Earlier I had found three oozing capacitors on one of the voltage regulators. I believe it was the 2.5 volt one. So I had prematurely announced victory. I replaced those three caps and it was still dead. So I replaced almost every removable part including the other two voltage regulators the twin Ax card, they win card, the four port scuzzy cards, the Ford 256 MB memory sticks, and something else that escapes me at the moment. All told those parts added up to under $200. But it was not to be. And then I found the motherboard for about 300 bucks. And voila it works.
So my theory is that the voltage regulator capacitor is fried, which caused the voltage regulator to do something unsavory that subsequently killed something on the motherboard.
Since all of those smaller parts were between 15 and $30 a piece, it's not worth returning any of it. So for 200 bucks I have lots of spare parts. And now I've gone from one gig to 2 gig of memory.
Next, once I clean up a bunch of stuff off of what was formerly timeshare 400, I'll take a new full system backup and then shut it down again until I need it.
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: Patrik Schindler <poc@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 12/16/25 7:40 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: B181F22A on 9406-520
Hello David,
Am 16.12.2025 um 23:32 schrieb David C. Shea <dshea@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:
AND THE ANSWER IS...
Motherboard! Aka backplane.
I replaced everything else inside the box except the tape drive and DVD and control panel. So now I have lots of spare parts :-)
Thank God for eBay. All these parts were pretty cheap. The motherboard was about 300 bucks. So I did a manual IPL, and then I left for a while and when I came back it was back to the manual IPL initial screen. So I'm going through my second manual IPL. Not sure if we lost power or if something else burped that caused it to reboot. I won't be surprised if I have to boot off the DVD and reinstall the microcode in the firmware. But the good news is
ITS ALIVE.
Congrats!
I wonder which specific part on the "main planar" might have caused this, though.
:wq! PoC
--
This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list
To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit:
https://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
at
https://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.
Please contact support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for any subscription related questions.
midrange.com
