Toshiba T5200/100 Repair

When turning it on for the first time the standard CMOS error came up. After 30 odd years you can't really expect the battery to be anything but dead.

So I popped the hood to have a look & the CMOS battery was accessible. So i removed it. As it was a 3.6V Lithium battery I popped in a 18650 cell charged to 3.6V.

The CMOS battery wire disappearing into the drives caddy.

The CPU is an unusual 386. Normally they are a plastic package soldered onto the motherboard. This was was different first off it's a DX version & its a ceramic package that would would find on a 486 or Pentium. It is a 386DX 20MHz. Just like every other PC of it's time the math co-processor is nowhere to be seen. Yet to come across one that is populated.

With new battery installed. Laptop now boots from the old IDE HDD.

The HDD is an early voice coil HDD. This would become the predominate HDD tech for decades to come.

The HDD is also an early form of IDE. Sadly not compatible with the "modern" IDE standard which is making imaging the drive difficult.

The drive bays removed you can see the whole motherboard. The HDD controller is not visible unless you remove the PSU. Under the drives looks to have been a load off ASICS.

The driver chip for the spindle has corrosion on there. Not sure where it came from but ended up being a death sentence for the drive. I do plan on trying to restore it as it is a propitiatory drive.

The dead drive sitting onto of the machine while the working replacement sits in it's place.

FDD fixed. Now I can install software on there & get data off the ageing HDD. There is not anything special on the HDD.

The brightness knob had fallen off. As the screw was missing, this was going to be an easy fix.

The display with the cover removed. Looks pretty much.

The rear of the display. has a surprising amount going on. The display also receives two HV supply's. Looks like the same modal as the T3100SX that died.

Screw found. Was loosely shaking around in a case with about 300V in some areas.

With the knob back in place & screwed in. It was like it never fell out in the first place.

All fixed & working. Not that the knob really changes much when twisted.