IBM XT Power Supply

[PatrickXT]

I have an IBM 5160 which I hadn't powered on in roughly 10 years. Upon flipping the switch it emitted an awful squealing sound followed by a pop and a foul odor. I believe one of the tantalum capacitors on the hard disk controller shorted out at this time, and I posted about that in a separate thread. Now when I switched on the PSU, it makes a clicking/ticking sound rather than the screeching noise. Both +5V and +12V both give me readings of about 1V. The fan does not spin. I've tested it with the motherboard and no cards, drives only, and motherboard plus drives. I got a modern AT power supply and with it, everything powers up and functions properly except the HDD controller. However, the AT power supply is not the correct size for the case. So in order to have a proper power supply, I'll either need to repair the original, transfer the internals of the AT supply to the XT supply, or acquire a working XT PSU. What would you folks recommend?

 

[Malc]

Personally i prefer to repair the original if i can, I would only do a transplant job as a last resort, Buying another on ebah is always a risk as you don't know how long it will last or if the seller knows how to test a PSU properly. Only you can decide but be aware of the dangers when working with PSU's / Electricity.

 

[Casey]

Personally i prefer to repair the original if i can, I would only do a transplant job as a last resort, Buying another on ebah is always a risk as you don't know how long it will last or if the seller knows how to test a PSU properly. Only you can decide but be aware of the dangers when working with PSU's / Electricity.

Or you can buy a new one on Amazon, or get an ATX/AT power supply adapter.

 

[bsd64]

I understand the desire to keep these old computers completely original. Unfortunately, in the case of power supplies, it is tricky because of the improvements in switching power supplies since that era, and the safety issues surrounding dealing with mains voltages for the typical hobbyist. (I certainly understand some of you guys are gurus like youtube's curiousmarc). My two cents is that the IBM 5160 is common enough that it would certainly be fine to use a more modern equivalent if you didn't have the time/resources/know-how to repair the original. If you go that route - then you may consider keeping the original as-is for someone else to repair rather than gutting it, and just bracketing in the replacement. That would also keep the new replacement supply in its UL listed format/container.

There is a really good post here on vcfed about how other users have dealt with a similar problem, but on older hardware - nova power supply fix.