screen 'Noise' with a physical IDE drive connected

[rietveld]

 

Any idea how I can fix screen 'noise' while using a physical IDE harddrive ?

 

 

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by rietveld

[rietveld]

I just tried a few things this morning.  If I leave the IDE card and drive connected to the Adam, but unplug the harddrive PSU from the wall, then I dont get interference.    If I leave the PSU plugged into the wall but unplug from the Harddrive i also dont get interference.   If the harddrive is connected and the power is connected i get interference even if i am not reading or writing to it.   

[MrPix]

If you unplug the IDE power supply, does the IDE drive work?

Does the position of the drive affect the appearance of the noise?

[rietveld]

2 hours ago, MrPix said:

If you unplug the IDE power supply, does the IDE drive work?

Does the position of the drive affect the appearance of the noise?

No. The drive is not even recognized by the IDE card or hard disk manager program unless it is powered on. I can power on the Adam with the drive power disconnected and it will work perfectly until u boot up the hard drive manager.   When you do that the program just hangs at a black screen looking for a drive

Edited February 29, 2020 by rietveld

[rietveld]

2 hours ago, MrPix said:

If you unplug the IDE power supply, does the IDE drive work?

Does the position of the drive affect the appearance of the noise?

I used a longer iDE ribbon cable and moved the drive but that didn't make a difference. I also extended the wire on the power connector and moved it away from the Adam and the result is the same.   Also the screen static is more noticeable when the drive is reading or writing. I tried 2 different IDE drives and the results were also the same

[Tursi]

Is your hard drive plugged into the same outlet as the rest of the system? (Just to rule out ground loops)

 

[rietveld]

3 minutes ago, Tursi said:

Is your hard drive plugged into the same outlet as the rest of the system? (Just to rule out ground loops)

 

Yes. Everything is plugged into a power bar (printer psu, monitor, disk drive, and hard drive).   Everything  comes on at the same time.   

Edited February 29, 2020 by rietveld

[NIAD]

I have to think the issue is interference from the IDE Hard Drive and the only thing that I can think of would be the use of an RF Interference Kit (like Coleco supplied with the ADAM) on the hard drive power cable, the IDE cable if anything of that sort exists and the monitor cable.

[ChildOfCv]

Do you get interference with the drive powered but not connected to the computer?  (And does the drive start spinning without a data connection)?

[rietveld]

7 hours ago, ChildOfCv said:

Do you get interference with the drive powered but not connected to the computer?  (And does the drive start spinning without a data connection)?

no interference when drive is powered on and IDE card inserted as long as ribbon cable it not connectecting the drive to the IDE card

[ChildOfCv]

1 hour ago, rietveld said:

no interference when drive is powered on and IDE card inserted as long as ribbon cable it not connectecting the drive to the IDE card

Does the drive spin when it's not hooked to the ribbon cable?

[rietveld]

8 hours ago, ChildOfCv said:

Does the drive spin when it's not hooked to the ribbon cable?

You can feel it getting power but it doesnt "spin up" unless connected to both the IDE card and power source

[ChildOfCv]

9 hours ago, rietveld said:

You can feel it getting power but it doesnt "spin up" unless connected to both the IDE card and power source

Bummer.  My hypothesis is that the motor is causing the interference.  Do you have a P-IDE to USB adapter?  You could plug that into the drive and connect it to a laptop while it's sitting on the Adam, in order to induce spinup.

 

Anyway, you could also build a makeshift RF shield for it by folding over a piece of aluminum foil and then placing it under the drive.  Then you'd need alligator clips to connect it to the Adam's case ground.  You could see if that helps with the interference.

[rietveld]

3 hours ago, ChildOfCv said:

Bummer.  My hypothesis is that the motor is causing the interference.  Do you have a P-IDE to USB adapter?  You could plug that into the drive and connect it to a laptop while it's sitting on the Adam, in order to induce spinup.

 

Anyway, you could also build a makeshift RF shield for it by folding over a piece of aluminum foil and then placing it under the drive.  Then you'd need alligator clips to connect it to the Adam's case ground.  You could see if that helps with the interference.

I don't know if this helps to figure out the cause but I did mostly eliminate the static by extending the video cable and moving my monitor several feet away . I will definitely try the RF shield.   I tried using aluminum foil but that didn't work 

[NIAD]

Ask around if anyone has extra RF kit dongles (is that the right word to describe them?) that came with the Adam and put them on every cable possible one at a time to see the effects. They are just magnets housed in a plastic case... simple, but they do the job.

 

Spreading out your hardware as you have done was a good idea and might take some more experimenting.

 

[+save2600]

48 minutes ago, NIAD said:

Ask around if anyone has extra RF kit dongles (is that the right word to describe them?)

They're called RF or ferrite chokes:

 

https://www.amazon.com/rf-ferrite-choke/s?k=rf+ferrite+choke

[ChildOfCv]

15 hours ago, rietveld said:

I don't know if this helps to figure out the cause but I did mostly eliminate the static by extending the video cable and moving my monitor several feet away . I will definitely try the RF shield.   I tried using aluminum foil but that didn't work 

How is your monitor hooked up?  Composite?  RF coax?  RF with 2 screw terminals?

[rietveld]

10 minutes ago, ChildOfCv said:

How is your monitor hooked up?  Composite?  RF coax?  RF with 2 screw terminals?

Composite cable(5pin DiN)

[ed1475]

Coleco included an RFI-1 Kit with each Adam Link modem.

 

 

Colec_ADAM_RF-1_Kit_Instructions.PDF

Coleco_ADAM_RF-1_Kit_Instructions.PDF

Edited March 2, 2020 by ed1475

[rietveld]

FIXED.  

 

replaced the PSU I was using for the drive.   No more RF interference.