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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: 98PaceCar on September 12, 2003, 06:23:21 AM
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I spent the evening tearing down my 3000 desktop and doing a major upgrade to it. Brought it up to 16mb static zip ram, latest dmac, latest buster, latest ramsey, latest scsi, kickstart 3.1, os 3.9 on a fresh partition, picasso II, and cybergraphx 4.1. Everything seems to be running ok, but if I leave the system idle for more than a few minutes, the screen goes to a low res black screen with a blank title bar. It sits there for a minute or so and then reboots. Not getting a guru when this happens, but I was getting a few random gurus while I was playing with the screen modes. Is there something obvious I should look for before I start backing out what I did?
TIA,
98PaceCar
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Reboots on its own! That's handy, next there will be computers that type in programs and stuff on their own(broken keyboards do that, but not very well). ;-)
:-)
Sounds like a short, or an overheating problem.
Have you tried using it without the graphics card, since it sounds as though the display goes funny first, unplug that(after changing+saving the screenmode settings), and let it sit and run for a while.
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Hi,
When you installed 3.9 on the fresh partition, this was before or after you made all the hardware changes? I'm sure you already have, but you've gone back inside the machine & pressed down firmly on all the chips, right? Have you tried running any other graphics software besides Cybergraphx? (And as a final thought, does anybody with more experience than myself know if the A3000 power supply might not be able to support all of these items?)
Good luck,
Mike
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Perhaps you didn't use enough WD40 ;-)
You should spray that #### on like hell... ;-)
(NOTE: I AM ONLY JOKING ABOUT THE WD40 - DO NOT USE IT ON YOUR SOLID STATE ELECTRONICS)
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I'd try things in this orded... pushing down firmly on all chips, testing other gfxdrivers for the gfxcard, test machine without gfx drivers att all, removing the gfx card, remove the new ZIP RAM just installed.
If nothing of above does anything then while the machine is as above I'd install OS3.1 and see if that works with and without gfxcard and different drivers, if not I'd clean the system from the gfx drivers and card and change back an old chip one at a time (with the rom last) and check if it works untill I find the new chip that is faulty or have gone through em all without any change in witch case I would probably give up and send it for repairs. :/
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I don't think it's a software issue. :-)
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The solution would either be in those RAM chips, or in the power supply.
You could try and switch to the original on-board chips.
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I still think it's a short.
Try checking the motherboard real close up. Look for burnt areas.
And feel the cables, see if anything gets too hot during operation.
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I'd say it could be a PSU problem...
- Paul
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I know it's a bit late now, but you might have been better off replacing one chip at a time and letting the machine run for a while to test.
You may have a bad chip, but more likely one didn't seat right. If one is inserted making marginal contact, heat expansion and/or vibration will make it lose contact after a while, and letting the machine cool will appear to solve the problem temporarily.
What worked for me when I had a similar problem...pull EVERY socketed chip and re-insert. (One at a time so you don't lose track!) Not a bad idea to blow out the socket with compressed air before reseating. This solved a spontaneous reboot problem with my A3000T, it'll now run for weeks at a time.
Even if this doesn't solve your problem, you might consider doing it as preventive maintenance as long as you have it open anyway. Not EVERY time you open the case, maybe more like once every couple years.
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@iamaboringperson
oh man your signature with those rolling smilies... :-D is funnily annoying ;-D
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Yea, I probably should have staged my changes. But I got caught up in swapping stuff out and you know how it goes!
I'll have to check to make sure everything is seated, but I'm kinda leaning towards it being a software problem. I didn't get to use the system much, but it seemed like it would only reboot if it was sitting idle. Kind of a screen saver type of thing!
I did remember one thing I probably messed up.. I installed the original Picasso driver before I installed the Cybergraphx. I tried to remove the Picasso like the Cybergraphx requires, but I may have missed something (very likely). Maybe I'll just re-install 3.9 and Cybergraphx and see what that gets me. At least it's not like windows where it takes a couple hours to install!
Thx,
98PaceCar
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Could it be a screen saver crashing the system? Maybe it changes to a screen res not supported by the monitor and you are not seeing the GURU alert before it reboots.
