A1200 no life

[RTID75]

Spec : A1200 rev 1b,  3.1, Blizzard PPC 060 / BVision, Power Flyer Gold, IDE hard drive, Power Tower.

Had my machine recapped last month, when I got it back I couldn't get my A4000 keyboard adapter to work again (the socket pushed over chip variety), so decided to spend a little.

Bought the PC Key A1200 which pushes into the standard keyboard socket. Worked perfectly.

At the same time I decided to upgrade to the Fast ATA MkV from my original Power Flyer Gold (the original Elbox Fast EIDE).

The Fast ATA MkVadapter is like for like with the one I was taking out, but whatever I did I couldn't get the MkV to work. Either it took an age for the machine to do anything, then it'd default to the Kickstart screen with no HD boot, or nothing would happen.

If I swapped the Fast EIDE back in it booted fine from HD straight away.

Having spoken to Elbox, I took the Blizzard out and I've fiddled around something chronic today, managed to bend several Kickstart ROM pins, and swapped the Gayle adapter off the Fast EIDE, but on one singular occasion it all seemed fine as boot menu showed the hard drive, and on plugging the Blizzard back in managed to get the MkV booting from hard drive.

I swapped the Gayle adapter back to the one that came with the MkV and I was back to problems. Swapping the Gayle adapter back once more made no difference.

I decided to strip it all down and fix some rubber stick on feet on the motherboard back plate underneath the Kickstart sockets and the Gayle chip as constantly pushing on the Kickstart chips and the Gayle adapter was flexing the motherboard.

On putting the tower back together and trying both IDE adapters, and also without them I now have a situation where nothing is happening at all.

The power light on the tower is dull, there's an initial something going to the monitor as it wakes up, but soon goes into power save mode. The monitor wakes up briefly again when reset is pressed, only to sleep again moments later. Nothing else happens at all. No Kickstart screen, no floppy clicks.

What do you think is wrong? Have I killed the Kickstart chips? I've had to bend several bent pins back today.

I'm gutted. Hoping someone can help!

[TribbleSmasher]

Really hard to digest this all but did you try and boot the machine bare bone? Without anything?

[RTID75]

To all intents and purposes, yes.

At the moment all that's plugged in that's extra is the keyboard interface. Kickstart chips are back in the factory motherboard sockets and IDE interfaces are completely removed.

[TribbleSmasher]

If your PSU seems ok, which you should check with a multimeter, then your next step could be trying a DiagROM for diagnostics, but this is more difficult because you have to get the ROMs burned.
There exists diag disks, but you have to check function to boot from floppy at first.

[golem]

Not the same spec machine but when my original A500 brick PSU started to fail on my A1200 wedge, the power LED was dull and machine would not start.

[RTID75]

I'll take the motherboard out of the tower again and try the factory PSU and see if that makes any difference.

[pyrre]

have you inspected the motherboard thoroughly?

a cap may have reversed polarity.....

[paul1981]

Are your Kickstart ROM sockets in good order? The pins of the FastATA are much thicker than the ROM chips, and your ROM chips may not be making good contact now after many insertion and removals of the FastATA (which could weaken the sprung contacts).
I know when I first had my MkIII all I got was a black screen - no where in the documentation did it tell me that Kickstart 3.1 was required to function, as I was running 3.0 at the time; I tried a 3.1 Kickstart and it worked. I never once removed the FastATA, because I realised at the time it wouldn't be such a great thing to do. I never had to use the included tie-wrap as it's locked in there like cement... I don't think I dare ever take it off.

[RTID75]

Well, I tried the factory PSU, same result - dim power light and no activity, bar the monitor coming to life briefly then going to power save again.

That was what was happening sometimes when I was trying to get the Fast ATA MkV working.

I think I've killed the Kickstart ROMs, or possibly the sockets as mentioned by Paul above.

I'm either going to buy some new 3.1 ROMs (they're cheap enough) or try to find another A1200 which I can use until I can suss out what's wrong with this one.

At least with the market so buoyant I'll be able to get my money back if I buy another A1200 and then fix my current one!

I'm a bit irritated now though, as I sold a spare A1200 a few months back. Wish I'd kept it now!

[RTID75]

Interestingly though, going back to my Fast ATA MkV and finding it more or less impossible to get it working (before my A1200 fell over!), I noticed two dodgy pins on the Kickstart ROM sockets on it.

They've been soldered in without being fully 'home'.

Do you think this might be why I couldn't get it working?

[TribbleSmasher]

Absolutely possible! If they were ripped through, they might have pulled out the VIAs on its PCB, damaging them.

[paul1981]

I think I've killed the Kickstart ROMs, or possibly the sockets as mentioned by Paul above.

I actually meant the ROM sockets on the A1200 motherboard. Did your FastATA always have those couple of dodgy looking pins? They look soldered in, but how on earth can the ROM chip ever be seated correctly? I can't see that quite working myself as-is.

[RTID75]

Yes, the Fast ATA MkV arrived like that brand new. Just two pins soldered in slightly the wrong place. 

Some good news though - although I'd already made the decision to buy a new motherboard, that wasn't before I'd ordered some new 3.1 ROMs.

I've just fitted them to my original stripped back motherboard (new one hasn't arrived yet) and I've found the reason it was dead. Yep, I'd killed my old 3.1 ROMs.

My Fast ATA is away, being fitted to the new motherboard and tested to make sure it works before I get it back, so I can't do full on rebuild yet, but it's good to see I've not totally killed this motherboard.

I'll be keeping both of them anyway. This episode has made me realise that you need backup for aging technology!

I'll put some more pics up when it's all working again. Thanks for your replies everyone!