1200 tower not booting up

[Angus]

Over the last couple of years my 1200 tower has been getting more reluctant to boot up, but I can usually fix this by a tap on the right side, or taking the lid off and fiddling with connections and boards.

But I've tried this over the last couple of nights with no joy.

I know next to nothing about electronics but I think I've heard people talk about replacing worn out resistors and so on. Is that feasible?

Its a towered 1200 with a Blizz 060 and a Mediator/Voodoo 3.

Its powers up okay, with lights on the case and keyboard, but it just doesn't want to boot. It resets though.

P.S.
If I leave it on over an extended period, might that make it more likely to boot?

[fitzsteve]

Your very first line suggests to me a poor connection between the Blizzard & Motherboard, give the contacts a good clean between the Blizzard and motherboard. Use Isopropyl alcohol and make sure its had plenty of time to dry before you put back together and try again.

Have you ever tried to boot from floppy disk? Or withiout the Blizzard, or even with a different Turbo Board?

I'd suggest thats the first place to look but there are many things it could be, I had a similar problem with my A1200T (Black screen on boot sometimes) and it got more frequent till eventually no more booting.

The culprit was my Turbo Board although in my persuit of the problem I'd stripped right back to the bare motherboard and sods law it was working fine at that point so I discarded that as the problem.

It was only when it finally died completely that I tried another turbo board and its been 100% fine since.

Hope the first suggestion works for you but it might come down to stripping back to bare basics to isolate the fault.

All the best.

Steve.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by Angus

Over the last couple of years my 1200 tower has been getting more reluctant to boot up, but I can usually fix this by a tap on the right side, or taking the lid off and fiddling with connections and boards.

This probably indicates a connection problem, either a chip has started to come out of its socket or a connector has lost its tension in the pins or some pin sockets have gotten dry joints, most likely because they have been experimentally wiggled by your good self.

Originally Posted by Angus

But I've tried this over the last couple of nights with no joy.

Stop wiggling things, it's not going to help the underlying fault

Originally Posted by Angus

I know next to nothing about electronics but I think I've heard people talk about replacing worn out resistors and so on. Is that feasible?

Resistors do go out of spec after some years, but the fault is more likely to be as mentioned or capacitors

Originally Posted by Angus

Its a towered 1200 with a Blizz 060 and a Mediator/Voodoo 3.

Absolutely a worthwhile machine to repair and fix up

Originally Posted by Angus

Its powers up okay, with lights on the case and keyboard, but it just doesn't want to boot. It resets though.

Via CTRL A - A or via switch on the front?

Originally Posted by Angus

P.S.
If I leave it on over an extended period, might that make it more likely to boot?

Sadly no, unless a HDD has lost a phase in the stepper motor, this happened to me and the only way to get it going again was to tap the drive, I don't recommend you doing this, it's a fairly risky procedure and it may very well not be the fault

I'd offer to take a look at it but I live on the other side of the world, there's quite a few reputable techs in your neck of the woods.

[Angus]

Thamks for the replies gents, I will investigate the suggestions made. And yes, I think _an_ issue is the 1200/Mediator/Blizzard 060 connection. I don't if this has just got worse or if ther are other problems.

It does reboot from the keyboard, btw.

[AmigaFun]

Hi, I had a similar problem with mine and it not booting. It was loosely a problem with my Apollo board, but I reseated the power converter and SIMM's and cleaned the leaky battery stuff up and that improved matters. But, I changed the PSU and that sorted the problem out once and for all. It was after all over 10 years old, and a cheapo unit at that. I think the tower I have is the Elbox one.