Stew
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That's kinda what I'm thinking, but I don't remember how to set one up! That's another of tonight's projects!
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98PaceCar wrote:
That's kinda what I'm thinking, but I don't remember how to set one up! That's another of tonight's projects!
Say, good idea! I recall having the same problem with a screen blanker many years back... Try checking for running commodities, in your Workbench Startup directory, S:Startup-Sequence, and S:User-Startup. AFAIR 3.9 didn't install one by default, but your system might be different...
(Also: You don't have any invalidated DC-FFS partitions on your hard drive, do you? What a killer that is...)
Good luck,
Mike
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@98PaceCar -
BTW, what's the 98 Pace Car? You don't mean an Oldsmobile 98, do you? :-D
-Oldsmobile Mike
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@Oldmobile_Mike,
That's right! It was a commodity! Ok, this stuff is coming back to me slowly.. I'll give that a shot when I get home tonight.. As far as I know, all of my partitions are valid (hope)! If the other one is bad my system backup is probably toast!
98PaceCar.. That's chevy's idea of a full size hot wheels car! The purple and yellow 98 vette from the Indy 500! I've had one since before the race in 98. One of my other toys!!
Thx!
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@Oldsmobile_Mike,
Though I do have to admit, as much as I like my vette, I have a major soft spot for the old 442 and the Hurst series cars.. Those just ooze class and style!!
98PaceCar
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Those are great cars but I have a 1970 Buick GS convertible 455 stage one with (a dum roll please) 4 speed.
Bought it in 76 and my wrecked the front end in 80. It has been sitting in the Garage ever since. Man would I like to find a good cheap front end for it.
Stew
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That should say my wife wrecked it. Just wanted to clarify that. :-D
Stew
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Stew wrote:
Those are great cars but I have a 1970 Buick GS convertible 455 stage one with (a dum roll please) 4 speed.
Bought it in 76 and my wrecked the front end in 80. It has been sitting in the Garage ever since. Man would I like to find a good cheap front end for it.
@Stew -
Man, that is a real collectors item, and there are just a ton of clubs and sites on the internet that cater to them. In particular, you might try here (http://car-part.com/). They had listings for quite a few of the parts I need for my '72 Electra (although I've always prefered buying local, but that's getting pretty hard with such cars as ours). PM me if you'd like any help.
Best,
Mike
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@stew, @Oldsmobile_mike,
I agree completely! That is a phenominal piece of history to own! I'm glad you haven't given up on her and parted her out or anything. At the rate we are going, we could put together quite the collection of rare cars just between the 3 of us!
And not to hijack the thread, but... ;-)
I think I've found my culprit. When I installed the Picasso, it was on a clean 3.9 install. I used the disks that came with the Picasso followed by Cybergraphx 4. The install for Cybergraphx says to completely uninstall the Picasso software first. I missed a part. A little commodity called StyxBlank that the Picasso installed. It was set to trigger after 100 seconds of inactivity. I took it out, rebooted, and it's been fine for about 10 minutes now.
I also ran through about 4 hours of burn in loops with the Commodore 3000 Burn In disk with no problems. So, hopefully I've found my gremlin and am ready to tackle the next upgrade... My Apollo 3060!
Wish me luck!
Thanks to everybody for their help. I'm really glad that there are still friendly Amiga users out there that are willing to help out a relative newbie!
98PaceCar
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Actually we hijacked your thread. Sorry but glad to see everything going smoothly. Many think the 3000 with a graphics card is the ultimate Amiga.
Stew
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I have found parts but man the $$$. It needs grille, both front inner and outer fenders, hood and supporting structure, radiator, and you get the picture. I have a 69 Charger in real nice condition that my son wrecked the rear pass quarter. That is first in line to fix. Next is a 71 AMX we are in the middle of restoring. My Buick is last in line :-?
Stew
BTW
When I bought my Buick my brother-in -law to be came with. He was so jealous on the way home he bought a 71 Olds cutlass convertible 455 auto. :-D
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@Stew,
Any thread can be hijacked to talk old cars!! I was just giving you guys a hard time!! :-D
WOW! You've got quite the collection from the sounds of it! I guess it always does work out that the car you want to restore the most is the last one to get done, but at least you've got some great ones to work on till then!
