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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: mrbill on June 04, 2007, 03:06:17 AM
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I recently acquired an A4000 (with Retina BLT Z3 card, Emplant board, and a Warp Engine '040). The first thing I did was remove the slightly-fuzzy battery; I didn't see any motherboard damage.
I don't have a monitor that will sync down to 15Khz, so it took me a couple of weeks to acquire an A520 and a "VGA Box" that goes from composite-in to VGA out. I've tested this setup on my A2000 and it works fine (although fuzzy, of course).
The video signal chain looks like this:
A4K -> A520 -> composite to VGA Box -> LCD monitor
When I tried it on the A4000, at power-on I get a black screen, then 3-4 seconds later what I can best describe as a purple screen - solid color, no picture.
I tried removing EVERYTHING from the A4000 (disconnecting drives, etc) leaving only the Warp Engine, its onboard RAM, and the RAM that's in the sockets on the motherboard. I also reseated the Warp Engine and all the RAM. None of this seemed to make a difference.
The system has 40.68 ROMs (checked when I reseated the Warp Engine board).
Is this normal behavior? Not having worked with anything but A1000 and A2000s before, I was expecting some sort of kickstart screen with the please-insert-disk animation.
Suggestions on how I can proceed are sincerely appreciated.
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Sorry for the noise - apparently I just wasn't being patient enough. After about 45 seconds, the Kickstart screen comes up as it should.
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3.1 ROMs have a long boot delay to accomodate long spin-up times for hard drives. Attach one and it should boot faster.
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Or if you want to use SCSI, I highly recommend buying a KickFlash. It will allow you to use a modified 3.1 ROM with no scsi.device which effectively disable the on-board IDE controller, thus removing the startup delay.
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moto
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If you go SCSI (I recommend that)
You can also terminate the onboard IDE.
It's what I have done. No delay after that ;-)
You can build it yourself:
Get a 40-pin female IDE header and wire a 5K resistor between pins 3 and 39,
and between pins 5 and 39.
Pins 3 and 5 are the high-order IDE data bits. Pin 39 is the IDE LED
connection, which is tied high. This hack ties the two high-order IDE
data bits high, making the ROM immediately skip looking for a drive.
Plug the header onto the A4000 motherboard IDE connector, making sure it
is on correctly.
Here's one on ebay too:
IDE Killer on ebay (http://cgi.ebay.at/NoIDE-Modul-fuer-Amiga-4000_W0QQitemZ290114700932QQihZ019QQcategoryZ8142QQcmdZViewItem)
good luck
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I tried to build one of those IDE killers myself but I could never get it working. You can also contact DJBase and he can make them.
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moto
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@motorollin
This hack works for sure.
I never had any Problem ;-)
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I tried to build one for my A1200 and then for my A4000. I couldn't get either of them to work. The resistors I used were defnitely the correct values and definitely connected to the correct pins. Maybe I used the wrong type of resistor (there are yellow and blue ones, right?)
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moto
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@motorollin
I never tried this on a A1200
Resistor Color Code (http://www.breakup.de/resources/resistor.html)