A1200 - Black screen - ACA & CF

I've been struggling with my Accelerator card and CF card adapter and can't get any further with this. Amiga works fine but if I plug in ACA and/or CF Adapter, I get nothing but a black screen.

Below is a detailed documentation. See the end of the post for a Dropbox link with some photos.

Please help, I have no idea where the problem might be.

** Amiga 1200
- Basic setup, no extras plugged in, works fine, tested with a couple of games
- 3.00 ROM 39.106
- Pressing both mouse buttons down brings me to pre-start screen normally

** ACA plugged in (ACA1220)
- Screen goes black when started
- Ctrl-A-A makes Caps blink once, then black screen
- Pressing both mouse keys doesn’t help
- Changing jumper to “disable” doesn’t change anything
- Removing whole jumper doesn’t change anything

** IDE + CF-adapter plugged in (no ACA plugged)
- When started, Caps blinks once, Screen flashes for about 1sec, then goes black
- D2 light is on, D1 stays on for 1sec
- Ctrl-A-A makes Caps blink once
- H.Disk light is on
- Pressing both mouse keys doesn’t help

** ACA and IDE+CF plugged in
- D2 light is on, D1 stays on for 1sec, a bit less dimmer light on D1, D2 as bright
- Ctrl-A-A makes Caps blink once
- Pressing both mouse keys doesn’t help
- Screen remains black
- H.Disk light is on

*** DROPBOX LINK - photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/i43qf6fnnzvmars/KmHN1ubbim

[Hewitson]

If you plug in the CF adapter power but do NOT connect the IDE cable, does the machine work?

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

If you plug in the CF adapter power but do NOT connect the IDE cable, does the machine work?

If it's 44way IDE (I expect so as he's using an A1200) then power is taken from the IDE cable.

I have some faulty CF adapters that cause this issue (i.e black screen & no boot)

But here I would be further concerned that it's not booting with an Accelerator either.

For the ACA issue I have a couple of things that you can try.

First please try another PSU if you have one, maybe it's not up to the job of powering everything or try to disconnect the floppy drive and try the IDE again as then there might be enough power for the IDE to work, of course the long term solution here would be a new uprated PSU.

If your issue is not power related, i.e another PSU does not help try to clean the connector slot, you can use IPA (Isopropyl alcohol) or a pencil eraser.

If this does not help try to pull the ACA card back off the CPU slot by about 1mm, sometimes when fully inserted the ACA cards do not make a good contact due to the newer CPU connector, withdrawing them from the slot slightly fixes this.

If you need a known working CF-IDE adapter & cable for testing I can supply them.

Lastly some A1200 Motherboards need timing fixes to work with ACA cards, you can read more about that here:

http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/Amiga/am..._mobo_fix.html

Amigakit in the UK offer this service and also at the same time I'd highly recommend having the surface mounted capacitors replaced as they're prone to leaking.

Good luck!

[Amiga1992]

Hewitson: 2.5" IDE power runs over on the IDE cable itself.

I would think there could be a power issue here, have you tried a different power supply? Was this setup working before?

[FOL]

Support ticket updated.

[fitzsteve]

@FOL, do you care to share your advice here, maybe to help other users?

If not your post is a little pointless

[FOL]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

@FOL, do you care to share your advice here, maybe to help other users?

If not your post is a little pointless

I started giving advise over support tickets. Yet I was told only half the story. I come here and find information that is crucial to helping.
I was simply saying I have updated his ticket.

[cpiac64]

i have fixed a mobo rev 1.d1 today for aca1232 and apollo with info on forum and with 3.1 work fine (i need verify with 3.0, test on other main with 3.0 show only 1 mega fast ram)

[FOL]

Originally Posted by cpiac64

other main with 3.0 show only 1 mega fast ram

Thats normal until you run ACATune.

Thanks a lot, Fitzsteve.

Tried pulling ACA a bit off, no effect.
Disconnected floppy drive, took ACA off and turned the computer on. Both leds on CF-adapter turned on, and I got this: (three sec video) https://www.dropbox.com/s/cj791mwjpxgy2cv/video-cf.mp4

I waited, turned it off, but didn't manage to get that again.

I'm getting A500 PSU on the weekend - do you guys think that could solve anything? Otherwise I'm a bit helpless here, no idea what to do next...

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

If it's 44way IDE (I expect so as he's using an A1200) then power is taken from the IDE cable.

I have some faulty CF adapters that cause this issue (i.e black screen & no boot)

But here I would be further concerned that it's not booting with an Accelerator either.

For the ACA issue I have a couple of things that you can try.

