Arrow persistent power supply issue

[camadella]

Hi all Cincinnati whizzes out there,

I have an Arrow 500 with an Acramatic A2100.

I much too frequently get this error:



If you can't see the picture, it's error 8004e - Power Supply Malfunction.

"There appears to have been a malfunction of the power supply for the control system, causing the Realtime processor to reset and restart".

I have tried a lot of things to fix this permanently, but it keeps popping up.

Things I have tried include:

- Change out the power supply. I have at least four 400W power supplies here that I've tried
- Reseat the boards. This seems to sometimes make the machine run for a day or more, but the problem still pops up
- Remove all of the boards, meticulously clean the contacts on the bridge board, the main board, and the realtime board
- I even tried modifying a power supply and running P8/P9 (AT connection) in parallel to the realtime board as well as the main board. I thought this would work, but for whatever reason, then the main board would not boot.

I surmise that the power for the RT board comes from AT connectors on the main board, goes through the bridge board, and then powers up the RT board through its edge connector. I don't see where else the power could come from. There is also this weird wire that connects a connector the BBB called J12, and goes to the H-RST pin (just one of them) on the RT board. I have no idea what this does, but I'd love to know, and perhaps (likely) it's not wired correctly.

I'm guessing that there is a suspect trace on the BBB - but I don't have the schematic, so I don't know where to look for it - and that power path isn't obvious to me, and I don't have the control schematic. I have the machine schematic - but not the ones for the boards in the control. I'm reasonably good with circuits, and with old PC's like the ones in the control - but I still don't know where to go with this one.

If I could solve this issue - it would really make my machine useful - I could use it make parts...

Thanks in advance for any help you could point my way.

Cheers,

CC

[Note - Only after I posted this did I find another thread on this same issue - and I'm trying those things - I apologize for cross-posting]

[Another note - the RT board was completely overhauled at great expense with MAG in Cincinnati - so I'm going to presume that it is not the issue]

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[gwood]

Camadella, The SYS Fail 8004E is related to loss of communication between the WS-CPU (Let) and the RT-CPU via the Basic Bridge Board (BBB).
Poor Board Connections to the Basic Bridge Board (BBU back-plane board).
Anything pulling down the +5V power supply voltage; such as a bad keyboard; bad-board; fan on WSCPU or RTCPU, poor heat-sink connection to CPU Processors, also check that all CPU Cooler fans are running and that the CPU heatsink compound if present is not all dried out. Damaged board Capacitors.
Failing Spinning Hard Drive.
mixing fast CPUs with Slower CPUs;
Some RTCPUs such as the 3-424-2168A02 had a jumper setting to slow the processor speed down some and this may help.
Improper or poor Grounding/Noise issues etc.....
Corrupted CMOS BIOS Settings; if you have the BIOS CMOS parameters on the Real-Time CPU motherboard corrupted by a low battery this can happen. The board would need to be re-flashed or setup on a bench. Ignore this if the control boots up and runs until a 8004e failure occurs.
***
When reseating the WSCPU And RTCPU, I use a long narrow flat-blade screwdriver and loosen the top BBU screws holding to the back chassis; re-seat the Processor boards; then tighten the BBU screws. This allows good alignment to the socket connections. Note I've also taken a pliers and bent the CPU Aluminum chassis for a snug fit in the Assembly up & down.
***
Also the top screw above the Electrical cabinet that holds the cabinet to the column should be finger loose so that the cabinet rests below on the rubber pads and the outboard support for the larger machines should be jacked up or down so the top column screw washer can be spun. If not vibration from cuts will shake the electrical cabinet.
***

[camadella]

If anyone knows someone who could come out and fix this problem once and for all, I'd happily pay to have that happen - I seem to have tried everything. I'm at the point where I have to scrap the machine if I can't make it work...