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IBM 5150 Issues please help

O

Ozfer

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2014
Messages
82
Location
Connecticut USA
Hey guys I am trying to restore a IBM 5150 I recently got.

Unfortunately I got it without the original monochrome monitor it came with and I do not have any monitors that can handle that format or that type of connector. So I looked up online how to add in VGA and I saw some people reported success with a ati wonder 16 and they said it could run in 8 bit mode. I got a ati wonder 16 off ebay and it came in and I unplugged the old monochrome IBM card and plugged in the new ati wonder 16 changed the dip switches for VGA and fired it up and I get no beep codes but I also get no video. All my monitors I have tried it with say "out of range", "unsupported", or "no signal". I saw some people online say they get garbled video issues but I don't get any video at all.

I am wondering if I am doing something wrong, maybe the card I got is defective, or maybe its completely not compatible? If anyone knows of how to fix this or another option to connect a 5150 to a newer monitor please help. I also tried re-seating the rom chips on the video card and cleaning the connector edge and it made no difference.
 
Which BIOS do you have? You need a revised BIOS (from October 1982 or later) to use an expansion card BIOS which means if you have a very early 5150 it won't work with any VGA card even if you track down an 8-bit card.
 
I have the third bios because mine is the 64-256kb model and has over 500kb ram I believe it is later then 82.
 
I have had that very symptom with some LCD monitors when connected to older computers. You might try a CRT monitor if you have one.
 
Ozfer said:
and plugged in the new ati wonder 16 changed the dip switches for VGA and fired it up and I get no beep codes but I also get no video.
Click to expand...
Your "no beep codes" is important.

The power-on sequence of a 5150 is:
1. Power on
2. Power on + about 10 seconds: Cursor appears on monitor (unlike the later 5160, no RAM count-up is shown)
3. Power on + about 50 seconds: Floppy drive LED turns on (POST checking drive)
4. Power on + about 51 seconds: Single beep from speaker (indicating POST complete)
5. Power on + about 52 seconds: Attempts boot from floppy drive (start of boot sequence)
6. Power on + about 60 seconds: Jumps to resident BASIC (no boot floppy present)

Presently, for your VGA card, you have the two motherboard video switches (SW1-5 and SW1-6) set to ON.
If you now remove the video card, the 5150 should go through the above sequence, except that there (of course) will be no video.
Try that.
50 seconds after power on, do you see the floppy drive LED turn on, and hear a single beep?

If the answer is no, then there is a problem unrelated to your video card that needs to be fixed first.

If the answer is yes, then do you see the floppy drive LED turn on, and hear a single beep, when you add the video card ?
 
Okay thank you for the help I really appreciate it. I took the video card out and tried it without it and I did see the light and hear the beep. Then I put the card back in and once again saw the light and heard the beep. The next time I tried with my only CRT monitor that I have and its a dell one that's not too old. With this plugged in I get "out of frequency range" "attention out of range" "H: 14.9 V:41.0HZ" I'm not sure what this means as in if my monitor just cant handle it or what but I haven't gotten it to show anything better on any of my monitors. My card is definitely a ATI VGA wonder 16 and it has only the first half of the ram banks populated and none of the sockets have additional chips, I believe this means its at 256KB. Also I should mention I just got a NEC v20 10Mhz and a 8087 10Mhz FPU installed. The symptoms were the same when I didn't have them.
 
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Ozfer said:
I took the video card out and tried it without it and I did see the light and hear the beep. Then I put the card back in and once again saw the light and heard the beep.
Click to expand...
So PSU and motherboard are good. The issue is video card related.

Ozfer said:
The next time I tried with my only CRT monitor that I have and its a dell one that's not too old. With this plugged in I get "out of frequency range" "attention out of range" "H: 14.9 V:41.0HZ" I'm not sure what this means
Click to expand...
For standard VGA, out of your card, we would expect a horizontal sync frequency of 31.5 kHz and a vertical sync frequency of either 60 Hz or 70 Hz
So it sounds like there is something coming out of the card, but not what we expect.

Some possible causes I can think of:

1. Faulty card.
2. Initialisation code in card's ROM is not being called.
3. Code in ROM is not compatible with an 8088 CPU nor a V20 CPU.
4. Card is not configured properly (via a custom setup problem).

Re item 2. You have switches SW1-5 and SW1-6 both ON and so item 2 can be ruled out. Well, unless you have confused SW1 with SW2, or you are confusing ON with OFF.

There is an earlier related thread [here]. It suggests that maybe only early versions of the card will work in a 5150.
 
I know that I correct set the switches on the motherboard and the code in ROM should be compatible because I have seen other people report success maybe as you say it requires a certain earlier model.
I wouldn't know how else to setup the card I saw someone mention a program that lets you switch to 8bit mode but this requires the card showing some sort of video first to be able to use it and I believe the card is supposed to auto detect.

I just tried the ati wonder in a Pentium computer and could not get any video at all to display. It might not be used to ISA gpu because it uses pci but still it seems it should work. Also I just tried it in a Pentium 3 and could not get any video out either.

Seems to me like the card is likely broken. I will try sending it back.
 
yes I did try cleaning the contacts on the card and reseating the rom chips on the board and it didn't help it :( . I eventually decided it was a bad card because I have tested it in 3

systems and haven't gotten video on any of them. I sent the card back for a refund and I posted a wanted post in the trade section of the forum and am now considering buying some vga

cards from a forum member.


Thanks For the help this should solve my problem when I get some new cards in. This website has been great at helping me solve some issues and I have been enjoying helping others.
 
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