A short video covering the repair to an Atari 520STe. The Sony Floppy Drive required a couple of capacitors replacing in order to fix a rotation timing issue. I also describe how to add a switch to toggle between 1Mb and 4Mb.
Thanks again! Glad someone is watching these. Starting to think I am wasting my time again lol. I prefer Amiga for games but I have nostalgia for the ST.
Another crying shame on the STE was the Shifter Chip has separate 16 bit data bus's for the CPU and RAM, and Atari could have given the ST dedicated video Ram for much faster graphics; STE Shifter also has another separate 8 bit data bus for sound, so if Atari could have had separate sound RAM too. Back in the day with separate Video and Sound Ram, that could made it much faster.
the capacitors are quite a problem on ST computers. The ones in the PSU must be replaced, but also the little one inside the floppy drives..... as you did ! It makes the drive failing, i have found that too on my own ST/Es.
Intresting to find out the set 4 meg upgrade affects it on some programs as for the Amiga in the day there wasn’t much between them but in the music industry Amiga was left for dust buy it.
Hi Gadget! Nice vid! Thanks for sharing! I have one question, You have a Gotek drive, for sure.. Did You managed to let it work as an external drive DS0 on ST? I've tryed, and have some issues..The autoboot file manager doesen't work, it just starts to load, then hangs with the message: "LBA Change Test filed! write issue?" when i remove the autoboot.hfe, i am able to load some games from gotek in direct acess mode, but both drives acting as one (so, basically, internal drive does the same steps as gotek) I have asked Jeff about it, haven't got any response since end of december.... I have built my cable based on atari-wiki page, but it seems that this pinout was not correct, i was removed on 24.02.17.. I am thinking this pinout was wrong, because of that "ghosting" effect. I've started to search any info, but it seems that everybody using gotek internally (i can't, cause i use it also with my Amigas, CPC, Spectrum and other retro stuff). Till i finally found this: The Atari owners's manual indicates that pin5 is Drive0 Select and pin 6 is Drive1 Select but in fact the signals connected to pin 5 and 6 depends upon the model (STE/STF) and position of internal strap(s) on the motherboard. By default on both Atari STF and STE the straps on the motherboard are set so that Pin 5 is connected to signal Drive1 Select . This allows to see an external floppy drive, that uses the Pin 5 for selection, as drive B. So the internal drive is A and the external drive is B. This works with most external floppy drive for example a SF314/SF354 from Atari or a CSA354 from Cumana. On an Atari STF there is one strap W2 that allow to change the signal that goes to pin 5. If the W2 strap is between pins 2-3 (the default) the signal connected to pin 5 is Drive1 Select. If the W2 strap is between pins 1-2 the signal connected to pin 5 is Drive0 Select. Note that the signal connected to pin 6 is always Drive1 Select. On Atari STE it is more flexible because there are one strap W301 that allows to change the signal that goes to pin 5 and another strap W300 that allows to change the signal that goes to pin 6. If the W301 strap is between pin 2-3 (the default) the signal connected to pin 5 is Drive1 Select. If the W301 strap is between pin 1-2 the signal connected to pin 5 is Drive0 Select. If the W300 strap is between pin 2-3 (the default) the signal connected to pin 1 is logic 1 (drive never selected). If the W300 strap is between pin 1-2 the signal connected to pin 6 is Drive1 Select. It is therefore important to verify that these internal straps are set to meet your requirements. I havent opened my STE yet, i don't know anout these headers..What i need (like) to have - is if i attatch gotek externally - it will be DS0, and internal drive turns to DS1 (i think the file manager and autoboot will work then).. What Do You think, Gadget, is it possible or not? If Yes - then how? What wiring should i use? I suppose i will need to add a switch? Regards, Viktor
Sorry for my slow reply! Not had a minute! I don't use the Gotek - I have a HxC in my ST, and all my Amigas have real FDDs. The drive select is going to be the problem - it sounds like from what you wrote there that it is controlled by jumpers (probably soldered wire straps) on the motherboard. So what I think you need to do is take it to bits, find the jumpers, then check against that table of jumpers for W301 and W300 and experiement. It does look like you can set the external drive to DS0. Not sure what happens to the internal drive then, presumably its swapped to DS1?!? No idea!
