a500 did work, but not now.

hi there . im new here and have read some of the outer posts . but before i go any further , i thought i would ask for help
have dug out my a500 from the garage . i haven't used it for maybe 15 years . but crossed my fingers
at first nothing no lights ,
just could see inside the disk drive the drive was spinning slowly . turned it on and off a few times. then got a green light on, the the 1.3 work bench.

[i assume the transformer on the power cable takes a while to wake up.]
then tried an old game. it struggled to load. as if the floppy drive was struggling, or not making the noises i remember . after a few attempts. it worked. and the game loaded.

but with no sound . i lifted the unit up looking round. thinking after the rf module, i just have one cable going to the tv, should there be more ?i thought. its been a while sense i have used it, am i doing something wrong but then the image went. .

tried meany re starts. turning off , un pluging for a while. but all i get now is a flashing green light . and maybe a yellow screen

i used to love my a500. later i got a a1200 with a hard drive ,and also a cd23 [ still have them all ]
there is a lot of info out there . but i dont want to do any more harm. so were am i best to start. ? im happy to open it up and have a look around to see if some thing is louse, and for the disk drive, its been boxed dusty environment, and i best opening it up and cleaning the heads.. any ideas would be great .



would like to restore it to full health. and also there seems to be a few ways to pimp it up. whats the best way have a drive do you think ? ]

[lesta_smsc]

Various possibilities. Seems like sluggish power feed may be causing several of the issues. Another power supply might be a good start?

I would then look at redoing the capacitors.

If there is any history of it being knocked about then worth reseating the chips you can.

Also just check the pins on the side expansion are not shorting. I had similar problem with strange start up screen colours and it turned out my RAM expansion was forced in and the pins were touching. Dividing the connected pins made it work!

[Psiq]

If it has a memory expansion, try removing that and booting it up. Check the memory expansion for leakage from the battery. This is a common problem. Even if it has not been leaking, remove the battery anyway. The A520 TV modulator may have packed up. Removing these when the power is on can kill them. In my opinion the cheapest solution is to buy a scart adapter.
If you want to pimp it, I have kept my internal drive and I have added a Gotek as an external drive. I also added a switch to make the external drive DF0:. I also added a ACA500plus.

Thanks . Will open it up and have a look .see if anything looks louse . And give it a clean out .
As far as the pimp extras you can get . What do you recommend . And is there any gear that after installing will work out the box.
I used to know my way around a pc quite well . But with the Amiga, it was mostley playing games ..
But I loved it .

[Psiq]

The ACA500plus is a great upgrade.

[Vypr]

Have you thought about getting a DiagROM which might be able to pinpoint the problem?

Thanks . Got a new lead . And opened it up . Apart from a bit of fluffy stuff . It all seemed ok inside .
And now it works .
Sadly mode of my games don't seam to . Some make a bad grinding sound as the disk spins
I have an old disk cleaner . But none of the 100% alcohol that you need for it