HuckleCat Posted October 8, 2011 Share Posted October 8, 2011 The fun continues. Ok, for the //e that I recently got, I ordered a new disk controller card off ebay to replace the nonfunctional one it came with. Actually this one: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 380338950684 With the card, it boots up, but then hangs, and hangs, and hangs at the "Apple ][" startup, and never gives me a cursor, with or without a disk drive attached. With a drive attached, the drive just hangs on endless access. I was able to determine that it was a single chip being an issue on the old card by switching chips out and seeing if I could get the older card working, but when I did pinpoint the faulty chip, it went from the black bars to the endless access/loading issue. I tried doing the //e diagnostic, but it comes back with "Kernel OK". I have also tried the card in different ports with the same result. Should I try a different card or could this be an issue on the motherboard? I asked about this is comp.sys.apple2, and somebody there suggested I try hitting control-reset while the hanging occurs, and that if it goes to a cursor, then that means the motherboard should be ok. I tried it, and it does. Do you guys have any ideas? I've searched around on the interwebs and can't really find anything to help me out, other than asking the sys.apple2 board. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SmileyDude Posted October 8, 2011 Share Posted October 8, 2011 That is completely normal behavior for an Apple II with a disk controller card and no disk in the drive. Pressing Control-Reset will get you to a prompt. If you put a bootable disk in the drive, it should boot off it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuckleCat Posted October 8, 2011 Author Share Posted October 8, 2011 Is it normal even if no drive is connected to the controller card as well? I guess Apple changed this with the //c then. With my //c, if there was no disk in the drive, it would access it for a bit, then stop and give me a prompt. If there was no bootable floppy in the drive, it would ask for the bootable floppy (depending on the program) or stop and give the prompt or an error message. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted October 8, 2011 Share Posted October 8, 2011 It's normal. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuckleCat Posted October 8, 2011 Author Share Posted October 8, 2011 Damn. Well, somebody has been helping me in the comp.sys.apple2, and it looks like either the drive or the controller card has bad firmware. I'm just waiting to see if "C600L" gets the firmware from the card at slot 6, or the drive itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatohead Posted October 8, 2011 Share Posted October 8, 2011 (edited) Totally normal, I just checked it on my e. There should be no firmware on the drive. Maybe try the ADT bootstrapping. Turn it on, do the reset, then visit here, using audio or a serial port. And do it with the chip configuration that left the drive spinning on power on. http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmPrJCObjuo That's one for audio, it is the minimum case. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw1hfZ-Bc4g There is the serial one. Edited October 8, 2011 by potatohead 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desiv Posted October 8, 2011 Share Posted October 8, 2011 Totally normal, I just checked it on my e. Yeah, that's the way my //e works without a bootable floppy in the drive.. Try the bootstrapping mentioned to create a boot disk and see what happens.. desiv 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuckleCat Posted October 8, 2011 Author Share Posted October 8, 2011 Well, the card is all ok, and I tried the whole bootstrapping method, and found out what the deal is - It's the drive. When I try to format it, it tries, tries, makes different sounds, then comes back and tells me to check the disk or the drive door. I've tried multiple disks from different manufacturers and can now honestly say it's the drive. I guess, well, at least I know the card is working ok. But, you know, balls. Now I have to hunt down a working 20-pin Disk ][ drive, or a UniDisk model with the 20 to 19 pin cable and try not to get ripped off. I figure I'll start off opening this drive and cleaning it out, checking the mechanical stuff and whatnot and see if there's anything I can do. Thanks again for the help guys. I really, really appreciate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatohead Posted October 8, 2011 Share Posted October 8, 2011 (edited) Crap. Did you try cleaning it? Oops! I see you are headed that way. Well, here's a video. Worked great on mine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMF3PL17kqg Edited October 8, 2011 by potatohead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuckleCat Posted October 8, 2011 Author Share Posted October 8, 2011 I think my problem might have more to do with the one motor that runs the head back and forth along the track instead of the head itself. The drive that I have is a Rana Systems Elite One. I've taken it apart and am going to try using it while it's open so I can see if the problem is what I think it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatohead Posted October 9, 2011 Share Posted October 9, 2011 Well, good luck! And thanks for the tips on the other thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuckleCat Posted October 9, 2011 Author Share Posted October 9, 2011 (edited) Well, the drive seems to be screwed. I have no idea what is wrong with it, and my wife, who is in college and is taking/has taken several electronics classes looked at the board inside of the drive and has found a burnt-out inductor. She says that while this alone may or may not be the problem, it does mean that there is some sort of problem elsewhere on the board. She then went into a whole mess of electronics speak that made me space out, only to come back to earth and find that I had taken her lunch money and given her a wedgie. So yah, after a crazy cleaning, reseating all the chips, and checking the motors, I am out of ideas. All I can really do now is wait till next month when I have the cash to hunt one down on Ebay. Poop. Hope I helped in the other thread. Edited October 9, 2011 by HuckleCat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madmax2069 Posted October 9, 2011 Share Posted October 9, 2011 (edited) Well, the drive seems to be screwed. I have no idea what is wrong with it, and my wife, who is in college and is taking/has taken several electronics classes looked at the board inside of the drive and has found a burnt-out inductor. She says that while this alone may or may not be the problem, it does mean that there is some sort of problem elsewhere on the board. She then went into a whole mess of electronics speak that made me space out, only to come back to earth and find that I had taken her lunch money and given her a wedgie. So yah, after a crazy cleaning, reseating all the chips, and checking the motors, I am out of ideas. All I can really do now is wait till next month when I have the cash to hunt one down on Ebay. Poop. Hope I helped in the other thread. You should be able to replace the part and see if it will work or not, just because one part is fried doesn't always mean there is a issue elsewhere. Or just