Great vid. Wondering is there a way to remove and switch out the facia on st drives with some of the replacement drives to avoid the need to cut the case to accommodate the slightly different shape and position of the eject button?
A couple of years back I spotted an Atari STe in a charity shop with mouse, manuals and a couple of games, it didn't have a price on so I asked the price of it, when I was told the price my chin almost hit the floor, it was only £3, took it home to test it and it worked flawlessly. Got an STfm recently, whipped the lid off and to my surprise there was a 286 PC slapped over the 68K CPU.
Yes, some older games crash with 4Mb - although its quite rare tbh, especially if you run the hard disk adapted games from PP (atari.8bitchip.info/fromhd.php), since he's already fixed the games that suffer from that problem.
If I remember correctly, the STe doesn't actually support 2.5MB and assumes you have 4MB if all SIMM slots are populated and the first slot has a 1MB SIMM, so you actually need an AUTO program that maps out the top 1.5MB so that programs don't try to use the non-existent RAM and crash the computer.
I've confirmed this! I used 256K (pair of) and 1M (pair of) in order to test the code I wrote to display my RAM size on boot, and to to display whether my CPU is set to 8Mhz or 16Mhz. 2.5MB will work, and in fact there's an old version of the MMU that was limited to 2.5MB too! But... Next to no software (games etc) uses it. But for general TOS use it works fine.
@@GadgetUK164 Weird. I definitely remember there being an AUTO program to 'hide' memory from TOS...maybe it was an odd 1.5MB or 3MB config that did that???
Yes, there is a program you can auto boot to set the MMC to ignore RAM above 1MB! You aren't wrong about that part! But the ST will work with 2 x 1MB and 2 x 256K modules to give 2.5MB. The switch just does the same kind of thing, to disable RAM above 1MB. Some software might glitch out if you just rely on the prog in the AUTO folder etc (eg. games that have their own boot sector and no auto folder etc).
Check out my '4 Amiga FDD repairs video' - basically everything in there is probably still relevant in ST drives. Some older drives have belt which may need replacing - but not likely in an STe.
I have a 520 stfm, the floppy drive failed at loading and I replaced it. It worked for two days and now the new one isn't working anymore. I'm at a loss at what the issue is.
It could be the PSU on your ST, if the 12v level is unreliable due to bad caps that could cause that type of problem. But I suspect the drive has not failed and probably has dirty heads. Sometimes you can get contaminants or mold on the disks and this will transfer to the heads on the FDD. Try cleaning the heads up with some IPA, and if that doesn't work use a tiny bit of PlastX on a cotton bud, then clean it with IPA to give it a final clean.
+GadgetUK164 thank you. When people say heads, is there an easy way to identify. I've opened a cleaned all my machines but floppy drives are really foreign to me. Is there an image for what I am looking for?
I bought a 3.5 3 1/2 HEAD CLEANING Disk DISKETTE WET KIT 78-2350 which I'll test. I think your right, I also read another post on a atari forum that said that some older games can mess up the heads.
I have done a few Amiga videos showing how to clean the heads. I think the 500 repair part 2 i did covers that. ST drives are almost the same - but some have a single head, others have 2 like the Amiga.
Awesome. Thanks. I made the mistake of upgrading my 1040STFM to 4MB, the day after picking it up. I didn't think about the issues with software expecting 1Mb.
My recently acquired stfm has disc drive problems i have a spare and that seems no better but was a working order drive my sony drives are mp-f11w-5du so a bit different the board at the back of the drive has one cap so i might replace it and regrease relevant parts and clean heads the pc modded replacements on ebay are all well and good but i do not want to cut the case up .My joystick and mouse ports are gone and need soldering but was expecting that i know there a weak point..
