I mostly use my IBM XT as a journal of sorts. I have LEWP (Leading Edge Word Processor) installed on it and have docs from the first day I owned my Leading Edge XT clone (a bit after I got my actual XT). It also has documents from the previous owner dating back to the late 1980s which is sort of neat.
Anyway, it had been a while since I made an entry into my LEWP docs so I decided to make one tonight.
All goes well, I finish and then I'm checking around the drive at various other things that have accumlated over the years. I was about to spin up the old ASCII Castle game when all the lights in the room flashed and the computer turned off.
At first I thought it was a surge from the power coming into the house but none of the clocks look to have reset.
Now the computer doesn't turn on at all. It makes an audible 'click' (besides the physical beefy switch) when I turn it on but absolutely nothing happens besides that.
I know the tantalum capacitors in them are known to go bad and pop and also the RIFA cap in the power supply as well. I'm not 100% sure that's what happened though because there was no smoke and no smell. Well, at least I'm sure it wasn't a RIFA as those I believe make a smokey smelly mess.
I guess I'll have to open it up tomorrow and see what the heck happened. Hopefully it's something like a capacitor and is an easy fix. I have my other functional XT I can swap everything into but I hate to have my 'OG' XT dead and out of the game.
I guess something got hot enough to short out but not pop and that caused it to 'turn off'. Then, once it cooled off it worked again.. probably growing slowly hotter by the minute again while the computer is on. Last night, I had it running for an extended period but I've done that in the past as... more
And backup your data, just in case. Those hard drives don't always transfer very nicely. My guess is the light flicker was just enough for something to turn off the "power good" signal from the supply, which tripped some sort of protection circuit. After things cooled down, it was good to go again.... more
Everything on it has been backed up because the read head likes to get stuck and has to be manually unstuck for it to start reading again. Lubing the actuator only lasts for a bit before it gums up again. I have everything on the CF card but I should back it up again as it's been a while. I guess I'll... more
to have the PSU and monitor shut off at the same time. I wonder if you're using the right lube? Mixing lube types can cause gumming. It's more prevalent in greases, but I'm sure some oils are the same way. Maybe you need a "park.bat" where it copies the files to the CF card then runs "park"... more
I have two 5151 monitors. One for each XT. I'm definitely not using the right lube. It's just some generic stuff which is probably causing some gumming up like you said. I actually have a copy of the park program. (It was on the MFM drive since forever.) Parking the MFM would probably be a good idea.... more
I have a few lubes I use for model trains, one's a sorta heavy one called Labelle 102 and the other is a thinner one, I think it's Labelle 107. You probably want the thinner one. However, if it's sticking because of the wrong lube it'd be good to clean off all the old lube before applying new. For... more
It's called 'Tri-Flow Superior Lubricant'. I've used on my laptop fan as well that has a bearing going south. Worked really well. After two applications, it hasn't grinded since. It would be nice if I could remove the old oil from the 1980s + my additions before putting more on... I'm just not sure... more
Sometimes you want something pretty thin, especially for getting in to things. (That's something that WD-40 is really good at. It's just not good at staying there and lubricating.)
Almost has the consistency of gasoline.. smells terrible too. The 'PTFE' in the label is basically teflon. I looked up the wikipedia page and it looks like PTFE is also used in bearings so I guess it's the right stuff? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene My guess is that it's probably... more