30 Nov
1998
30 Nov
'98
4:57 p.m.
First, check if there's a fish stuck in your
laptop. Second, have you
looked closely at the controller card to see if there is any obvious
melting of parts, or blackened spots? Check each component for excessive
heat (excessive meaning if you touch it and it instantly burns your
finger). Have you tried the hard drive in another machine? Be careful,
if the hard drive is at fault here you may end up frying fish with another
controller card.
I've found that the fish smell is from some capacitors on the controller.
There's no sign of overheating, other than a few plastic labels (on the
chips) are a bit curled on the ends.
I really have no way of testing the HD, since it's one of those weird 26-pin
type like the Zenith laptops used to use. The only other computer that I
have that it may work in is an old WANG WLTC, and the drive in it is 10 MB,
and made by JVC, where the one in the Tandy is an Alps.
I think that the HD controller was one of the 1400's faults (other than the
power supply). I've already worked on two 1400's with blown P/S's and HD
controllers. What I've noticed is that the HD controller will quit, then
the power supply will blow out (usually a microfuse).
The 1400HD was basically just a 1400FD with a factory-installed HD upgrade
kit. I currently have the floppy from the second 1400 in the one I'm trying
to fix, but there's some stuff on the HD that I'd like to get off of it, but
have no way of doing so.
--
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>