Faulty Amiga A600?

Hi all - first time poster here, having been gently ushered in your direction by a fellow rllmuk forum member.

And I need help already! I bought myself an Amiga A600 from eBay a year or so ago, but I haven't been able to find the time to test it until last night. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working - but since I never owned an Amiga before I'm not sure if it's because I'm doing something wrong, or if it might actually just be an easy fix.

First off, the Amiga is in AMAZING cosmetic condition - bright white, no dirt or grime anywhere, and the original warranty stickers are still firmly intact, suggesting that it never had any problems before (also, although it's too long ago for me to check now, I'm certain the purchase appeared to be totally sound when I made it - I'm a very careful eBay buyer and I've never bought a dodgy machine yet, and I certainly wouldn't have bought one that wasn't confirmed as being in 100% working condition in the auction listing). Anyway, with everything plugged in, when I switch the power on (on the power supply unit), the green CAPS LOCK and Power LEDs both light up on the keyboard and there's a momentary (by which I mean extremely brief) whirr from the disk drive, but then nothing more, and the screen stays black. I've tested it on both an Amiga monitor that I also bought on eBay as well as on an old CRT telly using a composite cable, and the same thing happens each time.

I've tried inserting a disk and then turning the computer on, but the same thing happens - perhaps the whirr is slightly longer (say, a second), but otherwise it still seems to flake out before it even gets going and the screen remains black (but the LEDS stay illuminated).

What do you think, Amiga experts? Did I buy a duffer after all or can this problem be solved easily? Any help, gratefully received - I've built up a nice collection of Amiga games over the past twelve months - loads of Lucasarts games, mainly - and I'm really itching to get started on the one gaming era from the past that I never really paid attention to back in the day. Cheers!

Jer.

[cosmicfrog]

well you certainly come to the right place

is there a ram expansion in the trapdoor ??

Originally Posted by cosmicfrog

well you certainly come to the right place

is there a ram expansion in the trapdoor ??

Hi - glad to hear I've found the right forum! Just checked the A600 trap door and it looks like there's nothing in there - just a big empty space with the connector edge all by itself, not connected to anything. Is that the problem? Please say that's the problem!

[cosmicfrog]

If only it was that simple heheheh well I`m out of ideas

you might have to open the baby up, if you do be careful you don`t break the hinges at the back

[Rebel-CD32]

Have you tried leaving it switched on for a few minutes to see if anything comes up? I've seen A600s that won't do anything except light up the Caps Lock light and output a black screen for over twenty minutes before finally rebooting and loading up Workbench. That was caused by faulty capacitors, although sometimes it will hang like this when it's trying to detect a hard drive and can't find one, but it should eventually show the purple Kickstart screen after half a minute anyway.

[Philyon]

I had exactly the same problem with my A600 just few days ago !
I tried turning it off and on again and it did not work. I waited about 20 minutes, and the 600 has restarted !

The next day the A600 restarted very well, but in the journey I had the same problem... I didn't know why this happened.

So this week I decided to send my A600 to a friend of mine who replaced all the capacitors, and I changed the psu for a 300w unit from Amigakit.

I don't have the a600 at home for now, i'm waiting for my friend to send me during the next week. I think all the problems should be solved !

Thanks for the responses folks - I'm trying the 'leave it switched on for 20 minutes' trick now and I'll let you know how I get on.

Very excited about getting started with the Amiga at long, long, long last, despite the early gremlins - tell me, did I miss much? I hear it was quite a popular machine...

By the way, while I'm waiting, I might as well introduce myself - I'm Jerry Ellis, 38-year-old former Commodore 64 devotee who owned his first Commodore machine (a VIC-20) back in 1982 and moved on to the '64 (via an Acorn Electron) in November 1985. My big claim to fame in a retro gaming capacity is that I wrote The 8-Bit Book - 1981 to 199x. A 16-bit / Amiga follow-up is still being worked on by the other two authors at Hiive Books, although unfortunately they haven't made much progress in the last year or so.

Anyway, you seem like a very friendly and helpful bunch, so once I get my A600 up and running I'd like to stick around and learn a thing or two from you all, if that's alright.

Cheers! Jerry.

[kipper2k]

Time to break the seal and check for capacitor leakage, possible causes for it not working are

- bad CIA chip
- leaking capacitor (s)
- weak power supply
- Remove and reinsert the Kickstart Rom

They are the most likeliest reasons for failure, and first place to start looking

Originally Posted by jerellis1

Thanks for the responses folks - I'm trying the 'leave it switched on for 20 minutes' trick now and I'll let you know how I get on.

Very excited about getting started with the Amiga at long, long, long last, despite the early gremlins - tell me, did I miss much? I hear it was quite a popular machine...

