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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: elpiloto on February 09, 2008, 10:11:12 PM
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hi,
some days ago i bought an A4000/040 that doesnt work, looking carefuly at the mainboard i found that the component U152 is not there, seems that someone took it. I dont have so many chances to find an a4000 mainboard here, so, is there any other way to find this U152 and come back to life this A4000?
regards
Hernan
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what revision is it?? u152 does not appear on here.> http://www.amiga-hardware.com/download_photos/a4000revbmb_1.jpg
just empty.
some more info on the fault and you will get more replies to help.
does it power on, if so do you get a display? what colour is the display if any, flashing power light or keyboard light sometimes point to a fault.
do you have the roms/memory/cpu installed correctly?
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hi,
Well, now that i see that pic i assum that on B rev the U152 IS empty, and nothing must be there, seems that i saw some other rev, my fault.
Well my REV is B, im testing the motherboard out of the case with the a3640 board on, and without the dougther board because i suspect that a capacitor is in short.
When i hit the power button the psu starts ok, the power led comes ON, the hdd starts spining but the hdd led is OFF all the time, the FDD dont click looking for disk, the screen is black all the time, the CAPS LOCK seems to be ok, dont flash, and if i hit it the light comes on and if i hit it again the ligh turns off. If i reset the machine (ctrl + A + A) the power led lower its intensity and after a sec show its full intensity again ( like when i reset my a500 and a1200) but the screen continue black
I looked for some cut or some corossion on the motherboard and i didnt find anyone, seems that there are not shorts on the mainboard, i cleaned all with isoprophyl alcohol.
I checked the psu V values an they are OK, i also checked cuts, corossion signs and shorts on the A3640, but there are no one, also i changed the capacitors on the A3640 board ( according to http://amiga.serveftp.net/A3640_capacitor.html) because i had the reverse polarity thing on my A3640 board.
Also i noticed that gary, super buster and ramsey dont gain the normal operation temperature, they are cold, not like the other ones.
Im a bit stuck and i will be very thankfull for any help
:-)
regards
Hernan
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Hello, El Piloto!
Glad to see you here. Shame that is this bad situation.
Looks like you have a bad CPU card. Look for the jumpers who are able to set internal or external CPU (you have a 2B revision board, so you have an 030 in the mobo).
The jumpers (to make the board boot with internal 030 CPU, no accelerator):
J100: 1-2 (leave 3 open)
J104: 1-2 (diddle)
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Hi rkaurer
the mainboard says REV B
both jumpers are on EXT position.
I dont see any 68030 procesor on the mainboard
regards
Hernan
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any idea?
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How serious are you about getting this baby up and running? I have three A4000 mainboards and an extra A3640 board on hand, but I am planning on eventually selling them on Ebay. I know that two of the boards are an older rev, and are missing some chips, but you could probably use the chips on your board to bring it to life.
If you want, I will provide some pictures of the boards and test them out to see if they boot OK. (I have some extra ROMS somewhere to test them out...)
Please feel free to PM me if you want me to pursue this. The chipless boards will be inexpensive, but I would ask more for the board with the chips still on it.
Thanks,
Douglas
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Well my REV is B, im testing the motherboard out of the case with the a3640 board on, and without the dougther board because i suspect that a capacitor is in short.
You need the daughter card. I do have a spare, from a good machine. Email me.
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elpiloto wrote:
Hi rkaurer
the mainboard says REV B
both jumpers are on EXT position.
I dont see any 68030 procesor on the mainboard
regards
Hernan
Sorry, my bad. Only revision D have a 030 on board. You need to grab another accelerator to test your system.
BTW: how is the area around the battery?
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It could be that the connection of the CPU card is faulty, I've had the same problem with similar symptoms. Take out the CPU card, clean the contacts and reseat the card while applying a little pressure after it's seated (not too hard).
Good luck.
