CosmicBoy Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 Hi everybody, is someone out there who can repair a HFDC controller or can give some advice. After a long time i tried to reactivate my Geneve, but i cannot boot from a floppy using my hfdc. Booting with a TI Floppy-Controller is no problem. The disk-drive stops after a few seconds and the LED of the hfdc is flashing. i made a video, but i think its to big for uploading here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparkdrummer Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 Do you have a hard drive attached to it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicBoy Posted January 10, 2016 Author Share Posted January 10, 2016 i tried both ... with and without a harddisk. i also tried the 1.0 bootrom (Geneve ) without success. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparkdrummer Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 Well that's a bummer. The only reason I asked is the hfdc does not not "wake up" right away with no mfm hard drive attached. It takes it over a minute to look at a floppy so I'm told. There is a mod that forces the hfdc to look for a floppy right away, I've done this simple mod with switch to both cards that I own. I do not have the technical expertise to fix yours if it has a problem. There are a couple of guys here that are hardware gurus, hopefully they'll see this post and give some help. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 The problem could be anything, however as an experiment you could investigate this... http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242219-hfdc-as-floppy-only-controller/?p=3310989 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 (edited) Hi everybody, is someone out there who can repair a HFDC controller or can give some advice. After a long time i tried to reactivate my Geneve, but i cannot boot from a floppy using my hfdc. Booting with a TI Floppy-Controller is no problem. The disk-drive stops after a few seconds and the LED of the hfdc is flashing. i made a video, but i think its to big for uploading here. If comfortable doing so, snap a few pictures of the HFDC - front and back - outside of its clamshell. This will help determine the upgrade state of the card and the DIP settings. 1. Does the card have a clamshell? The HFDCs rock in the PEB without it, making it prone to shorting out the card. 2. When the LED flashes at the end of the boot attempt, is it normal brightness or dimmed? Are any of the disk drive lights illuminated or motor running? 3. You said you tried both hard drive and floppy. Were both connected -and- powered up? Some controllers cannot function if one or the other is turned off and connected. (this points to a problem with the LS240 and LS374 buffers). 4. Which of the connected devices are terminated with a terminating resistor? This is also important. Be sure the hard drive's terminating resistor(s) are inserted. Some drives will have two SIP resistor networks; be sure both are in place. 5. What other cards are in the PEB? Edit: added question 5 and a few other comments. Edited January 10, 2016 by InsaneMultitasker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicBoy Posted January 10, 2016 Author Share Posted January 10, 2016 The problem could be anything, however as an experiment you could investigate this... http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242219-hfdc-as-floppy-only-controller/?p=3310989 Thanks, i try that tomorrow ( time to go to bed in germany ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicBoy Posted January 10, 2016 Author Share Posted January 10, 2016 If comfortable doing so, snap a few pictures of the HFDC - front and back - outside of its clamshell. This will help determine the upgrade state of the card and the DIP settings. 1. Does the card have a clamshell? The HFDCs rock in the PEB without it, making it prone to shorting out the card. 2. When the LED flashes at the end of the boot attempt, is it normal brightness or dimmed? Are any of the disk drive lights illuminated or motor running? 3. You said you tried both hard drive and floppy. Were both connected -and- powered up? Some controllers cannot function if one or the other is turned off and connected. (this points to a problem with the LS240 and LS374 buffers). 4. Which of the connected devices are terminated with a terminating resistor? This is also important. Be sure the hard drive's terminating resistor(s) are inserted. Some drives will have two SIP resistor networks; be sure both are in place. 5. What other cards are in the PEB? Edit: added question 5 and a few other comments. 1. no it is not but i am using karsul testboard(?) - so the card is outside of the box. 2. the led is dimmed, the disk drives light is off, the motor stops, the geneve stops working 3. i tried both, powered up and powered off - also tried only floppy and only disk drive 4. i am not sure if any of the drives is terminated. 5. there are no more cards in the box as far as i can remember everything is working a few years ago. right after that the system has been stored in my apartment and after i moved to my new house it has been stored in the basement a few month. WP_20160110_18_03_14_Pro.mp4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 I'm not qualified to help you out on this, but I did notice something in the photo... Those two chips look like they were soldered rather poorly. If that's not dirt, I'd start by cleaning up and re-doing those joints. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 (edited) 1. no it is not but i am using karsul testboard(?) - so the card is outside of the box. 2. the led is dimmed, the disk drives light is off, the motor stops, the geneve stops working 3. i tried both, powered up and powered off - also tried only floppy and only disk drive 4. i am not sure if any of the drives is terminated. 