First please try another PSU if you have one, maybe it's not up to the job of powering everything or try to disconnect the floppy drive and try the IDE again as then there might be enough power for the IDE to work, of course the long term solution here would be a new uprated PSU.

If your issue is not power related, i.e another PSU does not help try to clean the connector slot, you can use IPA (Isopropyl alcohol) or a pencil eraser.

If this does not help try to pull the ACA card back off the CPU slot by about 1mm, sometimes when fully inserted the ACA cards do not make a good contact due to the newer CPU connector, withdrawing them from the slot slightly fixes this.

If you need a known working CF-IDE adapter & cable for testing I can supply them.

Lastly some A1200 Motherboards need timing fixes to work with ACA cards, you can read more about that here:

http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/Amiga/am..._mobo_fix.html

Amigakit in the UK offer this service and also at the same time I'd highly recommend having the surface mounted capacitors replaced as they're prone to leaking.

Good luck!

[fitzsteve]

Hi!

I'm not really sure what's happening in your Video.

Try the A500 PSU, they are normally 4.5amp on the 5v and can be more reliable with Accelerators and other hardware expansions.

What's the general condition of the Motherboard like? Is it clean? Is the solder around the capacitors and the IDE header/expansion connector shiny or dull?

It's not unusual for the IDE pins to become loose from dry solder joints, they might need to be reflowed. Dull solder or a fishy smell around the capacitors would suggest leakage.

If you can't get it working consider sending the board to Amigakit for a refurb or check out Amibay where there are a few people who offer these services.

Good luck,

Steve.

[Stedy]

Hi,

Stupid question, can you isolate all metalwork on the IDE 2 compact flash adaptor, just in case it's shorting out somewhere?

To me it looks like the IDE to compact flash is the wrong way around?
If replacing an HDD, would expect it to fit the same way around as the HDD and should therefore fit in the HDD cradle.

Try cleaning the A1200 edge connector with a pencil eraser then if that fails, get some Isopropyl alcohol for cleaning the edge connector.

A 3 Amp power supply is sufficient for your system. You will be using around 2.2A-2.3A of the available 3.0A supply.

Bye,

Ian

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by Akira

Hewitson: 2.5" IDE power runs over on the IDE cable itself.

That doesn't mean it's impossible to power the device without plugging in the IDE cable does it?

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

That doesn't mean it's impossible to power the device without plugging in the IDE cable does it?

The devices as far as I can see has no separate power input, it only seems to take power from the floppy cable so indeed it would be impossible to power this device (without soldering any wires of course) if the IDE cable was unplugged.

It could be connected the wrong way round though, this could also be bad news for the motherboard too. (looking at your close up picture I think you do have it connected wrong way round! - On the PCB it is printed Pin43 but you have the red line hooked up on this side which usually goes to Pin1, and it seems this side is connected to Pin1 on the Motherboard - Not good news for the equipment)

@Noiro, Are you sure Pin1 on your Motherboard is aligned to Pin1 on the CF-IDE device?

I would be inclined try one of the generic 44way CF-IDE adapters like this:



I also see you have two SSD's connected to your device, some duel compact flash-IDE devices do not work on Amiga IDE with 2 CF's inserted and also some brands of CF do not work on Amiga IDE, I've never seen these PATA SSD's before, perhaps they are also not compatible?

I recommend get yourself a regular CF-IDE adapter and a 4gb Sandisk or Transcend CF(red 133x) Card.

[Amiga1992]

Oh , I didn't see the pics.

Your CF adapter is the wrong way around.

I don't know now if you damaged the motherbaord or not, maybe not, but there's a slight chance of that.

The CF connector must be facing up.
Defintely get teh simpler one Steve is pointing you to and try again.

But the machine must run fine without it connected and teh ACA on. If it doens't, you ruined it connecting that device backwards.

Indeed. It was wrong way around! Now it works perfectly, but ONLY if ACA is not connected.

If I connect ACA, no matter if the CF-adapter is connected or not, the screen remains black. Any suggestions on this one?

[Bamiga2002]

Could be the PSU...if the A500 psu fails too, maybe use a basic AT psu converted to Amiga?

Finally aqcuired a PSU for A500, but no luck with that either. Screen remains black. H.Disk light is on for 5-7 sec than turns off after that.

Pretty lost with this. Any suggestions?

[kipper2k]

If you have a friend locally that can try it on his computer then that may be able to tell you if its the board or comp, other than that send it in for checking.

Black screen on boot normally indicates CPU not initializing. so it is possible that the board is taking control of the computer and then failing in its startup

[demolition]

The usual suspects are bad connections to the accelerator and timing fixes (although this would normally mean it would be able to boot, just won't be stable).