A500 Ram Help

Solid Snake · 11 September 2014, 09:03

I recently picked up two stock A500s for me and a friend. We both got back into retro gaming through emulation and wanted to play Amiga classic games on the real thing.

I purchased two third party 512KB ram expansions from fleabay, which were listed as working. See pics. Unfortunately, both have a problem.

The small board expansion is not recognised (i.e it adds no additional memory to the system) and the large board expansion produces a yellow screen on boot-up.

Can someone please come to the rescue?

Oli_HD · 11 September 2014, 09:38

Hi, first and most obvious.. have you tried flipping the switch on the small one?

The switch is to enable and disable the ram.
With the large one I would take each chip out and clean the legs and socket with IPA or another contact cleaner and try again. Worst case is it could have a faulty ram chip on it.

Oli_HD · 11 September 2014, 09:39

And now I notice something more interesting... 4th chip from the left on the bottom row of that picture is facing the wrong way! thats not right, turn it around (There will be a marking on the socket showing pin 1 but you can assume its the same way as all the others.) and test it again.

Eeeep for a chip being backwards though!

Edit:
Check first though, the chip should have an indentation on the one end like so:
-----------
) |
-----------
Make sure all the indentations are facing the right way

Jope · 11 September 2014, 10:13

That chip is probably fried now if power has been applied to it.

watsonfmly · 11 September 2014, 10:33

I concur. That chip is backwards and probably feied.

On the second board, the capacitor on the far right, second one up looks "puffed" out. Perhaps it needs to be replaced?

Solid Snake · 11 September 2014, 19:40

Yes. I have tried flipping the switch on the small board expansion with no success. The capacitor definately needs replacing.

For the record I have no experience of electronics or soldering for that matter.

Now, who is a dab hand with a soldering iron and can help diagnose and repair both of these ram boards. I really don't want to discard them and hope that someone can come to my aid.

Thank you.

Jope · 11 September 2014, 20:42

It's not necessarily worth your while to ship them anywhere for repairs, 512k ram expansions are quite plentiful and cheap on ebay and amibay. :-)

11 September 2014, 09:03	#1
Solid Snake Wonderful World Of Amiga Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 359	A500 Ram Help I recently picked up two stock A500s for me and a friend. We both got back into retro gaming through emulation and wanted to play Amiga classic games on the real thing. I purchased two third party 512KB ram expansions from fleabay, which were listed as working. See pics. Unfortunately, both have a problem. The small board expansion is not recognised (i.e it adds no additional memory to the system) and the large board expansion produces a yellow screen on boot-up. Can someone please come to the rescue? Attached Thumbnails

11 September 2014, 09:39	#3
Oli_HD Collector Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Staffordshire. UK Posts: 157	And now I notice something more interesting... 4th chip from the left on the bottom row of that picture is facing the wrong way! thats not right, turn it around (There will be a marking on the socket showing pin 1 but you can assume its the same way as all the others.) and test it again. Eeeep for a chip being backwards though! Edit: Check first though, the chip should have an indentation on the one end like so: ----------- ) \| ----------- Make sure all the indentations are facing the right way Last edited by Oli_HD; 11 September 2014 at 09:42. Reason: Doubted myself, could just be the writing is the wrong way.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
A500 ram	willbloke	support.Hardware	7	03 June 2014 11:03
Maximum RAM on A500	banedon	support.Hardware	13	21 April 2014 08:58
For Sale: 2mb RAM Expansion for A500/A500+	PowerPie5000	MarketPlace	1	22 November 2010 01:10
Woul A500 plus ram expansion work on A500?	JACK98	support.Hardware	1	04 May 2010 01:15
WTB: A500/+ RAM 2,4 or 8	SupahFlyRetard	MarketPlace	3	04 May 2009 06:17

11 September 2014, 09:38	#2
Oli_HD Collector Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Staffordshire. UK Posts: 157	Hi, first and most obvious.. have you tried flipping the switch on the small one? The switch is to enable and disable the ram. With the large one I would take each chip out and clean the legs and socket with IPA or another contact cleaner and try again. Worst case is it could have a faulty ram chip on it.

11 September 2014, 10:13	#4
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,863	That chip is probably fried now if power has been applied to it.

11 September 2014, 10:33	#5
watsonfmly Registered User Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: West Virginia Posts: 59	I concur. That chip is backwards and probably feied. On the second board, the capacitor on the far right, second one up looks "puffed" out. Perhaps it needs to be replaced?

11 September 2014, 19:40	#6
Solid Snake Wonderful World Of Amiga Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 359	Yes. I have tried flipping the switch on the small board expansion with no success. The capacitor definately needs replacing. For the record I have no experience of electronics or soldering for that matter. Now, who is a dab hand with a soldering iron and can help diagnose and repair both of these ram boards. I really don't want to discard them and hope that someone can come to my aid. Thank you.

11 September 2014, 20:42	#7
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,863	It's not necessarily worth your while to ship them anywhere for repairs, 512k ram expansions are quite plentiful and cheap on ebay and amibay. :-)

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)