POST message from Bridgeboard A2386SX

[litwarski]

I have a Bridgeboard A2386SX on my Amiga 2000. It worked fine, until I realized that the battery could leak, and I removed it. After the removal, I am unable to get a picture from the Bridgeboard. My VGA card gives no signal at all, and the emulated Color screen is completely black. I get an error message from the PC speaker, but I cannot find information about POST messages on Bridgeboard.


The error message is as follows:


3 long deep beeps, a pause, 2 long deep beeps, a pause, 4 long deep beeps.


Is this just a message about the missing battery, or is there something broken on the Bridgeboard? I did solder a new CR2032 battery onto the Bridgeboard, and got the same message. Though I'm not completely sure if I did solder it properly, as I think I made cold joints.

[A4000Bear]

The battery is required to maintain BIOS settings when powered off. These would have been lost when you removed the battery. The Bridgeboard defaults to 'monochrome', so use that instead of 'colour'. You will need to get into the BIOS (by holding down ctl-alt-esc together during boot). Once in the BIOS, you will need to re input your previous BIOS settings (I hope you had them written down somewhere). One of the settings deals with your display, set it to EGA/VGA so your VGA card can work.

[litwarski]

Thanks for the reply.

I tried holding ctrl-alt-esc to get into BIOS, but to no avail. Also, ctrl-alt-del does not restart the Bridgeboard, so it is as if the keyboard is not recognized. The keyboard did work before replacing the battery, though.

The monochrome display is almost blank, there are 3 symbols on the screen which appear on the same place on every boot. I'm afraid I need to translate the error message from the speaker to get to the bottom of this problem.

[A4000Bear]

Your beep code indicates a keyboard controller failure. Go here http://www.syschat.com/bios-beep-codes-list-1726.html for a complete list. Scroll down to the Phoenix beep codes, then to the '3 beep code ' list. The Bridgeboard uses a Phoenix BIOS.



As the bridgeboard uses the Amiga's keyboard, the problem could be with communication between the bridgeboard and Amiga. This may also explain your lack of display.



Try running something like sysinfo and see if it shows the bridgeboard being present among the list of Zorro cards.


Also try running 'PCreset' and see if the bridgeboard restarts.

[litwarski]

The keyboard controller failure makes sense, since I cannot reboot the Bridgeboard by Ctrl-Alt-Del.



Bridgeboard shows up in SysInfo Boards information chart. Also, the early startup Board Diagnostic says that the Bridgeboard is working.


I can reset the Bridgeboard by using PCReset, and it gives me the same error message after waiting for a few seconds.


Might there be a keyboard controller chip on the Bridgeboard that is faulty? If so, I could maybe swap it from a dead Bridgeboard, if I could find one on Amibay for example.

[Toni Wilen]

I am not sure if this help or if it is 100% correct, some info I collected when I added UAE bridgeboard emulation.

A2286 and A2386SX have "real" keyboard microcontroller (I think it is one of the big chips with Commodore part number, another is bios rom, other is keyboard microcontroller with internal ROM. Most likely from some Commodore PC?). Perhaps it is simply a contact problem? Have you tried pressing F1 when (empty) PC mono or color window is open?

Phoenix beep codes seem to match, for example I get 1-1-3 code if force NVRAM to return only zeros.

[litwarski]

I just tried cleaning the contacts of the keyboard controller... and it worked! I simply removed the controller, cleaned with iso-propanol and reseated the controller. I am now able to get to BIOS and change settings and all. Also my VGA card is now giving a signal, so I think all is well now. Thanks to you both for helping!

[Shadowfire]

30+ year old sockets strike again.