card reader in mpc2000 classic. a little manual.

Oddjob wrote:So I finished the mod this morning! Everything works but my screen is really dim now... I'm almost positive it's a power problem (don't think the screen has anything wrong with it), but I'm not sure if it's because the card reader and adapter are sucking too much power or if i messed something up while screwing around inside my machine... Help?

You should check all the connections. I don't think they draw so much power. Make sure there is no power leak.

Oddjob wrote:So I finished the mod this morning! Everything works but my screen is really dim now... I'm almost positive it's a power problem (don't think the screen has anything wrong with it), but I'm not sure if it's because the card reader and adapter are sucking too much power or if i messed something up while screwing around inside my machine... Help?

Oh, and just make sure... did you try adjust the back light setting? It might be in lowest.

Yea I isolated the problem (sortof). It's somewhere on the motherboard haha. I connected a spare screen (and inverter) to the main board and it had the same dim problem. It's not the backlight either, which excludes power problems. The actual pixels of the screen are dim. I had a little mixup with the power hookup during assembly, and I think I may have shorted something out or partially fried it

I finally finished the mod! It was successful! I'll post the pics soon.

Congrats! Yea post some pics it's nice to hear success stories haha

I opened the new topic regarding the mod:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=130248

Thank you

after the mod, I had problems with the FMX-008 Flash-ROM board. booting from the internal SCSI-ZIP I mounted instead the Floppy stopped after locating it. it never loaded the OS. after taking the Flash-ROM out of the machine, it booted like it did from the Floppy....

Maxillaa wrote:after the mod, I had problems with the FMX-008 Flash-ROM board. booting from the internal SCSI-ZIP I mounted instead the Floppy stopped after locating it. it never loaded the OS. after taking the Flash-ROM out of the machine, it booted like it did from the Floppy....

I would think the data in the flash-ROM got corrupted. I think your MPC is trying to read OS file on FMX-008, then hung up.
Upon boot up, I think MPC-2000 classic tries to seek floppy first, FMX-008, then SCSI devices (this is my guess), so you have to temporary install floppy drive.
I would reinstall FMX-008 AND floppy (I know it is pain...) boot from floppy disk, reformat FMX-008, copy the latest OS file to FMX-008, turn off the MPC, try to boot from FMX-008.

my thoughts ^^
I don`t know how it happened, but my Floppy didn`t work after replacing. so the Flash-ROM had to stay out....

Maxillaa wrote:I don`t know how it happened, but my Floppy didn't work after replacing. so the Flash-ROM had to stay out....

Quite possible that it is just because of the bad connection. I experienced similar issues when I was installing card reader. Check the ribbon cable and power connector.
Actually I bricked one floppy drive by inserting the ribbon cable in the wrong way, upside down!

For anyone looking to install a SCSI card reader inside their MPC2000 Classic, I sell an easy-to-install kit that adds the missing internal 50-pin SCSI comnnector. You can see it here:

http://scsicardreaders.com/installkits.asp

It requires no sodering or even cutting any wires inside the MPC and installs in less than one hour. I also sell the SCSI Card Reader you'll need for the MPC - it's called the CF-CARD drive - and it can use CF cards up to 16GB in capacity.

Turbo-charge your MPC2000 Classic with one of these Card Reader drives!

...been waiting for your answer.

Hey,
I decided to do the same mod to my 2000 but I'm having a little problem. After I soldered the wires to the motherboard and connected to the terminal my mpc doesn't want to boot. What happens is the power supply keeps turning itself off an on in sync with the screen. I've had this problem with a PC build and remedied it by properly grounding the motherboard to the case. I don't see what the problem could be. Thanks