Amiga 3000 not working properly

[simon_m74]

Hi all
I`m new here.. with 2 A3000 that have different problems, I`m hoping to get one working from both..

Both machines have suffered from a little bit of corrosion from the now removed batteries. Though less corrosion that was on my first A3000 that is still fully working...

machine 1:
Seems to have HDD activity - sounding like it boots, but no video on either video output.

Machine 2 :
Seems to boot ok, display output is flashing yellow very badly. but main problem is the system I`m using it in is a Virtuality machine. This A3000`s problem is described as follows.

Machine boots, ( HDD is the Virtuality WB & Game ).
So the machine boots, start to flash yellow randomly/violently even
A WB window appears, start to run various programs to set up the game.
There is an IO board that is connected to the Parallel port - this works fine - WB powers this up as one of the custom programs it runs ( POWERUP )
There is a 3D tracking board that is connected to the Serial port.

WB starts to list lots of files it cant read/find/use, including a `Experience Loading - Please Wait` IFF image file, and an audio file to go with it.
These two files ( and the rest I`m sure ) load fine in the working machine.
The programs that are loading firstly say it can see the board, but later the game loading `hangs` as its trying to access the 3D tracker, but its failing.

Now I know the software is fine, as its been tested on a working machine. the same with the external IO and 3D tracker board, all fine as ok one a working 3000.

Just ONCE out of every time I booted the system did the game boot ok. It was not the first time it booted but maybe the 50th time. It has not booted since, but the SW and External HW have been tested as fine.

I am thinking, ram or serial port ?

I know my information is not the best, but its hard to explain unless you can see, it, and I explain what its trying to do as it is doing it.

Any suggestions?

If you need more info from me, please ask.

Thanks

Simon

[Loedown]

Go for the common problems, capacitors, chips loose in sockets etc. If that makes no difference then have a good look around the battery area as it may have chewed out a critical via or track.

[simon_m74]

I`ll check the caps...
I have taken the chips out and reseated the lot.
Battery already out - a lil bit of corrosion, that I have cleaned up - same as I did on my working one.

Things have gone bad to worse...
After the clean up, I lost the amiga video out - tho VGA was still ok .
After taking to bits to make sure all chips seated properly... it not even booting now

A friend said to try the PSU - which I will as I have a spare

Any other help is appreciated.

Simon

[Loedown]

Likely something has moved in the reseat or a HDD forgotten to be plugged in. The bigger systems become a nightmare to work on because you need to take everything out to strip it down / repair and then piecemeal it back together to test every card along the way.

[lost_loven]

make sure the daughter card is in all the way, if you removed the motherboard make sure its in proper. I would test power supply.

lost

[simon_m74]

hi all,

thanks for help.

I stripped it, cleaned it. and did some research into when the screen displays certain colours.

I ended up salvaging the non-video out board, for CHIP RAM, Fat Agnus, Amber - onto the partially working board, and it seems to fully boot the Virtuality game.

It ( so far ) has booted 5 out of 7 attempts.

Attempts 1,3,4,6,7 booted ok (ish ) while boots 3 & 5 seemed to work ok, but wait for a certain value from the tracking hardware that it didnt get.

From boot number 3 onwards, the screen started to violently flash yellow again, but on a good boot - that stopped once the game had kicked in, but I guess thats due to the game using custom graphics cards, rather than the Amiga video.


any ideas what the yellow flashing could be ?

Thanks

Simon