My A1200 has suddenly broken - why?

[Graham Humphrey]

I turned on my A1200 last night and it wouldn't boot at all. The first time I just got the usual blue/grey-type screen but nothing was happening. The second time the HD and floppy lights came on but that was it. This is all my A1200 does now. I have a 2.1Gb 2.5" IDE hard drive, an 030 with 4MB fast RAM and a MMU, a Squirrel with a CD-ROM drive attached, an external floppy drive and an A500 power supply.

1) I only switch on my CD drive when I want to use it (it has its own PSU). Most of the time it's turned off. Although my 1200 still boots and works normally, could having it switched off while the computer on be dangerous? I've had the drive and the Squirrel for about a month now.

2) Could my accelerator be faulty? A few years ago, when I had a faulty 030 board, sometimes the 1200 would boot and work for about 10 minutes before crashing, or it wouldn't boot at all and the screen would go yellow. This time though it's not even doing that.

3) Do dodgy hard drives cause this? I bought it brand new about a year ago, so it seems unlikely, but even if it was faulty it would surely try to boot and just give read/write errors.

So far I've tried different PSUs, I've unplugged the external floppy and the Squirrel with no effect, so it comes down to the accelerator, the HD or the actual computer. I'll try removing the others later, but for now, has anyone else had similiar problems, and do they have any ideas what causes this fault? There had been no signs of this before I switched it on last night.

[AMIGAZ]

What happens if you hold down both mouse buttons during bootup? do you reach the early startup menu?

[Graham Humphrey]

Nothing as far as I can tell, sometimes the picture goes black on my TV when I switch on so I can't test it then anyway.

[AMIGAZ]

Remove the accelerator card and see if it boots or if you can reach the early startup menu.
Otherwhise there's something else..motherboard related

[Graham Humphrey]

I will try that later.... hope it's my accelerator, don't really want to have to buy yet another A1200.

[Jerry]

I'd rather buy a new A1200 than a new accelerator, which causes the problem, my guess. Had similar issues with one, too.

[Graham Humphrey]

It was actually my accelerator causing the problems, which is strange as just hours before it died it was still working perfectly... there were no signs it was faulty at all. At least I don't have to spend so much money now anyway.

[AMIGAZ]

Originally Posted by Graham Humphrey

It was actually my accelerator causing the problems, which is strange as just hours before it died it was still working perfectly... there were no signs it was faulty at all. At least I don't have to spend so much money now anyway.

You can always send it to Amigacenter if you want it repaired, to live with a '020 and 2mb chip ram makes life suck

[Graham Humphrey]

Could do, but I'd rather buy an 040 (which I was going to do anyway). Most of the programs on my HD are useless for the time being - when I booted up I had less than half a megabyte of RAM free. I could change my startup-sequence and WBStartup but I can't be bothered. I'll just stick with floppy games instead for a few weeks!

[AMIGAZ]

Originally Posted by Graham Humphrey

Could do, but I'd rather buy an 040 (which I was going to do anyway). Most of the programs on my HD are useless for the time being - when I booted up I had less than half a megabyte of RAM free. I could change my startup-sequence and WBStartup but I can't be bothered. I'll just stick with floppy games instead for a few weeks!

ok, just remember that some games won't work with a '040 unless you use Whdload.
The '030 is very compatible.
Also a '040 runs very hot..you need a heatsink and a cooling fan for it to not overheat if you use it in a standard desktop case and operate without the trapdoor cover

[alexh]

My research has discovered that there are some later model 68040's that should run cool.

[Graham Humphrey]

Originally Posted by AMIGAZ

ok, just remember that some games won't work with a '040 unless you use Whdload.
The '030 is very compatible.
Also a '040 runs very hot..you need a heatsink and a cooling fan for it to not overheat if you use it in a standard desktop case and operate without the trapdoor cover

I use WHDLoad anyway most of the time so that's not a big problem to me. Now I've actually got to find a card to buy!

Thanks for all your help.

[billy]

Originally Posted by Graham Humphrey

...strange as just hours before it died it was still working perfectly... there were no signs it was faulty at all.

When I was hardware support for 300 engineers, this used to be my favorite problem description. To which the standard reply was... "Everything works right up until the time that it doesn't". Of course then we immediately fixed their problem, not wanting to be complete jerks.
Really, I understand you would expect some hint before she died, but more often then not, they just give up the ghost.

Glad it was only your accelerator. Might I suggest double checking your power supply voltage outputs under load. Heat kills components, and if your power supply is putting out too low a voltage, your devices will try to draw more current. If you're going to attach a newer '040 accelerator to an already troublesome setup, you could easily end up in the same situation again.

Good Luck!!

[mrodfr]

Originally Posted by Graham Humphrey

It was actually my accelerator causing the problems, which is strange as just hours before it died it was still working perfectly... there were no signs it was faulty at all. At least I don't have to spend so much money now anyway.

don't kill your accelerator card. send the card to amigacenter in france (great guys and low money for service). also, have you tested with other fast ram memory (if you have another one for testing). also2, there is a clock on your accelerator card (if previous, you had never the right clock.....)

also try to search another 16 or 32 memory ram for your amiga somewhere (small ram memory=little prize).

bye