Bizarre problem on boot up

Steve · 14 September 2003, 23:27

I was playing Dragon's Breath on my Amiga 1200 today through WHDLoad. I quit out from the game by pressing F12 and then reset my machine.

There was a strange pause for about 8 seconds before the hard drive finally kicked in and began booting. Once it had finished booting up I had DF2:???? and DF3:???? on my Workbench screen. Strangely my available RAM had also dropped from 1,720,080 bytes to 1,665,400 bytes. It's as though it is using the memory for these phantom external disk drives.

My Amiga 1200 now thinks that I have three external disk drives when I only have one. This accounts for the long pause during boot up as the A1200 checks all the drives. I'm sure the problem is not related to Dragon's Breath but what could be causing it?

It's been like this for several hours now and I'm getting a little pissed off with it. Turning off the machine and leaving it for a while seems to temorarily fix the problem but it soon comes back.

I've had an Amiga for over ten years now and this is the first time I've ever encountered this problem. Has anyone got a clue about what is going on or experienced this problem before? I really hope there isn't something wrong with my machine.

I can disable the drives through the boot menu by holding down the mouse buttons and this fixes the problem temporarily. Once the computer is rebooted they are back again to haunt me. Help!

Severin · 15 September 2003, 01:50

Hmmm, sounds like one of your CIA (8520) chips has had a stroke and maybe heading to silicone heaven (no I don't mean a pair of large knockers you pervs).

The big problem is they are not worth replacing now, it's cheaper to get a new A1200 than get surface mount chips changed

The only other thing I can think of is the external drive is playing silly buggers, unplug it and see what happens...

Dizzy · 15 September 2003, 09:52

Mayby it could be PAULA who might need a change (Try to take her out of the socket and push her back in, this often helps). Beside being the sound chip she also is the floppy controller.

I have some spare CIA chips, no problem switching them..

thomas · 15 September 2003, 10:25

At first you should reconnect the external drive. Perhaps its connection is loose. Also reconnect the internal floppy cable for the same reason.

Bye,
Thomas

Amiga1992 · 15 September 2003, 11:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Dizzy
Mayby it could be PAULA who might need a change (Try to take her out of the socket and push her back in, this often helps).

It's SOCKETED in a 1200, so no chance.

It smells like fried CIA to me too :/

Dizzy · 15 September 2003, 11:04

Oh I never "played" much with the inside of my 1200, might be my next project

Steve · 15 September 2003, 11:27

Thanks for the advice guys. I've just booted up my A1200 this morning so I can tell you a bit more. My Amiga works fine from a cold boot with no phantom external disk drives. The problem only rears it's ugly head when the computer is warm booted using the three key combination.

If I turn the computer off for a few minutes and then cold boot the problem still appears though. Only if I leave the machine for a few hours does the problem temporarily vanish.

Does this sound like a CIA problem? If it is a CIA problem what other side effects should I be noticing? I've noticed no other problems except for one.

When the computer is booting up and working it's way through the startup-sequence it's now listing a lot of information which it wasn't doing before:

Quote:

Volumes:
Ram Disk [Mounted]
Omega [Mounted]
Alpha [Mounted]
workbench [Mounted]

Directories:
HELP <LOCALE:Help>
LOCALE Workbench: Locale
KEYMAPS Workbench: Devs/Keymaps
PRINTERS Workbench: Devs/Printers
etc.

If I disconnect the external disk drive I get the same problem except intead of showing two unknown external drives it shows three.

Severin · 15 September 2003, 13:46

sounds more like a faulty chip with an overheating problem, pull the case apart an see if a chip is getting very hot (carefully, they can get hot enough to leave skin behind), then you could try a heatsink etc...

if not, it's time to look for a new MoBo

as for the startup info, that looks like the output from an assign command without any options, check your startup and user, look for an assign command on it's own or with a ; after it...

Severin · 15 September 2003, 13:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Akira
It's SOCKETED in a 1200, so no chance.

It smells like fried CIA to me too :/

hmmm, I think you left the word 'NOT' out

Steve · 15 September 2003, 14:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Severin
sounds more like a faulty chip with an overheating problem, pull the case apart an see if a chip is getting very hot (carefully, they can get hot enough to leave skin behind), then you could try a heatsink etc...

