HxC Floppy Emulator killed my Amiga 600HD

[Soopytwist]

I bought one of those HxC Floppy Emulators off ebay recently to fit inside an Amiga 600HD I also got of ebay last year. Switching on after installing it though and the Amiga took about 2 minutes to power up and to show anything on the television. The power LED was on but nothing happening for those 2 minutes.

Booting into Workbench from the HD I noticed some of the keys were not working, like whole rows of them but the emulator appeared to be working. Sadly I couldn't make it load a game from SD card due to the fact that half my keys aren't working - keys I need to actually mount a disk image and load.

Checking Google I found a solution to fixing keyboards was to snip a small piece of the end of the ribbon that plugs into the mainboard, so I did that. Now the keyboard doesn't work at all and it takes about 5 minutes for the Amiga to wake up after turning it on.

I've since removed the emulator and put the floppy drive back in but the Amiga still takes a long time to power up and the whole keyboard doesn't work!

Has the HxC Floppy Emulator fried my Amiga? I've already put in a request for a refund but not had a reply (from Poland). Should I spend £20 on a replacement keyboard membrane? Or is the PSU faulty?

I don't know what to do at this stage. The Amiga is in bits at the moment and I'm wondering if I should just chuck it all away (a waste of £90, plus £85 for the emulator)!

This is not my first post, I was registered here a long time ago but my old email address no longer works and I forgot my password so had to register again.

[ajk]

Have the capacitors on the A600 been replaced? Boot issues are common if C612 is out of spec.

I don't imagine the HxC could have caused such problems, it may just be a coincidence. You are certain you did not connect it improperly at any point? It's quite easy to accidentally plug those ribbon cables in so that the pins don't line up right.

[Allen1]

Did the 600 work properly before you opened it up?

You also know that the keyboard connector has to be prised up to release the ribbon cable as the connector wedges the cable in place once lowered, if you haven't released and closed the connector as needed, the cable could get damaged when removed and and not make contact when closed. I don't know how long an Amiga waits while looking for a keyboard to be found but it also sounds like your PSU or capacitors are a problem.

Static electric discharge is another possibility if you haven't taken precautions to ground yourself, these are tough little buggers so probably not that.

What you will need to do is take some decent photos of the motherboard so that we can see if there is anything obvious like leaking caps or broken solder connections and the likes. You could also see if someone near you could lend you a good power supply to see if that was the problem.

That's enough for now as without more information its just guesswork at the moment.

All the best,
Allen. Nice to see this has been replied to already

[Jope]

The entire keyboard ribbon connector doesn't rise, just the sleeve around it so be gentle. :-)

The Amiga does not wait for the keyboard on bootup, and in an A600/1200 the keyboard is always present, as the controller for it is actually on the motherboard.

I wouldn't go as far as to blame the gotek on ruining the Amiga.

[Soopytwist]

I got a spare PSU down from the attic (it's for my old A500+), I tried this on the A600, same problem - very slow to power up and that PSU powers the A500+ without trouble as does the other one for the A600 - so both PSU's appear to be fine.

I did initially remove the keyboard ribbon without first pulling up the plastic top of the connector (might have done that a few times actually, until I discovered how to do it properly!).

I've gone over the mainboard and it looks fine. Nothing untoward.

Other than my kack-handed keyboard ribbon removal I was very careful when removing the floppy drive and fitting the emulator. It was a squeeze because the IDE socket is on the wrong side of the HxC for some weird reason.



Also, while I did test the A600 late least year after I bought it and it worked fine I did not try it again recently before fitting the HxC. Guess I should have done.

[ajk]

Since it does eventually boot, there probably isn't anything severely wrong (apart from the keyboard, anyway). Capacitors can fail with no clear visible signs. My next move would be to remove the reset circuit capacitor entirely, but please only do that if you know how.

[Soopytwist]

Originally Posted by ajk

...My next move would be to remove the reset circuit capacitor entirely, but please only do that if you know how.

Okay, how do I do that?

Here's some photos




Yeah that last one is upside down. For some weird reason after I've taken it on my iPad and emailed it to myself it flips upside down. Then when I rotate it in Paint.NET and upload it to Photobucket it's upside down again.

[Allen1]

Although the capacitors look fine, there is some evidence of possible corrosion next to the IDE connector on the DIP below the crystal Y451 also the transistor next to the keyboard connector Q213? looks grey instead of being shiny (could be just dirt) so it could be the capacitors that are at fault.

I noticed that you have a ram expansion as well, have you tried booting without it?

[ajk]

@Soopytwist

Good photos! The one you are interested in is this one:



Ideally, you would use a [ Show youtube player ] to remove it.

If you don't have access to one of those, an ordinary soldering iron will also do. Add plenty of solder to both joints and quickly heat them one after the other, so that both are molten at the same time and the capacitor comes loose.

Without any soldering equipment, you can [ Show youtube player ] with small side cutters, and then carefully pick the remnants off the board, leaving the legs soldered in place. But it must be done very carefully in order to not damage the board - absolutely no pulling upwards. Also electrolyte will leak out and must be cleaned off the board using alcohol.

If you don't feel comfortable trying this out, there are several people in the UK who can do it for you.

[Soopytwist]

Originally Posted by Allen1

Although the capacitors look fine, there is some evidence of possible corrosion next to the IDE connector on the DIP below the crystal Y451 also the transistor next to the keyboard connector Q213? looks grey instead of being shiny (could be just dirt) so it could be the capacitors that are at fault.

I noticed that you have a ram expansion as well, have you tried booting without it?

Same with the RAM expansion removed.
I also tried just booting up without the keyboard connected and it booted straight away. Then I turned the Amiga off for five minutes and tried again but it went back to delayed boot again.