5. there are no more cards in the box as far as i can remember everything is working a few years ago. right after that the system has been stored in my apartment and after i moved to my new house it has been stored in the basement a few month. Check the voltage coming out of your two 5v regulators (one in front, one in back). The regulators appear to be the original parts. The capacitors are not original, so someone serviced the card at one time. I am fairly certain this card never passed through Cecure Electronics as the regulators and QIC02 parts are stock. Omega's post shows what looks like leftover flux or tape residue. The bottom chip is part of the QIC-02 circuit. It usually has little to no impact to the card's operation. You can reflow the solder, just be sure not to short the leads to adjacent points or traces. Be aware that removing the QIC02 chips requires adding a jumper to the back of the board. The top chip is the DSR RAM. If it has bad solder spots, it could affect card operation. You might also want to carefully reseat the DIP chips since you had this card in storage. Edited January 10, 2016 by InsaneMultitasker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicBoy Posted January 11, 2016 Author Share Posted January 11, 2016 Check the voltage coming out of your two 5vregulators (one in front, one in back). arghh .... ich checked the 12V and 5V regulators in front yesterday ... and forgot the rear one i check that later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kl99 Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 Hi CosmicBoy. I would love to help, but I fear I don't have the skills. The HDFC can be used with the TI-99 as well, so maybe you can exclude the Geneve as source of the problem if connecting a standard TI-99 to your PEB. Remove as many cards as possible. So just the Flex Interface, the HDFC and try if anything shows when turning it on. I also have two HDFC controllers and can do comparison Tests, however no Geneve here. Grüße, Klaus (Vienna) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickyDean Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 I have had to replace some of the SMC chips to get both of mine functioning, and back in the day, I had removed everything from each board and soldered on sockets to make removal and replacement of the chips easier. Had a problem though with some pulled pads on one, so traced down the circuit paths and soldered in wire to complete the circuit. This is something I now have to do again, because, in storage the wire(s) have been broken from their solder points. These may be things you will have to look at. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 arghh .... ich checked the 12V and 5V regulators in front yesterday ... and forgot the rear one i check that later. Sounds good. Test at least twice: once when you start the system, once after the failure. If the regulator is bad and if it hasn't started to drop voltage, you could be lulled into a false sense of "everything is ok". You probably know this already : be careful when testing the voltage. If you accidentally short the ground and the input (8v or more) together with the test lead, bad things can happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicBoy Posted January 11, 2016 Author Share Posted January 11, 2016 The HDFC can be used with the TI-99 as well, so maybe you can exclude the Geneve as source of the problem if connecting a standard TI-99 to your PEB. Remove as many cards as possible. So just the Flex Interface, the HDFC and try if anything shows when turning it on. I also have two HDFC controllers and can do comparison Tests, however no Geneve here. I already tried this and the Geneve boots with a standart TI Controller. Sounds good. Test at least twice: once when you start the system, once after the failure. If the regulator is bad and if it hasn't started to drop voltage, you could be lulled into a false sense of "everything is ok". You probably know this already : be careful when testing the voltage. If you accidentally short the ground and the input (8v or more) together with the test lead, bad things can happen. The regulators are ok. both 5V regulators put 5,2 out. I noticed that the u22 socket is empty - is this normal ? I think i replace the capacitors. I have had to replace some of the SMC chips to get both of mine functioning, and back in the day, I had removed everything from each board and soldered on sockets to make removal and replacement of the chips easier. Had a problem though with some pulled pads on one, so traced down the circuit paths and soldered in wire to complete the circuit. This is something I now have to do again, because, in storage the wire(s) have been broken from their solder points. These may be things you will have to look at. i check that a the weekend, thanks for the hint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickyDean Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 (edited) I already tried this and the Geneve boots with a standart TI Controller. The regulators are ok. both 5V regulators put 5,2 out. I noticed that the u22 socket is empty - is this normal ? I think i replace the capacitors. i check that a the weekend, thanks for the hint. Yes socket u22 should be empty, I believe it was part of the streaming tape drive logic, that never got implemented into the HFDC. I had an issue were my hdc 9234 chip was bad on the one that has broken wires(found one on ebay, but difficult to find). On the one that is working(haven't tried either with a MFM hard drive as of yet) I had to replace the hdc 9223 chip to write to high density disk( the chip I had in there had a tiny bubble uplifted on it that showed me that part of the logic had blown internally). So repairing them is not easy, but can be accomplished. I believe that kl99 was saying maybe to use a TI99/4a and see if you are experiencing the same problems(if you have one of course). Edited January 11, 2016 by RickyDean 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 I still have parts necessary to repair HFDCs. If the problem cannot be found through your troubleshooting and everyone's good suggestions here, feel free to PM regarding its repair. My time is limited until February. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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