26 Feb
2003
26 Feb
'03
1:13 p.m.
From: ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Try re-seating the 'ribbon cable' between the CPU
board and the disk controller PCB _at both ends_. I
would estimate that over 50% or disk problems on
M3s and M4s come from this cable!
You're right about this. It all starts to come back to
me... *Grin!*
This was one of the first things I'd do when a machine
came in with disk controller problems.
I'd also remove the cable totally and clean the
connections with a pencil eraser and possibly some
alcohol.
Mostly, I'd just use the eraser.
Tin to Tin connections would often get oxidation.
Jerry Pournelle used to talk about something called
Stabilant-21 that worked well to keep this from
happening.
This stuff worked great on Model I keyboard to E/I
cables (I soldered on the infamous Gold Plugs on mine.
and made a gold and shielded cable besides) and floppy
cables.
But since the behavior changes when he moves the
drives, it sounds like his "0:" drive is bad.
Regards,
Al Hartman