IBM 5162 - Known Problems/Issues
Tall cards
Some early 16-bit cards are too tall for the 5162's case.
Discussed here.
Floppy disk drive - Pin 34
In the earlier IBM 5150, 5155 and 5160, the supplied IBM floppy controller (photo) does not 'care' about pin 34 - because the controller does not monitor pin 34 of the cable connector.
However, in the IBM 5162, the pin 34 situation is much different. The controller supplied in the IBM 5162 monitors pin 34. This is the same as what occurs in the IBM 5170.
1.2M floppy drives in an IBM 5162 are required to generate a DISK CHANGED signal on pin 34, a requirement of the IBM 5162's BIOS. Failure to observe the requirement can result in corrupted floppy disks.
360K floppy drives in an IBM 5162 are not required to generate a DISK CHANGED signal on pin 34, possibly because the BIOS authors knew that most 360K drives cannot generate such a signal. However, some 360K drives generate a READY signal on pin 34. A READY signal is a problem for the 5162. If you intend to connect a 360K drive, the simple rule is, disconnect pin 34. Some 360K drives have a jumper that can be removed to achieve that (e.g. the JU-455-7 has an 'RY' jumper). Some connector adapters, such as those shown at here and here and here, have a jumper that controls whether or not pin 34 is connected.
More information about this subject is in the 'Diskette Changeline' section on pages 781 and 782 (PDF pages 814 and 815) of the document here. In the first sentence of that section, 'standard PC floppy controller' should have instead been 'standard AT floppy controller' to avoid confusion.
Deteriorated lubrication in floppy disk drive
It is often found that in 5.25" floppy drives that have not been used in many many years, that the lubrication in the drive has deteriorated to the point where it 'gums up' and stops the drive from functioning properly.
This is commonly seen on the rails that the head carriage slides up and down on. Deteriorated lubrication there results in the inability of the head carriage to move properly, or in extreme cases, not move at all. By hand (and with power off), you should be able to freely move the head carriage along its rails. You will experience some slight resistance presented by the stepper motor.
What is required is to clean the rails of the old lubricant, then followed by application of new lubricant. Myself and others have found a silicone based lubricant to be satisfactory. I sometimes use silicone spray, but there is a tendency for the spray to get to areas where it should not go. Otherwise, I use silicone grease, something that I also use to get rid of any squeak sound from the drive's front panel latch.
If in any doubt, clean/relubricate the rails. The clean/relube is a worthwhile maintenance activity even if it doesn't fix a faulty drive.
POST error of 601
The IBM 5162's motherboard BIOS is very close that of the 1986 dated IBM 5170's, and shares the situation where the POST can sometimes produce a 601 error if the IBM Fixed Disk and Diskette Drive Adapter is substituted. More information on that is in the 'Known problem - POST error of 601' section at here.
Failure of a motherboard SIMM
Vintage RAM chips have a relatively high failure rate.
If your 5162 suffers a failure in the first 64 KB of motherboard SIMM pair, S1 and S2, the resulting symptom depends on the type of video card/monitor fitted. If MDA or CGA, you will see a '000000 xxxx 201' error on-screen, where the xxxx value indicates the bit (or bits) that have failed. If instead, EGA or VGA is fitted, you will have what appears to be a 'dead' motherboard.
Note that rather than a SIMM actually failing, what might have instead happened is that a SIMM chip has developed poor electrical contact with its socket. And so an early thing to try is to simply to reseat the two SIMM's (remove then refit the SIMM's).
If you are in the latter position (EGA or VGA, and motherboard appears 'dead'), diagnosing a faulty SIMM of a 5162 can be done via:
* Swapping out the two SIMM's for known-good SIMM's.
* The use of Landmark/Supersoft diagnostic ROM's (see here).
* The use of a POST card (one that reads port 80h). If there is a failure within the first 64 KB, the POST code of DD will be shown on the POST card. A breakdown of POST code DD is shown here.
Incompatibility with the XTIDE Universal BIOS
You may have a problem getting an XT-IDE card to work in an IBM 5162. See the corresponding entry at here.
Floppy formatting problem
"IBM ships patch disk for XT 286 to fix DOS 3.2 formatting errors."
See here.
Note: Do not format (or write to) a 360K floppy in a 1.2M drive, unless you are aware of the ramifications.
5162 may not start if hard drive removed
The 5162 may not start if the hard drive is removed. With the hard drive removed, there is no +12V loading of the power supply. The 5162 Technical Reference indicates that the minimum power supply loading is 4 amps on the +5V line and 1 amp on the +12V line.
Corrupted display when running version 2.07 of the Diagnostics diskette
Incompatible VGA card. See here.
No 1.44M option of SETUP on the Diagnostics diskette
The IBM 5162 supports 1.44M diskette drives, but if the IBM 5162 diagnostic floppy is attempted to be used to set the drive type in SETUP to 1.44M, it will be discovered that a 1.44M option does not exist.
To set 1.44M in a 5162, use either the BASIC or GSETUP methods shown at here.