I can't see any corrosion next to the IDE connector (for the HDD) and the transistors look fine (must be the photo), which transistor next to the keyboard connector where you referring to?

[-Acid-]

Have you checked the floppy data cable is on the right way round? Once the machine boots is it reading disks?

[Allen1]

The transistor I mentioned is at the immediate left end of the keyboard connector, the two legs at its top look fine but the leg going down looks dull.

The dip I mentioned next to the IDE connector is at the bottom right of this picture, I can't get a copy of the transistor picture to highlight the area as I keep getting an error when downloading it.

I rotated the picture the right way for my own viewing

Also it does sound like the caps are failing if they are slow at charging and are left to discharge for a few minutes and wont boot up normally when discharged. next time it boots try just resetting it and see if it boots normally, if it does ie capacitors are still partially charged, then I would say you need to replace them (all of the electrolytic ones)

[Soopytwist]

Originally Posted by Allen1

The transistor I mentioned is at the immediate left end of the keyboard connector, the two legs at its top look fine but the leg going down looks dull.

The dip I mentioned next to the IDE connector is at the bottom right of this picture, I can't get a copy of the transistor picture to highlight the area as I keep getting an error when downloading it.

I rotated the picture the right way for my own viewing

Also it does sound like the caps are failing if they are slow at charging and are left to discharge for a few minutes and wont boot up normally when discharged. next time it boots try just resetting it and see if it boots normally, if it does ie capacitors are still partially charged, then I would say you need to replace them (all of the electrolytic ones)

I can't reset because the keyboard doesn't work! I can only switch the PSU on and off while testing but yes, the longer it's off for the longer it takes to power up. If I switch off while on Workbench and then immediately turn on again it takes less time to power up but there's still a delay.

I'm not technically proficient enough to replace all the capacitors so it looks like I'm going to have to chuck this Amiga away. It's too late to get a refund from the ebay seller now.

Something else it's decided to do now is not boot from the HDD, it's like it has no power. If I turn off and on again it then spins up into Workbench.

I tried booting from a cracked disk (sorry), it boots to the crack screen but when I press the mouse button the drive dies, the screen goes grey then the floppy boots again to the crack screen - and repeat.

When I can get the HDD to boot into Workbench I can put a disk in and open it up no problems. It's like once the Amiga is on and warmed up it's fine... well, apart from the keyboard which still doesn't work.

I think it's totalled, may was well throw it out
Hopefully I can get the refund on the HxC because there's no way I'm buying another A600 to stuck it in and I'm certainly not going to put it in my working A500+!

I think this has been a failed projected. An expensive one as well. Thanks for your help though.

[Allen1]

Do not throw it away, you can always sell it as spares or repair, I think from what you have mentioned that the capacitors just need replacing, it may be something more serious but probably not.

I would look for another motherboard or just getting the capacitors changed, I think I saw sets for the 600 around £12 on ebay a while ago. New keyboard membranes are also available.

In reality you could maybe pick a yellowing A600 from ebay pretty cheap and if it works you could swap the cases so you have a good machine and sell what's left as non working etc.

With Kippers a600 memory expansion or even better the Vampire 2, the 600 is a marvellous machine to have and well worth persevering with.

[Daedalus]

Don't chuck it away whatever you do! It's probably only a small enough repair, and there are a number of people in the UK who can have a look at it for you. Where in the UK are you? There might even be someone local who can fix it, ant then even if you don't want to continue the project, you can still sell it and recoup most of your costs. Even if not, sell it as broken for a few quid and one of us repair guys will take it off your hands. Some of those chips are getting quite rare these days...

[Soopytwist]

Okay, I'll hang onto it but I'm not going to attempt to mod another Amiga to play games off SD card. I was also hoping to spray paint the case black but did not want to spend $300 on a CDTV keyboard - only to butcher the damn thing for it's black keys! Hopefully I can get my refund for the HxC (it was from Lotharek).

I'll probably put it up on eBay for spares at some point or see if there's anywhere in or near Leicestershire that can take a look at it. Don't relish spending any more money on it though.

[ajk]

That working only once warmed up behavior further points to the caps. Probably a majority of A600 systems suffer from the same problem by now.

[Daedalus]

Indeed, I'm working on an A600 right now that has audio and video issues which I'm 99% sure are due to the capacitors. Apparently this one was in storage and only just rediscovered before the current owner acquired it. Long periods without being used causes the capacitors to fail much more quickly than if they had been regularly powered up - I suspect this was the case with your A600 before you got it too.

Whatever you decide to do, either repair it or sell it, do it soon so that the damage doesn't get any worse. Capacitor electrolyte very slowly eats its way through PCBs, and the sooner it's dealt with, the better.

Don't worry about the HxC, if it's connected correctly it can't damage a machine any more than a genuine floppy drive can. If you don't want to use it and can't get a refund, there are plenty of people around who would buy it from you.

[dlfrsilver]

I'm joining to what other amiga fellows said, what you got is capacitors problem.

It's a known fact that they are rubbish on A600 and A1200, and they are dead now mostly and must be replaced.

It's almost the same story when you use retro machines. The capacitors first, the power on after

[Soopytwist]

bebek has offered to repair the mainboard and have a look at the keyboard too, so I'm going to post that off to him.

I have however just found a possible cause for the issues I'm having. Take a look:



Rust. And lots of it. It also looks like someone already tried to treat it because it's black instead of rusty coloured. It might only be on the back plate but if it's on the other side as well it might have begun eating away at the PCB. I can't tell though as I can't figure how to remove the PCB from the metal plate.