27-11-2025, 09:15 AM
(26-11-2025, 03:56 PM)The_Huck Wrote: After plugging in the power and video, along with the drive cable I fired up the Bee.
No signs of life unfortunately.
I'll start by measuring voltages and going from there. I can't see a power LED on the computer unit so I'm not sure if power is actually getting to it.
I'm assuming the video output is standard composite?
When I power up the drive unit by itself, I can hear a drive spin up.
If I power the drive unit with everything connected, I see the access LED light on the left drive.
I put in the boot disk and power cycled but I did not hear any boot type action from the drive. It sounds like the drive did seek though.
The drives are in unknown condition so I will also confirm they work on a PC. I assume they are PC style drives?
There is no power LED on the computer.
Seeing that you have a light on 'A' drive when it is all plugged in means that you have power o.k. to the drives and the computer.
If there was some problem with power in the keyboard, neither of the drive LEDs would show (just like if you disconnect the 34 way drive cable).
The video output is composite - correct. The easiest way to get a video output is to use the AV input of a TV, and although this might have sync issues with a not so steady display, at least you will know if
you have something on the screen. With the computer not booting from disk, if the display is working correctly, you should see a block cursor at the top left of the screen, and nothing else.
If you get nothing on the screen at all, then there is something wrong with the computer and the first thing to do there is open the case and remove the top board from the 2 x 25 way pin strip sockets
that connect the top board to the main board - unplug & plug back in multiple times. If the unit has been sitting for some time, it may have poor oxidized connections on these pins. Unplugging and plugging
the board in again a few times can get over this problem.
I wouldn't worry about testing the drives until you get something on the screen. Most likely the drives are o.k. and when the computer is working properly, it will boot from the drives o.k. as well.