Ok I'll have a look at it tonight. Do you think it would be one chip or both CIA chips that will be hot?

Quote:

Originally posted by Severin
as for the startup info, that looks like the output from an assign command without any options, check your startup and user, look for an assign command on it's own or with a ; after it...

Ah, thanks. You're right. I found the rogue assign command hiding at the very top of my user-startup script. God knows how that got there. I removed it and the information no longer displays on boot-up.

Amiga1992 · 15 September 2003, 18:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Severin
hmmm, I think you left the word 'NOT' out

woops. But dizzy understood me. Mindreader Dizzy

Severin · 15 September 2003, 22:37

Quote:

Originally posted by Steve
Ok I'll have a look at it tonight. Do you think it would be one chip or both CIA chips that will be hot?

It should just be the one nearest the floppy drive...

Steve · 29 September 2003, 23:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Steve
Ok I'll have a look at it tonight.

Erm, well as you can tell I didn't get around to taking me miggy apart and this thread and me miggy were left to rot.... until now.

I've just spent about 30 minutes opening my case, removing all the screws and carefully bending back all the metal clips so I can get to the motherboard. That's the first time I've ever actually taken the metal roof off the Amiga and revealed it's private parts. I'm sure I saw my Amiga blush.

Anyway that was surprisingly difficult, trying to remove the metal roof without damaging anything. I've probably lost a couple of screws and the metal roof is a little bit bent and buckled but it should be quite easy to bend the thing back into place.

The worst metal clip I had to bend back was the one underneath the floppy drive which is folded under the case and is very difficult to prise open. I had to use a damn metal nail file to bend most of those back. I've also taken out my 2.5 inch hard drive. It looks like my A1200 mobo is revision 1D which is probably one of the earlier models.

The green keyboard flex cable surprised me when it decided to spring out of it's plug. The plug remained attached to the motherboard and I thought I'd buggered it. But I pushed it back into the hole firmly, then re-attached the floppy cables and plugged everything in but left the machine loose and unscrewed.

I turned on the machine and it's working ok. The keyboard seems to be responding fine despite being ripped from it's little hole. I've managed to achieve a three key restart so that seems ok. The floppy drive is also working fine as I'm running a demo at the moment. In a few minutes I'll turn the machine off and see which chip will remove the most skin.

Wish me luck...

Steve · 30 September 2003, 00:32

*** DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME FOLKS! ***

I've opened up my Amiga and turned her on with all her bits showing and I've been feeling her bits to see if she gets hot. I've been running a game for about 30 minutes with the lid off of the Amiga which is probably quite dangerous so I really wouldn't recommend it.

Well the hottest chip chart is like this. In at number 3 is the Paula chip which has a nice warm touch. A new entry at number 2 is the 68EC020 CPU which is quite a bit warmer to the touch. We have a new number 1 this week folks and it's the Alice chip which gets very warm almost to the point of being fairly hot and burning.

But what of the CIA chips I here you ask? Well they didn't make it into the chart because they both reach a similar heat level which isn't too dramatic. Certainly not as hot as the Alice chip gets.

So what does this mean in the greater context of all things Amiga? Who knows? Certainly not me. Maybe it is one of the CIA chips which has ruptured a left ventrical and it's just not showing it. It's been quite a lot of effort and not much has come of it which is a bit of a shame.

Time to put me miggy back together.

Where do I go from here...?

Steve · 30 September 2003, 01:35

Fuck!

I've just spent 30 minutes putting it all back together again and guess what. When I boot it up the hard drive light comes on as well as the power light. The hard drive light stays on but doesn't boot and the floppy drive won't read any disks inserted into it. Great!

BippyM · 30 September 2003, 03:03

Check your connections. esp HD

Steve · 30 September 2003, 16:40

Quote:

Originally posted by bippym
Check your connections. esp HD

Correct!

I dismantled the Amiga and unplugged the hard drive and tried to boot. It took a minute but eventually booted to the purple kickstart screen. After a couple of attempts at fiddling with the hard drive cable I finally got it to work again. The problem still persists with the phantom drives so the real problem still exists.

