16 August 2003, 21:23 | #1 |
Hittin' the hardware...
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Mountain View, CA
Age: 44
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A4000 black screen, suggestions to fix?
I've just been given an A4000 but it's a little temperamental. To begin with there was a green screen, cured by pushing the socketed chips. It seemed fine, workbench booted etc. Okay, so the it needs the keyboard replacing, a new front for the case, ...
So, I decided to try an IDE hard disk and ariadne ethernet card but ever since I get a black screen (a visible rectangle on my LCD; using a scan doubler in the video port). The boot process clearly hasn't started because the floppy drive is silent. I've tried removing/replacing all boards to the bare minimum that was working, even to the extent of swapping to a spare CPU board (both rev 3.0 040). All I've noticed during this is that the scan doubler board's connector is fairly worn. I'm running out of ideas, is there anything further I may be able to do to save it? |
16 August 2003, 23:35 | #2 |
Registered User
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Right, first of all pull all chips in sockets one at a time and clean them by rubbing them on a sheet of A4 paper...
Check around the battery for any leakage, check the simms are in place, the A4000 simm sockets are crap, you might have to cable-tie the simms down... Remove the daughter board, clean the contacts, push it back and pull it out a few times to clean the slot on the MoBo. Same for the CPU card, remove/replace a few times to clean the contacts. If that doesn't do anything, chech all the voltages of the PSU... |
17 August 2003, 05:17 | #3 |
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Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: New Zealand
Age: 57
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classic case
I don't know what it is with people in general by
why do you insist on running before you can walk *grin* Your letter is also lacking in exact procedure... I mean for when you installed the IDE did you boot off that or still off your floppy... I wish I could assume the obvious but in this situation never assume anything If I was you... I'd go right back to when you had the system booting via floppy disk... and ONLY install the IDE harddrive and boot the system with no startup-sequence see if you get a shell... then procedure step by step via that... i.e. issuing each command in the startup- sequence.. depending on how customised the sequence is it could be simply software related... an incompatiable setpatch blah blah... If all else fails let me know if you wish to get rid of the A4000... I collect them *GRIN* this is an A4000 system I am typing into at this moment have fun adios! |
17 August 2003, 11:54 | #4 |
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How do you rub a chip in A4 paper? Is it the pins side that are rubbed?
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17 August 2003, 12:41 | #5 |
Hittin' the hardware...
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Mountain View, CA
Age: 44
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Slayer: I booted off neither . Since it's currently PC formatted I assumed I'd either get the insert floppy screen or the boot menu if I hold both mouse buttons. The first objective is to get something to appear on the screen, my procedure is currently (i) turn power on and wait, here's my precise setup:
I have an open case sat in front of me with mouse, keyboard and via a "petsoff" dblscan video card, a feed to my monitor. The PSU is a converted AT supply powering the motherboard and floppy (ribbon cable connected also). All other cables are removed (IDE). I have the CPU board in place, and so far arranged the SIMMs from fully occupied through to just chip RAM. Severin: The battery has been removed, but cleaning the contacts and custom chips sounds like a good idea... so, given my tools are a bit lacking, what do I need to remove them? I foresee a trip the Maplin's heh... |
17 August 2003, 12:44 | #6 |
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Helsinki / Finland
Age: 43
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Ok, first, pull all expansions out (leave the chips on the motherboard ;-)
Check the backplane's solder side carefully. See if any pins there have bent and are now touching each other (you added a HD and a Zorro card - both actions might have bent them). Unbend them before replacing the backplane. Then plug in only: - the backplane - the Chip RAM SIMM (if your machine doesn't have the Chip RAM soldered on the motherboard) - the cpu card (not applicable if you have an 030 on the mobo and the jumpers set accordingly) - the floppy drive - the scandoubler Be careful to fit the cpu card in properly, use a rubber eraser to push down on it - otherwise the fast slot connector's pins will hurt your thumbs. :-) Did you get any life out of the machine now? Try and pull the socketed chips out a bit and pushing them back down. The only socketed chips should be the kickstart roms and sometimes the buster. Be careful with the buster as the PLCC socket cracks very easily. Anything yet? If you still get nothing, you should measure the psu to see if you get correct voltages. The pinout should be at www.hardwarebook.net |
17 August 2003, 14:46 | #7 | |
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Quote:
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17 August 2003, 14:49 | #8 | |
Registered User
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Quote:
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18 August 2003, 22:57 | #9 | |
Hittin' the hardware...
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Mountain View, CA
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Quote:
I think I'll have to try my chances at picking up a Super Buster / 8374 Alice or trying a modulator to bypass the video card, I have one but not at hand. Curses. |
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19 August 2003, 05:44 | #10 |
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okokok
time out... hold it!!!! Now, with the bare unit and after pushing in the chips to remedy the green screen the Amiga booted to workbench this is correct? Off floppy because you haven't got the IDE in there yet... Okay, you hook up the IDE and only the IDE... now? It won't boot off floppy disk? Because if the IDE is of course formatted for another machine, namely PC then the Amiga wouldn't give one toss about it and merrily boot up from the workbench/install disk... If it is not getting past the boot process then it's something else... Do you ensure the IDE is actually a compatiable model, is it set for Master mode and no slave... etc etc... Good Luck, but my current view of the whole scenario is you're missing something small as in hardware oversight since if the Amiga truely boots off the floppy blah blah and you've run diagnostic carefully from that inital modest setup then I'd be pointing my finger at the IDE and/or cabling, perhaps... perhaps you might consider sticking to the 4 gb limit outside of 3.5 and other filesystem criteria... OOooo I'd love to get my hands on that A4000 *grin* I just love those tough love cases... adios! |
20 August 2003, 00:16 | #11 | |
Hittin' the hardware...
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Mountain View, CA
Age: 44
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Quote:
By the way, I'm not connecting any IDE or using the floppy right now... it really is worse than that! It's a black screen *before* getting anywhere through a boot process. |
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20 August 2003, 05:15 | #12 |
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Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: New Zealand
Age: 57
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ahhhhhhh... SO when you said:
I've just been given an A4000 but it's a little temperamental. To begin with there was a green screen, cured by pushing the socketed chips. It seemed fine, workbench booted etc. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ you just mean you had an insert disk animation prompt? boggle Well good luck then, I'm a lil lost now And I say Norty Ppl for not looking after such a wonderful piece of technofunkiehardware prior to your possession ,) adios! |
21 August 2003, 00:01 | #13 |
Registered User
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Hmmm, I think your best bet would be the totally non-existant until now 'N.A.I.C.' or Newent Amiga Intensive-care Centre, located in Newent, Glos.
If anyone want's Amiga hardware checked out, and they can get it here (and back) I'll test it for free (and maybe even get it working until my spares run out) |
05 June 2005, 23:32 | #14 |
Junior Member
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Man I got this same problem!!! arghhhhhh
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