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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: nasty on September 20, 2007, 12:24:23 PM
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Setup: Sig
Ok here we go, Amiga boots up fine then crashes after 5-20 mins remains at a black screen during bootup. Remove the PPC, amiga boots up fine so you would think PPC failure but one thing I noticed was the green light on the Power Tower is alot brighter without the PPC card fitted! so this leads me to think that it is a power issue rather than the ppc card on its way to the sky. The psu that's fitted is a 500watt so surely this would be enough to run my setup? as it ran before without any problems unless theres a hiddden problem?
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I have a similar problem with my 4000, i had a 350w psu and have 3 scsi drives, 2 floppies, 4 fans, voodoo 5500 and other cards and the green light dimmed totally. To do my head in even more i got a 600w seasonic psu and it did the same thing. I could not even boot into workbench that often and usually got a blank screen so I thought the CSPPC was dying. Without the PPC card i get no problems at all.
Ive sent it all to Amiga Center in France for a total health check.
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People people people. Its not just wattage. You can spend £10 on a 600w power suppply and it will not work properly with a lot of devices attached. You have to look at the amps it can supply on the rails. The worst time for a power supply is at boot as this is generally the peak load there will be on a power supply
Though in the case of the seasonic I am supprised at this as they are top quality supplies. I would suspect that there is either a problem with it, or there is an issue with hardware
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This is probably a stupid tip, but I managed to do this.
I bought a 400W powersupply as I was having problems with my AmigaPPC too. I made a mistake though by cutting the red 5V wire from the HD powerconnector. I did this because I wouldn't ruin the motherboard powerconnector in case it didn't work. Quess what, this 5V wire was probably never ment to supply huge currents as my Amiga didn't work. After I used the 5V wire from the motherboard connector my amiga worked just fine.
Perhaps there is a difference between the 5V for the HD and the 5V for the motherboard?
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HellCoder wrote:
---zip---
Perhaps there is a difference between the 5V for the HD and the 5V for the motherboard?
No diff @ all.
Notice the original PSU's +5V wire can't supply more than 5 A to the Miggy.
In order to fix those issues, prefer to put the Miggy into a tower and feed the "kitty" using more than one way.
Example: feed it through original power connector AND the mobo floppy connector (may you have to create a "split" in order to connect both the mobo and the floppy). Use one of the AT(X) PSU connectors to supply the fans on the PPC board, too.
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It may not be PPC failure, but it could very well be the PPC overheating - my father had similar symptoms with his CyberstormPPC 4000D; the fan on the PPC chip had died.
With the PPC at 240MHz and with a Voodoo board in there as well, things could be getting a little too toasty. Check your cooling setup.
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nasty wrote:
Setup: Sig
I noticed was the green light on the Power Tower is alot brighter without the PPC card fitted! so this leads me to think that it is a power issue rather than the ppc card on its way to the sky.
Okay, maybe not relevant but anyway - my 1200/060 Power tower frequently has problems booting after being turned off. Often when this happens the green power light is at around half its normal brightness.
Sometimes I open it up and have a fiddle around with the Mediator/060 IDE cables, anything else, sometimes I just give it a gentle but firm double thwack on the right hand side. This (touch wood) usually does the trick.
I suppose my point is that the brightness of the green light is not necessarily due to any hardware changes.
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My long since gone A2000T(bomac) would do the same thing after afew soft resets. The Green LED would dim. Thast didn't have a PPC and had TWO power supplies. No I'm not trying to win the pissing contest, it really did have two PS...
Is there a GURU who knows what exactly causes The power light to dim? I know it does it on Reset or a crash (it will blink).
This kind of info would be good for everyone...
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the CIA controls the LED.
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500 or even 600 watts is completely ridiculous for that kind of setup - with just one harddrive 200-250 watts will be ample.
As has been said: check cabling - a single thin wire won't do. Check voltage levels on various parts of the board and CPU card.
Also check for caps failures: electrolytic caps age, lose the capacitance and may leak. Check for bulged tops, blown rubber stops and brown residue.
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Take the cover off the computer and put a fan on it. if it doesnt crash or crashes later it is a heat issue...
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The heat issue has already be taken care. The crashing was sorted out by using an higher amp psu :-D
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Two thoughts...
Firstly, has anyone tried to augment the power feed to a PPC by finding the +5v, +12v, and 0v rails on the PPC and soldering a additional molex socket to them? A bit like modern high-end gfx cards?
I doubt the power tracks, never mind the edge connector, on the A1200 were ever designed with supplying TWO processors with power in mind.
Just out of intrest, I was working on a 300Mhz PC when I started getting "Divide by zero errors" all over the place. Turns out i'd forgot to re-connect the processor fan and the heatsink was far too hot to touch.
Hodgkinson.