I have an IBM PS/2 8550-021, that appears to be functional, hardware-wise, but it doesn't boot up properly. I have spent several days looking through various forums trying to find a solution that applies to my specific case, to no avail.
I have tested the PSU and the CMOS battery, both have the proper voltage

When I flip the power switch, the green light comes on (with the yellow flashing very briefly) then the fan spins up, and the hard drive resets it's heads and spins up as well, it's red LED blinking a few times as it does so, then it stays lit. The hard drive sounds fine

That is all that happens, no beeps, nothing shows up on any monitors I connect, and I don't have a floppy drive that is functional enough to be searched for. The CPU does warm up when I keep the computer turned on

I don't know how much help you guys will be about this, but any input would be greatly appreciated!


P.S. I don't know if this is relevant, but when I first opened the computer, 2 of the cloth stickers covering the EPROM windows were off
Pieman7373 wrote:
P.S. I don't know if this is relevant, but when I first opened the computer, 2 of the cloth stickers covering the EPROM windows were off


That could indeed be an issue. The stickers are on there to close the window on top of the chip which is used for erasing it. When exposed to UV light through the window, an EPROM will erase over the course of about a day, but it's generally good to never let light in that window which is why the stickers are used. You wouldn't happen to have a way to find out what's supposed to be on there and perhaps re-burn them after you've properly erased them?
Botboy3000 wrote:
Pieman7373 wrote:
P.S. I don't know if this is relevant, but when I first opened the computer, 2 of the cloth stickers covering the EPROM windows were off


That could indeed be an issue. The stickers are on there to close the window on top of the chip which is used for erasing it. When exposed to UV light through the window, an EPROM will erase over the course of about a day, but it's generally good to never let light in that window which is why the stickers are used. You wouldn't happen to have a way to find out what's supposed to be on there and perhaps re-burn them after you've properly erased them?


I was afraid of that... what I have gleaned from my research is that those contain the BIOS, which would indeed be why it doesnt start up properly... I was hoping that it would be a different problem
Yeah, the BIOS is a little bit important Razz My guess is you can probably find it somewhere, and if not, you'll have to get access to another computer of the same model, rip the roms and then burn them onto yours.
I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to find it somewhere, hopefully I can also find a cheap, compatible writer for the chips. I have seen a few things saying that most modern writers don't support older chips, fingers crosed that mine are new enough
worst case scenario you end up having to build your own out of an arduino and a couple shift registers. If you can find the part number and then find a datasheet, the writing routines should be pretty clearly outlined.
Have you found a suitable copy of the BIOS for this machine?

Do you have the EEPROM part number by any chance?
tr1p1ea wrote:
Have you found a suitable copy of the BIOS for this machine?

Do you have the EEPROM part number by any chance?


I have not found a suitable copy of the BIOS yet, but I haven't looked super hard yet. I will search more tonight.
I will also try and remember to write down the part numbers of the EPROMs, and the numbers on their little cloth stickers, in case that would be helpful

Botboy3000 wrote:
worst case scenario you end up having to build your own out of an arduino and a couple shift registers.

I do have a random arduino laying around, i will have to look into that

EDIT:
I have images of all of the EPROMs:




I found a model 50z on ebay that is pretty local, and I'm negotiating me possibly going there and dumping the EPROM, then I will use the method described here
to flash the bios to my chips.
I have the parts to make an arduino eprom flasher ordered, they should arrive today

P.S. I wish that the Playstation 2 had a different name because like 98% of the results for "PS/2 BIOS" are about the playstation ;-;

EDIT
I FOUND THE ROM IN THE MESS ARCHIVE AND I AM EXCITED, THIS IS HAPPENING FASTER THAN I THOUGHT
Last night I successfully modified and constructed a version of this circuit, and commented out the now-irrelevant portions of the arduino code (the write enable pin doesn't exist on an EPROM) but I cannot figure out how to get the java program here to run in linux (i didn't try in windows, the computer that I'm doing this stuff on has linux and I'm too lazy to dig out my windows 10 laptop to try it)

I know nothing about java, so you guys can probably figure it out super fast, if you decide to help at all :3

Code:
java -jar MEEPROMMER.jar
MateoConLechuga wrote:

Code:
java -jar MEEPROMMER.jar


Thank you! Do I have to run that from the folder containing meeprommer.jar? (I would just test it but I'm not home rn)
Pieman7373 wrote:
MateoConLechuga wrote:

Code:
java -jar MEEPROMMER.jar


Thank you! Do I have to run that from the folder containing meeprommer.jar? (I would just test it but I'm not home rn)

yes you do
I ran that command in the directory containing the .jar and I got this:

Code:

pieman7373@pieman7373-ThinkPad-T61:~/Desktop/Fixing My Model 50/MEEPROMMER/MEEPROMMER/SimpleJBurn/bin$ java -jar MEEPROMMER.jar
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: gnu/io/CommPortIdentifier
   at SimpleJBurn.MySerial.getAvailableSerialPorts(MySerial.java:36)
   at SimpleJBurn.MainFrame.initComponents(MainFrame.java:329)
   at SimpleJBurn.MainFrame.<init>(MainFrame.java:270)
   at SimpleJBurn.SimpleJBurn.main(SimpleJBurn.java:17)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: gnu.io.CommPortIdentifier
   at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClass(BuiltinClassLoader.java:583)
   at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders$AppClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoaders.java:178)
   at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:521)
   ... 4 more


I don't know anything about java, but I'm guessing I'm missing some dependency or path or something
***pieman7373 is actually clueless
After a bunch of googling last night, I tried installing the rxtx serial library, but that didnt work either, it still gives the same error.

I tried the python command line tool, and it kinda worked in reading one EPROM (the output looked a bit weird, and I'm not sure why), but I think the java program would work better
Why are you trying to use Java? Why not just program the arduino nano to do what you want? All it needs to do is shift out an address, put a value on the data bus, and then do a write cycle for each byte in the ROM
Botboy3000 wrote:
Why are you trying to use Java? Why not just program the arduino nano to do what you want? All it needs to do is shift out an address, put a value on the data bus, and then do a write cycle for each byte in the ROM

I have a program for the nano, but it interacts with the java program. I modified someone else's arduino code. I don't know enough to do it myself.
Oh I see. When I made an EPROM programmer with an arduino, I just made it accept a ROM through the serial monitor in the arduino IDE by literally having the user copy and paste it in. I would send you the code but it was before my hard drive died Sad I bet that's really all the java program is doing though, so maybe you could write your own interface or (better in my opinion) just do it with the serial monitor in Arduino so that there's no finicky middleman.
Hmmm, okay! I will look in to that :3
  
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