Maybe I should just look out for a new A1200 motherboard. Is it not worth replacing the CIA chips? Has anyone had a go at replacing Amiga chips? How hard would this be to do?

Galahad/FLT · 30 September 2003, 17:03

Is your hard drive properly earthed?

If you simply have the hard drive sat on the metal cover, and you don't shield the underside of the hard drive, its possible for you to short various circuits that will cause the problems you mention.

You need to insure that the underside of the hard drive is not touching metal (mine has a paper envelope to prevent contact).

If your hard drive isn't secured properly and has shifted, this might explain why its only recently started.

And I doubt Dragons Breath is responsible...... its a fucker in many ways, but its not that bad..... I think!

Amiga1992 · 30 September 2003, 17:13

The chips you noticed as hot, are usually hot as fuck. Unless they really burn your frigging finger, you should not worry.

The CIA chips...where were they? I forgot. Near the external FDD port maybe, but I am not sure.

Check here:
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/a1200.html

following Galahad's suggestion, try booting Workbench through the floppy disks. If the shadow drives still appear, it is not teh harddrive making fireworks inside.

Steve · 30 September 2003, 17:16

The hard drive is simply sat in it's protective cradle with silver tape to stop from rattling about. It's ok sat in it's cradle isn't it?

I'm not sure if Dragon's Breath is to blame but it might be. lol. The reason I say that is because it seems the CIA chips are causing all the problems. The CIA chips control the blinking of the power light when turning on and off the sound filter. I don't have any extra RAM so when Dragon's Breath was loading it does it very slowly and I noticed the power light is constantly flashing on and off for about 20 minutes while the game loaded. I think it may have been a bit too much for the poor old CIA chips.

14 September 2003, 23:27	#1
Steve I Identify as an Ewok Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: North Lincolnshire Age: 45 Posts: 2,356	Bizarre problem on boot up I was playing Dragon's Breath on my Amiga 1200 today through WHDLoad. I quit out from the game by pressing F12 and then reset my machine. There was a strange pause for about 8 seconds before the hard drive finally kicked in and began booting. Once it had finished booting up I had DF2:???? and DF3:???? on my Workbench screen. Strangely my available RAM had also dropped from 1,720,080 bytes to 1,665,400 bytes. It's as though it is using the memory for these phantom external disk drives. My Amiga 1200 now thinks that I have three external disk drives when I only have one. This accounts for the long pause during boot up as the A1200 checks all the drives. I'm sure the problem is not related to Dragon's Breath but what could be causing it? It's been like this for several hours now and I'm getting a little pissed off with it. Turning off the machine and leaving it for a while seems to temorarily fix the problem but it soon comes back. I've had an Amiga for over ten years now and this is the first time I've ever encountered this problem. Has anyone got a clue about what is going on or experienced this problem before? I really hope there isn't something wrong with my machine. I can disable the drives through the boot menu by holding down the mouse buttons and this fixes the problem temporarily. Once the computer is rebooted they are back again to haunt me. Help!

30 September 2003, 00:32	#14
Steve I Identify as an Ewok Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: North Lincolnshire Age: 45 Posts: 2,356	Well here is the result of my investigations... * DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME FOLKS! * I've opened up my Amiga and turned her on with all her bits showing and I've been feeling her bits to see if she gets hot. I've been running a game for about 30 minutes with the lid off of the Amiga which is probably quite dangerous so I really wouldn't recommend it. Well the hottest chip chart is like this. In at number 3 is the Paula chip which has a nice warm touch. A new entry at number 2 is the 68EC020 CPU which is quite a bit warmer to the touch. We have a new number 1 this week folks and it's the Alice chip which gets very warm almost to the point of being fairly hot and burning. But what of the CIA chips I here you ask? Well they didn't make it into the chart because they both reach a similar heat level which isn't too dramatic. Certainly not as hot as the Alice chip gets. So what does this mean in the greater context of all things Amiga? Who knows? Certainly not me. Maybe it is one of the CIA chips which has ruptured a left ventrical and it's just not showing it. It's been quite a lot of effort and not much has come of it which is a bit of a shame. Time to put me miggy back together. Where do I go from here...?

