Display Problems on A1200

Hi Everyone

Im trying to get back into the Amiga after a good few years but Im having a few issues - hopefully one of you guys might know what to do.

I have an A1200 with a 100 GB hard drive installed - it is preloaded with Workbench and has all my games and university files on it. I have not used it since about 1999 when it used to be connected to a Commodore 1084 monitor. I sold the 1048 monitor about 8 years ago so I dont have it anymore and I think that is the cause of my problem.

I must have set the resolution to something rather high back in the day as I cannot get a picture at all via Composite or composite into scart on any of my TVs (Sharp HD LCD, LG HD LCD and Hanspree HD LCD( as I see are scrambled lines that suggest the output is at a level the TV's can't handle.

Have tried the Modulator but cant tune it in to any pictire so maybe that has die over time. I have turned the screw in and out and tried to tune in but no joy. My TV detects nothing at all when the RF lead is in.

So as I have set my resolution to a high level, do any of you think that a RGB scart solution would do the trick ? Or is there a way to fic the modulator or indeed are there any gotchas with these rf modulators.

Im worried about spending 20 pounds on a RGB scart when it may leave me at square one again ie resolution too high, but i'd do it if i knew it would def work

Any other ways around this - all I need to do is get into workbench and lower output via screen prefs and then everything will be fine.

Thank you for any ideas or help :-)

[Amiga1992]

The 1084 is not a high resolution monitor but who knows, maybe you were using something weird.

Start your Amiga with the Early Startup menu. To do this, hold down both mouse buttons while powering up.

Here, choose to boot with NO STARTUP SEQUENCE. This will take you to your hard drive's command prompt.

From here you can erase the SCREENMODE.PREFS CDing to SYS:Preferences/env-archive, then issuing the "delete screenmode.prefs" command

This will reset your Amiga to standard display, and you can then change to something you can use.

If this doesn';t work, you may be having an issue with capacitors.

hi there

Thank you for your suggestion - Ive made some progress.

1) I disconnected the HD and then I was able to tune in the TV from the Kickstart ROM screen so thats a start. Reconnected everything as I now have tv tuned in ok

2) Was able to get into start up mode and deleted the prefs file from the folder you mentioned

3) Start up A1200 but still the same. Starts to load, and then screen goes scrambled as though output too high

Will try again or any other ideas - can I delete more from this folder ?

[Amiga1992]

If you managed to get to the shell with no startup sequence, your comnputer runs fine.
You can run workbench from there by typing "loadwb", then ending the shell by typing "endcli"

If you want to fix tis though, Try erasing overscan.prefs.
Also try moving all your files from sys:devs/monitors to sys:storage/monitors
(It's really weird since a 1084 outputs nothing but lowres signals, maybe you had a 11942 and were using overscan. if you take a picture of the scrambling, or better, a video of the bootup, we can progress more).

Perhaps it's some patch you have there.
Can you paste here what your startup sequence, user startup and workbench startup have?

Enter again with no startup sequence as I told you and do the following for each:

- Give us the dir of sys:wbstartup
- The contents of the startup sequence c can be obtained by typing "more s:startup-sequence"
- The contents of the user startup can be obtained by typing "more s:user-startup"

Good luck. your computer is working. you just have something messed up with your workbench.

Hi there my friend,

Thank you for your suggestions - I will work on those soon but I have managed to get it working (sort of). I will explain :-

Firstly I looked about a bit more in that prefs folder and I deleted the overscan.prefs as I remember overscan settings from the past. Everything else did seem ok so I left it and exitd

From the boot up screen, and then display options, I disabled the "best available" chipset and went with ECS - then it boots and I can see the screen and wb loads and all my stuff is there - championship manager 94 here I come :-)

However, if I go reboot andim back to where I started - I'll take this option if its all I have but to go forward I can assume its either :-

1. AGA Chipset isnt working
2. Misconfiguration somewhere in Workbench from the old monitor settings still that only triggers in AGA mode

Thank you so far = very much appreciated as I now at least have a booting and usable machine !!

Finally Fixed !

Deleted the othe rmonitor drivers from devs\monitors, leaving onl PAL and NTSC.

Rebooted, switched to Best available chipset in Boot up options and everything was fine - it defaulted back to PAL and all is fine.

Going to connect it up to Amiga Explorer later tonight - thank you for your help - Im very pleased :-)

[Amiga1992]

You certainly were using a monitor different to a 1084 then, or something with a special tweak. I knew it would be one of those screen settinig related problems.

Enjoy