Did I break my A3000?

[kirk_m]

I decided to update the Kickstart ROMS from the original 1.4 to the 3.X version Cloanto offers.  I bought the ROMS from Vesalia.de, and gently removed the existing ones.  I inserted the new ROMS correctly, put things back together, and powered on.  Black screen.  The  LED on the computer comes on, you can hear the HD spin (but not boot), and the floppy drive doesn't power on.

So, I put the previous ROMS back in.  Powered on, and still have a black screen.  Everything was working perfectly before then.  I have checked all chips, the daughterboard, etc., for complete seating, and, nothing is loose.  Here is a photo of the original roms reinserted into their correct sockets in my now non-functional computer.



Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Does anyone in the USA repair these machines any more?

[magnetic]

Did you change any jumpers? Try swapping the roms in the sockets..

[jltursan]

There's no reason to break the A3000 if you have always fitted them in the right orientation. As per the photo, they look fine.

Don't you have a ROM tower?, if not, are you sure you have the correct set of 3.1 ROMs?. IIRC there was one set compatible with old A3000 and another one with modern revisions without ROM tower.

[HammerD]

I decided to update the Kickstart ROMS from the original 1.4 to the 3.X version Cloanto offers.  I bought the ROMS from Vesalia.de, and gently removed the existing ones.  I inserted the new ROMS correctly, put things back together, and powered on.  Black screen.  The  LED on the computer comes on, you can hear the HD spin (but not boot), and the floppy drive doesn't power on.

So, I put the previous ROMS back in.  Powered on, and still have a black screen.  Everything was working perfectly before then.  I have checked all chips, the daughterboard, etc., for complete seating, and, nothing is loose.  Here is a photo of the original roms reinserted into their correct sockets in my now non-functional computer.



Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Does anyone in the USA repair these machines any more?

Black screen can mean CPU not responding.  Try re-seating CPU card if you are using one.

[Ilwrath]

Agreed on making sure you have the right revision ROMs.  The A3000 was a weird one.  Especially with the V1.4's and ROM tower.  I forget the details.  But there are a lot of them.  I'm sure the information is still out there, if you look enough.

As for it not powering back up when set back to the old ROMs...  Agreed, check the seating on any processor card, if you have one.  Also, check the seating on the power cable.  And make sure you didn't accidentally change any other settings, too.

Nothing you've done should cause any damage, provided you weren't extremely unlucky.  (ESD, etc...)  But these old machines get really finicky.  Takes a ton of patience and re-seating things once they've been disturbed.

[JamesG]

In looking at my A3000, ROM1 should be on the bottom and ROM0 on the top. Not sure if these mobo's are mislabeled or what because I got my updated ROMs wrong at first also.