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RKAUER:
the area arround the battery is ok, no corrosion
McVenco:
I already did what you say, but im in the same situation, black screen :cry:
Amiga4K:
The A4000 will not boot without the daughter board?? some one told me that have to boot without it
TDScompute: im very very serious about getting this a4k up and running again, i cant live with a none working amiga, i have to fix it
cheers
Hernan
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The 4000 *will* boot without the expansion riser card.
for what it's worth, my 4000/Warpengine 4040 recently died and it turned out to be that the warpengine had died. Damn.
Hope you get it working again - I'd suggest trying another known good 3640 or 3630: someone was kind enough to sell me a 3640 for $50
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i hope to find an A3640 for $50
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Good luck - the guy I bought off was also selling an Apollo 4040 and if I'd have known the warpengine was dead, I'd have had that instead...
Try a "wanted" advert, and point out that you've got a dead machine that you're working on - you might get lucky?
EDIT: if I find anyone with a working CPU card for sale, I'll drop you a PM.
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If it's of any help, I have a spare A3630 card that I could part with...
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@chiark
IIRC it depends on A4000 version, it may not boot without daughterboard.
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i hope to find an A3640 for $50
If you can find one, they typically go for closer to $100. I looked for an extra one for a long time.
Now if anyone had a bad card of some type at a price I can afford to try a repair, I might be interested in that too.
Plaz
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crumb im going to send u a pm right now
ya hemos hablado en retrocomputacion ! :-)
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McVenco wrote:
If it's of any help, I have a spare A3630 card that I could part with...
does it works ok? whats the price? pm me please
regards
Hernan
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chiark wrote:
Good luck - the guy I bought off was also selling an Apollo 4040 and if I'd have known the warpengine was dead, I'd have had that instead...
Try a "wanted" advert, and point out that you've got a dead machine that you're working on - you might get lucky?
EDIT: if I find anyone with a working CPU card for sale, I'll drop you a PM.
ok, thank u, i apreciate that!
regards
Hernan
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Hi,
@elpiloto,
Just pulled my A4000 with O40 card out of the Attic, had
the same probem as you have, first thing is check your ide
cable and make sure it is not intermittent, make sure it is
totally plugged in at both ends, check your floppy disk
cables make sure both are tight and then finally check your
CPU 040 card. Press down on it a couple of times and make
sure it is will seated. My old Amiga had an intermittent
ide cable, and a floppy drive cable that was only half way
plugged in. Try CNTRL AMIGA AMIGA does the lights flash
and does it look like its trying to reboot.
Are your JUMPERS correct for an 040 card?
Next thing is do you have a SCSI card in one of the slots?
If you do remove it, because this produces a 30 sec to a
minute delay before the system actuates.
How old is your battery, mine when I first turned it on
after sitting unused for two years, was completely dead, it
took almost 8 hours to get enough charge to actuate the
OS chips so the computer knew what to do on boot up, but
I knew this because my Amiga 4000 always had this problem
when I didn't use it, I solved this problem by going to
Wal-Mart and bought a new 3.6VDC phone battery and put it
in, and yes hillary a 3.6VDC battery works better than that
little piece of junk that came with the Amiga, just get an
old phone, cut the plug off, carefully remove the battery,
leaving the two thin ends still soldered to the board,
solder the plug that you cut out of the old phone to the
two thin tabs you left in observing polarity, and plug in
the phone battery into the plug you removed from the old
phone.
Summary:
Check Floppy disk cable
Check IDE cable
Check Battery
Check Jumpers
Press down or reseat CPU card.
If that don't work, sell me the Amiga 4000 for spare parts.
Good Luck, hope my suggestions work, it will be great to
hear that another Amiga 4000 was saved from scrap heap.
smerf
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smerf wrote:
Hi,
@elpiloto,
Just pulled my A4000 with O40 card out of the Attic, had
the same probem as you have, first thing is check your ide
cable and make sure it is not intermittent, make sure it is
totally plugged in at both ends, check your floppy disk
cables make sure both are tight and then finally check your
CPU 040 card. Press down on it a couple of times and make
sure it is will seated. My old Amiga had an intermittent
ide cable, and a floppy drive cable that was only half way
plugged in. Try CNTRL AMIGA AMIGA does the lights flash
and does it look like its trying to reboot.
