Loads of bust Amiga 500's ?

Does anyone know how to fix Amiga 500's?

I have enough b0rked Amiga 500's for a door stop for every door in my house...

I would love to fix these fantastic machines so that they may be used once more.

Most common symptom is not reading disks.
Put disk in, floppy light flashes for 3-4 seconds, then back to Kickstart screen

Other problems include:

Green blank screen when turned on
Tinged purple
Flashing "power" light
Does not boot up, grey screen

I must have about 10 b0rked Amigas

Is there any kind of repair guide?

Cheers dudes!

[madenph]

I hope they weren't mine...

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=441&page=2&pp=40

Hmm.. no why would I have your Amigas mate..

LOL your from Burnley, and up at this hour... how absolutely scary...

You threw away 4 Amiga 500's at the TIP?
Woah what the hell man...

I'd of had them... useful things !

Got any games you dont want?

[BinoX]

Originally Posted by chaoticjelly

1) Most common symptom is not reading disks.
Put disk in, floppy light flashes for 3-4 seconds, then back to Kickstart screen

2) Green blank screen when turned on

3) Tinged purple

4) Flashing "power" light

5) Does not boot up, grey screen

1) Sounds like just a busted floppy drive/cable.. Try it with an external drive. (My miggy 500 did that too after I hadn't used it for a while)

2) I'd say that's the kickstart chips, remove and re-seat them
3) see 2

4) Flashing power light... Hmmm.. stumped on that one.. unless the miggy keeps resetting itself

[Dr. Dude]

Originally Posted by BinoX

1) Sounds like just a busted floppy drive/cable.. Try it with an external drive. (My miggy 500 did that too after I hadn't used it for a while)

I have the same thing i guess, i cleaned the drive fully
But when on disk enter its a few clunks and back to kick screen
Altough not all disks do this, but WB does

If i conect my external drive it reads , plays and works like it was new

So, all i need to do is replace the floppy cable?

Yeah, i do the same as you Dr.Dude, works fine for me.

[lloyd]

First, get a new internal floppy drive (try taking one from the Amiga's that have the flashing light.

CLEAN the heads - use a good disk head cleaner (try buying from Staples or Viking Direct.

Try re-seating the ROM chips as sugessted but also try replacing the Chip RAM chips - I bet you have several faulty ones. They tend not to be based tho, so you'll need a soldering iron and some solda-mop (or a good solder sucker).

I must add here that I can rebuild a 48K Spectrum from the bare circuit board up, but have only ever cleaned drives and changed Chip RAM on Amigas, so if you get other advice from somebody who knows more about the Amiga, then take there advice, not mine.

Above all, if you don't know what you're doing, don't mess!!

[madenph]

to chaoticjelly - soft priced hardware on the roundabout at gannow top sell floppy drive cleaners.

They were about £3 last time I bought one.

thanks guys some good tips here

soft priced hardware suck.. lol

took my PC in there once, the guy was leaning over the case smoking his cigarette..

if I needed to replace the chip ram on the amiga mobo, where would i get replacement chip ram from?

will try cleaning the disk drives.

does anyone know where I can get some isopropyl alcohol? (for other uses) because i ran out recently and the pharmacy say they dont sell it anymore (allthough I think they are lying)

i have a soldering iron, solda mop and a desoldering pump as well for good measure

[lloyd]

Originally Posted by Dr. Dude

I have the same thing i guess, i cleaned the drive fully
But when on disk enter its a few clunks and back to kick screen
Altough not all disks do this, but WB does

If you have a problem with only SOME disks, then it looks like your drive heads could be mis-alligned. Re-alignment is a tricky business but it can be done. Maybe better to slap the disks that don't work in DF1: (Or whatever) and do a Diskcopy TO DF0: That way, the new copied disk would have been written with the alignment error "compensated" for and should work. The disk won't work on drives that are aligned properly tho.....

[alexh]

Green blank screen when turned on

This is part of the Amiga's built-in-self-test and indicates an error in the lowest 256 kb of chip ram. Might also be caused by a bad CIA-A or Agnus.

Does not boot up, grey screen

Possibly a Kickstart ROM error (probably gone rusty or broken, take out, re-seat, try a swap with one of the others). However you would get a RED screen if it was a full KS failure.

Tinged purple

??

Flashing "power" light

Dodgy Agnus chip, try to push it back into place. Swap for a different one (need PLCC extractor).


I dont see why you shouldnt be able to make one good machine from all the others..

First try to swap the floppy disk from the one that cannot read disks for one from the others. Are you sure that the disks are working? Perhaps the disks are duff?

http://ftp.plig.org/pub/aminet/hard/...ormessages.txt

First try to swap the floppy disk from the one that cannot read disks for one from the others. Are you sure that the disks are working? Perhaps the disks are duff?

I copied the disk just the other day and its working on my Amiga 500+ and Amiga 1200 so yeah my disks are definitly working..

Will try some of the info provided here sometime, cheers for your input

Where can you get Amiga chip ram?
And how can I tell which is the lowest 256k of ram on the board?

[Dr. Dude]

Is the Chip ram not welded on the board?

By meens, almost inposible to remove

[BippyM]

Originally Posted by Dr. Dude

Is the Chip ram not welded on the board?

I guess you have industrial sized chips

Mine are simply soldered in

[Dr. Dude]

yeah mine to but "welded in" sounds cool

i am dab hand with a soldering iron

when someone says "iron" i immediately think soldering iron. some people think this is strange

[Dr. Dude]

i always say i get my cap, glubs and welding tool


i come up whit fry pin, some tin and a 3e hand




Do i see double by the way?

[lloyd]

You can get the RAM chips from some scrap Amiga 500's or the expansion packs that used to be available. Make sure you have the exact same number on the chips tho, cos you may cause a few problems else.

To remove the chips, use your solder sucker - don't try to force them out. You should be able to get at least one miggy working from all the bits you have there.

For a great example on how to get the chips out etc look for the 8-bit repository on the internet, and try and find a document done by Ian Wolmsley (I can't remember his name) called somewthing like how to repair a 48K spectrum. Different machine fair enough, but the principles in chip removal are identical. I will try and find this document and post a link here for you.

[lloyd]

Ok, "rep_Spec.zip" uploaded to The Zone. Take a look - this guy is a genius!

it wont let me access "the zone" mate?