I don't have any classics right now, just my 98 Pace Vette and an 01 Dakota R/T. But I'm working on making the R/T a classic styled mopar. Already went with a replica shaker hood in flat black (the truck is silver). I'm considering a tail stripe next, but haven't decided yet..
Anyway, good luck with your projects! If you ever make it to Dallas and want to talk cars over a drink, let me know!
98PaceCar
BTW, I agree that the 3000 decked out is the ultimate Amga. I'm still in awe at how good it looks and runs with 3.9 and the Picasso. Just need an 060 and I think I'll be set!
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BTW, I agree that the 3000 decked out is the ultimate Amga. I'm still in awe at how good it looks and runs with 3.9 and the Picasso. Just need an 060 and I think I'll be set!
I would love to own an A3000. :-)
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BTW, I agree that the 3000 decked out is the ultimate Amga. I'm still in awe at how good it looks and runs with 3.9 and the Picasso. Just need an 060 and I think I'll be set!
Yes I would agree that an A3000 is by far the best Amiga ever when its decked out. I use mine as my main system for day to day use. Here is all is:
A3000D in Elbox Mirage Tower
Mediator 3000(7 zorro III slots, 1 Video, 5 PCI)
2MB Chip and 12MB Fast on MB
Cyberstorm PPC, 128MB 60NS ram
Catweasel MK II floppy controller with 4 IDE ports, 2 clock ports and other junk.
Kewalda Boot adapter to use PC HD drives as bootable Amiga 880k drives and Amiga HD in WB.
Teratek FM801-AU Digital sound card. (This is so awsome) 100% 24Bit AHI compatable sound card.
Soundblaster 4.1 Digital Sound card. (Works too, but not as nice as the above. I use it as a mixer)
TrendNET 10/100 Ethernet card.
Hogepage TV Tuner card. (My WB backdrop is a TV channel if I want it. Its a lot of fun)
3DFX Voodoo 3, 3000 PCI Video card. 16MB of Video RAM, works with P96 very well!! Exelent card for Amiga! In P96speed it blows the CV3D I had away!
2 Sony 1.76MB drives
1 56X IDE CD-ROM. (I have a 12X SCSI drive that seems not to work as nice as the IDE. I use the last ASIM CDFS. Its all I could ever get to work for any drives. If you use something else can you let me know how to get it working????)
1 60GB Maxtor IDE drive for storage and data.
1 580MB IBM SCSI drive for 3.9 boot
Brother Laser Printer
USR Courier 14.4 HST modem (from the old days. I used to love using this modem! It even connects to dial-ups at 9600 if they have a USR V-Everything modem, which most do)
Nice system, I've had it, and added to it since 1990.
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@iamaboringperson,
Keep an eye open, there's some great deals out there on 3000's. I got my first one for $20 from Goodwill. After some cleaning and reseating ram, it works perfectly.
My second one came from Ebay. Advertised as dead, but I got it working already. It's kinda hacked up, but it came with a complete set of upgraded chips, ks 3.1, a little over 32 mb ram of zip ram chips, some other spare chips, hd floppy drive, standard external floppy (1010), os 3.1, 3.5, 3.9, Cybergraphx 4, a bunch of other software (Final Writer 97, Final Calc, Fusion 3.1, Turbo Print 5, 6, and 7, some games, and the usual pd stuff), a Picasso II 2 mb, and an Apollo 4060. Got all that for a hair over $250 shipped. Just the upgraded chips are worth almost that. So far, I can't get the Apollo to work, but even without that I think I got a great deal! Combine the 2 systems and I'm ready to rock!!
98PaceCar
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@Acill,
:-o
WOW!! That's an awesome system!! Maybe one of these days I'll have mine built up to something close!!
98PaceCar
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Hi there. Two things to consider doing.
#1: Try replacing the ram chips.
#2: Get a Better Power Supply.
Hope this helps.
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@destro,
Thanks for the advice, but it turned out to be a software issue. When I installed the original software for the Picasso II, I didn't realize that it put out a screen blanker that Cybergraphx didn't like. When the screen blanker turned on, the machine would hang for a bit, then reboot. Removed that and she's been running fine ever since!
98PaceCar