Are your JUMPERS correct for an 040 card?
Next thing is do you have a SCSI card in one of the slots?
If you do remove it, because this produces a 30 sec to a
minute delay before the system actuates.
How old is your battery, mine when I first turned it on
after sitting unused for two years, was completely dead, it
took almost 8 hours to get enough charge to actuate the
OS chips so the computer knew what to do on boot up, but
I knew this because my Amiga 4000 always had this problem
when I didn't use it, I solved this problem by going to
Wal-Mart and bought a new 3.6VDC phone battery and put it
in, and yes hillary a 3.6VDC battery works better than that
little piece of junk that came with the Amiga, just get an
old phone, cut the plug off, carefully remove the battery,
leaving the two thin ends still soldered to the board,
solder the plug that you cut out of the old phone to the
two thin tabs you left in observing polarity, and plug in
the phone battery into the plug you removed from the old
phone.
Summary:
Check Floppy disk cable
Check IDE cable
Check Battery
Check Jumpers
Press down or reseat CPU card.
If that don't work, sell me the Amiga 4000 for spare parts.
Good Luck, hope my suggestions work, it will be great to
hear that another Amiga 4000 was saved from scrap heap.
smerf
i did all waht u are saying, nothing happened, my battery is not there i removed it, as far as i know, the battery is only for date keeping, and cant make a machine to not boot, may be im wrong?
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Hi,
Yes the battery does keep track of the clock, but I also
believe that it gives the Amiga 4000 the voltage to actuate
the OS chips (bios). I know when I took out my old batt,
that my Amiga would not boot up. I have the Amiga 4000
schematics on a cd somewhere in my 12 boxes of Amiga junk,
will have to go up in the attic and see if I can find them.
I could be totally wrong about the Amiga's Battery, but it
seemed that my A4000 with the old Battery in there wouldn't
boot up until the battery picked up enough charge to tell
the OS chips what it was. Like I said its been 2 years since
I played with my Amiga's, now that my Amiga 4000 is working
again, I am getting back the old feeling of why I liked it
so much. It is not Bill Gatesorized. It is actually fun to
use, not like VISTA where I have had to actuate it seven
times because of changes made in my computer. I gave up on
VISTA and went back to XP when it asked for the eight
activation, I figured microscrew has to much control over
your system with VISTA and I refuse to use it, I am now
using Ubuntu as my main OS, XP for games, and WinUAE for
my Amiga stuff. My A4000 is used sparingly for my Amiga disk
collection.
Well good Luck, I can only tell you what problems my Amiga
4000 had when I first tried it, by the way since I replaced
the battery, I have had no problems with my Amiga booting
up in 10 seconds or less, but when I put one of my SCSI
cards in it, it takes about 30 seconds to boot up.
smerf
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I have 2*A4000 & 1*A3000, ALL without battery! And all 3 of them works just fine witout the battery :-)
The battery is just for time & date.
My suggestion: Try another set of kickstart roms.
Maybe I have missed it in the thread.. But, have you tried testing without the cables for harddisk & floppy?
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taunusand wrote:
I have 2*A4000 & 1*A3000, ALL without battery! And all 3 of them works just fine witout the battery :-)
The battery is just for time & date.
My suggestion: Try another set of kickstart roms.
Maybe I have missed it in the thread.. But, have you tried testing without the cables for harddisk & floppy?
Yes! im testing the a4000 witout both cables, floppy and hdd, and i dont have any card installed zorro´s, only the mainboard and the a3640
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Batteries are not needed to boot and use an Amiga. These are not PC's people... lol