By the way, while I'm waiting, I might as well introduce myself - I'm Jerry Ellis, 38-year-old former Commodore 64 devotee who owned his first Commodore machine (a VIC-20) back in 1982 and moved on to the '64 (via an Acorn Electron) in November 1985. My big claim to fame in a retro gaming capacity is that I wrote The 8-Bit Book - 1981 to 199x. A 16-bit / Amiga follow-up is still being worked on by the other two authors at Hiive Books, although unfortunately they haven't made much progress in the last year or so.

Anyway, you seem like a very friendly and helpful bunch, so once I get my A600 up and running I'd like to stick around and learn a thing or two from you all, if that's alright.

Cheers! Jerry.

Well, what can I say? You guys are officially brilliant - the 20-minute trick worked! I think I might need to replace my Last Ninja II disk though as it gives me a 'Software Failure' message after the loading screens have faded out - but things are looking good all the same!

My next question - how do I fix a faulty monitor power switch permanently? It switches on fine, but it won't stay switched on unless I keep the power switch pressed down. Is it a simple case of just using some extra-strong sticky tape to do the job?

EDIT: done it! A bit of sticky-backed white velcro worked perfectly and looks very neat. Let the games begin!

Right-o - we've got Lords of the Rising Sun up and running (lots of disk-swapping - blimey!) but there's just one last problem: no sound! Do I need a separate cable to connect the A600 to the monitor to get the sound working? I'd assumed the screw-in VIDEO cable would have taken care of that. Although... perhaps the clue is in the word, VIDEO...? I'm being daft, aren't I?

[ajk]

There are no audio signals in the 23-pin RGB port, so if you are connecting via that, you need to have separate cables for the two sound channels. What kind of cable and monitor are they exactly?

Originally Posted by ajk

There are no audio signals in the 23-pin RGB port, so if you are connecting via that, you need to have separate cables for the two sound channels. What kind of cable and monitor are they exactly?

The monitor is a 1084S - seems to be a very nice one, although I don't know how it compares to others that are (were) available. Anyway, I seem to have figured out the sound issue now - I've just borrowed a cable from the back of my hi-fi (so '80s!) and connected up the audio output sockets to the sole audio socket on the back of the monitor.

I've got Wing Commander going at the moment and the score seems to be coming through nicely. The only thing is I've obviously only got one channel going (L, to be precise) so I may miss out on some of the audio unless I find a cable that combines the L and R outputs into a single mono plug that I can connect to the monitor. Shouldn't be too hard to find something like that though, surely? In fact I've probably got at least a couple of cables that fit that description in a drawer somewhere.

For now though, it's great to have the machine up and running with a classic game on the go! I'd like to go beyond just the point-and-click adventures that I've collected over the past few months though - tell me, what would be the best action games to go for? Didn't Andrew Braybrook write a sequel to Uridium for the Amiga? Is there a section here where a beginner can find a few recommendations?

Good times all.

[Loedown]

The sequel to Uridium would be Uridium II, he also did Paradroid '90 for Amiga, more Graftgold goodness than you can poke a stick at.

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by jerellis1

The monitor is a 1084S - seems to be a very nice one, although I don't know how it compares to others that are (were) available. Anyway, I seem to have figured out the sound issue now - I've just borrowed a cable from the back of my hi-fi (so '80s!) and connected up the audio output sockets to the sole audio socket on the back of the monitor.

I've got Wing Commander going at the moment and the score seems to be coming through nicely. The only thing is I've obviously only got one channel going (L, to be precise) so I may miss out on some of the audio unless I find a cable that combines the L and R outputs into a single mono plug that I can connect to the monitor. Shouldn't be too hard to find something like that though, surely? In fact I've probably got at least a couple of cables that fit that description in a drawer somewhere.

For now though, it's great to have the machine up and running with a classic game on the go! I'd like to go beyond just the point-and-click adventures that I've collected over the past few months though - tell me, what would be the best action games to go for? Didn't Andrew Braybrook write a sequel to Uridium for the Amiga? Is there a section here where a beginner can find a few recommendations?

Good times all.

you have probably got a bad cable that monitor is stereo i would try the cable.

[cosmicfrog]

is it the left channel or the right channel that combines audio if you only have mono ? I always had stereo

anyhow good to hear it working now, though a capacitor re change may be on the cards at some point

[rkauer]

Simply leave the "unused" cable disconnected from the Amiga output, then magically the sound output will be mixed internally.

Clever Commodore trick from the time stereo monitors weren't common.

BTW: I strongly recommend you to replace the internal capacitors, then add the A601 memory expansion (the one that goes inside the trapdoor, it gives one more Mb of RAM) and add a real HD to your setup. Then the real fun will begin.