A1200 Fails to Boot with RAM Expansion

[Heywood]

Hi,


Santa brought my A1200 an 8MB Fastmem board, however the thing does not want to boot when the board is installed.


It hasn't been recapped as far as I am aware, so I guess this is area of concern however it seems to work well enough in unexpanded mode.


I've heard of some A1200s requiring a timing fix, is this potentially an area of concern based on what I see (black screen, no floppy tick noise/HD boot) or is it more likely that it's possibly caps that are approaching failure and this tips them over the edge?


Happy holiday!

[Lord Aga]

Is it a new soldered memory chips one, or an old memory module one?

[Jpor]

Originally Posted by Heywood

Hi,


Santa brought my A1200 an 8MB Fastmem board, however the thing does not want to boot when the board is installed.


It hasn't been recapped as far as I am aware, so I guess this is area of concern however it seems to work well enough in unexpanded mode.


I've heard of some A1200s requiring a timing fix, is this potentially an area of concern based on what I see (black screen, no floppy tick noise/HD boot) or is it more likely that it's possibly caps that are approaching failure and this tips them over the edge?


Happy holiday!

Black screen and no Kickstart screen is normally a sign of timing issues. Which expansion board is it? And what Revision is your A1200 Motherboard?

Worth checking you have inserted the board properly and that the expansion board pins are straight and none have been bent inside.
If it’s an old Motherboard then it’s worth cleaning the edge connector with contact cleaner or IPA just in case there is dirt build up with a cotton Bud.

[Heywood]

Hi Lord AGA and Jpor,


Thanks for the things to try - the board is a new AmigaKit board with the 8MB soldered directly onto it with none of the fancy FPU or RTC features. The board feels like it slides down well enough onto the MB edge connector but I'll open the thing up and check the Mboard revision and spray some IPA across the edge connector and get back to you.

[Lord Aga]

Also try pulling it back juuust a little bit, a mm or so. Sometimes that helps too

[Jpor]

Chris Edwards on his YouTube channel had similar issues with an Amigakit expansion.
He had to do a slight notch cut as his board was snarling up as the edge connector was slightly too wide. Also beware of the top shielding can also get in the way.

Here’s one of Chris’s videos installing an accelerator by removing the A1200 case;

[ Show youtube player ]

He did what LordAGA suggested and pushed the card all the way in, then pulled it back a little. Obviously only do this with the Amiga switched off.

[Heywood]

Things are now working for me - thanks for steering me down the correct path to resolution!

What I did was:

• Liberally sprayed IPA across the edge connector, gave it a few hours to evaporate
• Reinserted the card.

Worked first time around

Perhaps some surface corrosion went away with sufficient card insertion/removals and the IPA to clean things up. It could be that things are "just right" I have left the card as is as things are working and I don't want to potentially jinx things. Now I can get into some WHDLoad Demos/Games that play much nicer with some additional RAM!

The board revision for those that are interested is 1D4.

[Lord Aga]

Good to hear that

Enjoy your 2.5x speed increase! It is now a truly capable little beast

[Jpor]

Originally Posted by Heywood

Things are now working for me - thanks for steering me down the correct path to resolution!

What I did was:

• Liberally sprayed IPA across the edge connector, gave it a few hours to evaporate
• Reinserted the card.

Worked first time around

Perhaps some surface corrosion went away with sufficient card insertion/removals and the IPA to clean things up. It could be that things are "just right" I have left the card as is as things are working and I don't want to potentially jinx things. Now I can get into some WHDLoad Demos/Games that play much nicer with some additional RAM!

The board revision for those that are interested is 1D4.

Good stuff

Just be aware that if you decide to change the RAM expansion card to something like an Indivision ACA card then you might need to look at timing fixes on that board revision.

[Heywood]

Thanks for the heads up - possibly the only accelerator upgrade I would consider by my A1200 is a PiStorm32 when it becomes more mainstream and there's a bit of a user base whose experiences I can lean on - maybe in time for next Christmas!