do what you are going to do and buy another one and just use the one you have now for spare parts. Edited October 9, 2011 by madmax2069 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desiv Posted October 9, 2011 Share Posted October 9, 2011 When I try to format it, it tries, tries, makes different sounds, then comes back and tells me to check the disk or the drive door. I've tried multiple disks from different manufacturers and can now honestly say it's the drive. I guess, well, at least I know the card is working ok. Just a quick check. You are using Double Density, not High Density floppies??? Good luck... desiv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuckleCat Posted October 9, 2011 Author Share Posted October 9, 2011 Yep, DS/DD disks. I'll ask my wife if she can take it to the electronics lab they have at school and see if the fried component can be replaced easily, and see if any chips are bad as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobotech Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 This was told to me by an electronics technician. When I was repairing a laptop recently (modern one), I found out that the external video worked but internal video did not. On the mainboard, there was an inductor right next to the LCD plug that was burned out. The electronics technician told me that I could safely replace the inductor with a bridged solder joint and more than likely, the most I would suffer would be a little bit of interference on the LCD but nothing ever happened. Inductors are nothing more than a piece of wire wrapped around a ceramic magnet and are there to reduce RF emissions. Now do what you want with that info but if it were me and the drive was otherwise junk, I would just bridge the 2 wires and test and see what happens. if it works fine then you are golden. If it does work but the rf issues become a problem I would just look for a junk board with an inductor like that. CB radios are good for those kind of RF components. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuckleCat Posted October 17, 2011 Author Share Posted October 17, 2011 I am going to try this. Thanks for the suggestion. =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Haahaha. That's just too funny! And sad.. Inductors do indeed help eliminate noise and RF emissions. They also help eliminate back EMF and transient spikes within the circuit that uses those inductors. Considering the design of the Disk II drive and interface card - there are really no extraneous components or anything. Especially in a Woz design. The Disk II subsystem is elegant simplicity, You can safely bet that if in inductor is used someplace, it is required. While your drive may appear to work, it may not write data correctly, there could be noise getting fed back into the Read/Write circuitry. Or something may slip in and out of tolerance. I bet problems show up when working with marginal disks. Worst case, you may be feeding noise and spikes back into the host Apple II itself, which will shorten the life of other components. You may also be corrupting ram from time to time with those spikes. Or maybe disk speed may not be regulated correctly. Modern techs swap things out and perform firmware flashes. Component-level troubleshooting is a dead art except for the basics on the most expensive and non-replaceable boards. Many modern techs are also not experienced with the intricacies of older electronics either. Whenever your system glitches, and it will, you'll always wonder what's the issue..! Could be that jumper wire! I suggest you get a junk drive and replace that component. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrite_bead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choke_%28electronics%29 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuckleCat Posted October 18, 2011 Author Share Posted October 18, 2011 D'oh. Well, ok. Thanks for the fair warning before I tried the "fix". I don't want to break more than what's already broken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 I don't believe you'll "break" anything initially. Other parts will be stressed beyond their rated level and will fail later on. Or you may simply experience an oddball error from time to time. What component is bad, specifically what inductor?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobotech Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 BTW all I was saying was what some electronics tech told me when I was looking for an inductor to replace the burnt one on the board I was repairing. If it were me, I would just look for one similar to the one that got burnt and replace it. But to do a quick test, I imagine that jumpering should not permently harm anything but would at least let you know if the drive should function at that point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 (edited) Of course.. a jumper there is acceptable for a quick operational test. If this was a power-supply circuit, it could explode and take the rest of the circuit with it. If this is part of an LC circuit, and connected to stepper motor coils or the spindle motor. Then there shall be extra noise in the circuit which will affect read/write quality. Well, I'm not going to bother guessing what part is broke. If you want to know what the effect of a jumper vs. real-inductor is, let me know the part location - or show us! http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project/Peripherals/Disk%20Drives/Apple%20Disk%20II/Photos/Apple%20Disk%20II%20Drive%20-%20Analog%20card.jpg Edited October 18, 2011 by Keatah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariman Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Why the heck would anybody want to use a used inductor from another drive when you can very likely find a brand new one on Digikey or Mouser for a few bucks? I can understand if it were a proprietary or obsolete IC, but hunting for broken systems for an inductor seems a little goofy to me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariman Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Of course.. a jumper there is acceptable for a quick operational test. If this was a power-supply circuit, it could explode and take the rest of the circuit with it. Agreed. Unless you know for sure what the inductor does in the circuit, you could be making the drive harder to repair later by simply bypassing parts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SEgamer Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Why the heck would anybody want to use a used inductor from another drive when you can very likely find a brand new one on Digikey or Mouser for a few bucks? I can understand if it were a proprietary or obsolete IC, but hunting for broken systems for an inductor seems a little goofy to me... Agreed. I'll also add Newark.com to the list since I haven't had any problems with them either. Keatah pretty much covered everything. My only suggestion is to check for any diodes or transistors around the inductor too. Most dead systems I get with internal power supplies had a fried diode, voltage regulator, and/or rectifier in the power circuit. These handle a number of things in a power circuit, so if one of them fails, likely other stuff around them will fail too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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