worked in a computer shop in the 90s.

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

I was kind of hoping the ethernet card would line up with the hole in the back, but unfortunately not. Either way the modem will eventually come out

@rimmersbryggeri

5 ай бұрын

@@TheRetroChannel Different offset on the backbplate?

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

Yep. I'll figure something out later

at 12:37 the pin on the sound chip looks to be moving even that you says it is not, better solder the pins

@chrisjones8741

5 ай бұрын

Yes, I noticed the same thing.

Amazong find with that cap. I wonder how many people are now going to pull their machine apart to check 😅

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

Any excuse to open it up I guess 😄

I think I have Rubycon capacitor plague PTSD… I just can’t bring myself to use them..

When you put a TV on the tube, always put it on a thick towel.

@fu1r4

5 ай бұрын

Thanks for the correction @@Okurka.

More info on the microscope on a gimbal would be appreciated!

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

The microscope is an andonstar ad249s. I bought a cheap arm and ring light off AliExpress to mount it all. It's all pretty janky and wobbles a lot, so I don't recommend going that route. Better off finding a microscope with an arm already attached

Given the CMOS battery was dead, the system auto configure might have been using erroneous data resulting in the error.

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

Yeah I wondered the same thing. Although when the error popped up, it was always accompanied by the "system options not set" error. So it knew the data in there was corrupt

you have googed passed the rubicon

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

You have

🍪

@TheRetroChannel

5 ай бұрын

🪫🛢️💥