30 September 2003, 17:03	#18
Galahad/FLT Going nowhere Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: United Kingdom Age: 50 Posts: 8,994	Query.... Is your hard drive properly earthed? If you simply have the hard drive sat on the metal cover, and you don't shield the underside of the hard drive, its possible for you to short various circuits that will cause the problems you mention. You need to insure that the underside of the hard drive is not touching metal (mine has a paper envelope to prevent contact). If your hard drive isn't secured properly and has shifted, this might explain why its only recently started. And I doubt Dragons Breath is responsible...... its a fucker in many ways, but its not that bad..... I think!

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
boot problem pfs	_psy	support.Other	15	20 March 2017 05:26
A500 Boot Problem	scrappysphinx	support.Hardware	2	07 March 2008 10:31
Amiga Boot Problem	sockpuppet999	support.Hardware	3	24 February 2008 08:56
Extremely bizarre graphical problem (screenshots)	JohnnyWalker	support.WinUAE	8	30 April 2004 01:26
Help with boot problem	Giana	support.Apps	24	28 March 2003 10:40

15 September 2003, 01:50	#2
Severin Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Gloucester / UK Posts: 700	Hmmm, sounds like one of your CIA (8520) chips has had a stroke and maybe heading to silicone heaven (no I don't mean a pair of large knockers you pervs). The big problem is they are not worth replacing now, it's cheaper to get a new A1200 than get surface mount chips changed The only other thing I can think of is the external drive is playing silly buggers, unplug it and see what happens...

15 September 2003, 09:52	#3
Dizzy Pirate Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Denmark Posts: 3,395	Mayby it could be PAULA who might need a change (Try to take her out of the socket and push her back in, this often helps). Beside being the sound chip she also is the floppy controller. I have some spare CIA chips, no problem switching them..

15 September 2003, 10:25	#4
thomas Registered User Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Germany Posts: 7,000	At first you should reconnect the external drive. Perhaps its connection is loose. Also reconnect the internal floppy cable for the same reason. Bye, Thomas

15 September 2003, 11:04	#6
Dizzy Pirate Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Denmark Posts: 3,395	Oh I never "played" much with the inside of my 1200, might be my next project

15 September 2003, 13:46	#8
Severin Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Gloucester / UK Posts: 700	sounds more like a faulty chip with an overheating problem, pull the case apart an see if a chip is getting very hot (carefully, they can get hot enough to leave skin behind), then you could try a heatsink etc... if not, it's time to look for a new MoBo as for the startup info, that looks like the output from an assign command without any options, check your startup and user, look for an assign command on it's own or with a ; after it...

30 September 2003, 01:35	#15
Steve I Identify as an Ewok Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: North Lincolnshire Age: 45 Posts: 2,356	Fuck! I've just spent 30 minutes putting it all back together again and guess what. When I boot it up the hard drive light comes on as well as the power light. The hard drive light stays on but doesn't boot and the floppy drive won't read any disks inserted into it. Great!

30 September 2003, 03:03	#16
BippyM Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 48 Posts: 9,355	Check your connections. esp HD

30 September 2003, 17:13	#19
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,645	The chips you noticed as hot, are usually hot as fuck. Unless they really burn your frigging finger, you should not worry. The CIA chips...where were they? I forgot. Near the external FDD port maybe, but I am not sure. Check here: http://www.amiga-hardware.com/a1200.html following Galahad's suggestion, try booting Workbench through the floppy disks. If the shadow drives still appear, it is not teh harddrive making fireworks inside.

30 September 2003, 17:16	#20
Steve I Identify as an Ewok Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: North Lincolnshire Age: 45 Posts: 2,356	The hard drive is simply sat in it's protective cradle with silver tape to stop from rattling about. It's ok sat in it's cradle isn't it? I'm not sure if Dragon's Breath is to blame but it might be. lol. The reason I say that is because it seems the CIA chips are causing all the problems. The CIA chips control the blinking of the power light when turning on and off the sound filter. I don't have any extra RAM so when Dragon's Breath was loading it does it very slowly and I noticed the power light is constantly flashing on and off for about 20 minutes while the game loaded. I think it may have been a bit too much for the poor old CIA chips.

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)