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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: billchase on April 11, 2004, 01:50:29 AM
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My 4000T refuses to boot.
1. Lights and all drives power up
2. Video signal initializes
3. Stripped all zorro cards out
4. Same results with original 040 board
5. Replaced disk and A/V modules (not 100% that
the replacement A/V module is good)
6. None of the start-up pre-boot menus will activate
7. Will not boot from floppy
8. None of the troubleshooting codes or the workbench
disk animation will display.
The machine basically powers up, the monitor kicks in
and everything just sits there. I was in the process
of removing and installing various expansion cards
(of course with power off!). I must have made some
careless mistake, but not sure what I would have done.
Thanks.
Specs:
4000T with Phase5 060/604e 128MB
Picasso IV
OS3.9
Thanks!
C Snyder
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See if pressing the caps lock key turns the keyboard LED on and off. If not, it shows the CPU is totally not doing anything.
With nothing connected to the motherboard other than a 5V supply and a CPU board, it should boot into the purple insert disk screen.
When you put the A3640 CPU card back in, make sure you set the two clock source jumpers to the correct position (I think it's external mode for A3640?).
Could be almost anything at fault, but you can narrow it down by thinking what you did in the time between when it was working and when it wasn't.
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You might want to check the floppy cable. I have had problems with my A4000T not booting because it wasn't properly connected and one time a wire got sliced when I slid the floppy into the bay.
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I will check that out, but I am afraid it something
more terminal. Hopefully I'm wrong.
C Snyder
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have you checked the battery on the motherboard? if so, then have you also checked on the reverse side of the motherboard under the battery, there should be small ic's (or diodes) check to make sure that none are corroded due to battery leakage, and make sure that all ram chips are properly seated and secure (a4000 has bad history with broken memory clips). GOOD LUCK!!!
P.S.
if you have never changed your battery, do your self a favor, and get it out, you dont need it to run the A4000. My A4000 (when I had one) had a battery that looked fine from the top but under the motherboard trashed an ic, I had to replace the motherboard, as soon as I got the new mobo, (wich looked brand spanken new!) I had brought the motherboard to a tv repaire shop for a clean removal, and said screw the battery, I dont need it.
once again, GOOD LUCK!
Warpiper
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humm....battery corrosion really shouldn't be an issue on genuine 4000T's, as they have some flat lithium batteries that hardly leaks.
I have the similar problem when I connect a SCSI hdd onto the mobo SCSI chain, cd-roms and tape-streamers work fine, just not HDD's....odd, isn't it?
Anyway, my 4000T also needs a reboot when powering on from a cold-boot, if I use the onboard ide connector.
I guess the 4000T's are temperamental pieces of computers, eh?
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sorry I was talking from A4000 Destop experience
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sorry I was talking from A4000 Destop experience
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Someone mentioned about the Caps Lock key.
It does light/unlight when pressed. The battery
is the coin type which has been replaced (mounted
a socket for easy replacement). All the simms are
mounted on the 060/604e board, none on the motherboard.
Still haven't swapped floppy cables yet. I was in the
process of swapping various zorro cards around. Only
thing I can think of is that I left the power cord
connected while doing so. Thanks for the help!
C Snyder
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@bill
Rip out all scsi/ide/floppy cables, and see if the kickstart screen appears. Then insert them one by one and see what happens...
You might also try reseating the cpu-card and the disk and I/O cards, my 4000T arrived at me heavily bashed by the postmen, so a little bit of tearing apart and building up cured a lot of problems... :admonish:
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I had the same kind of problem with my tower and it turned out that I had plugged in the cable to the floppy one pin off. The pin left out was slightly bent, but once I spotted it and plugged the cable in correctly, it booted fine. Just a thought, but if it hadn't been for a tiny scratch I noticed on the side of the plug, I never would have noticed.
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I disconnected the scsi and floppy cables, still
no kickstart screen.
C Snyder
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Have you taken all the ram off the motherboard? One of the sticks is the chip ram (probably a 2meg stick) I bet the machine won't do much without it.
Are you using a monitor on graphics card or the video output? Have you tried plugging it into a TV and seeing what colour screens you get? (Red means duff chipram but indicates power supply problems as well)
Are you sure your mouse works? (seeing as you are using it to test for problems)
Try putting a small ram stick in the fastram slots on the motherboard just to see if it works then. (I think the largest you can use is 4meg sticks)
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That sometimes hapennes to me.
The way I fix it is by pushing in the CPU card properly.
Perhaps you could clean the connector?
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If I am not mistaken, the chip ram is soldered to the
motherboard. All the simms sockets are used as fast ram.
I actually haven't used any simms on the motherboard
since I installed my cyberstorm with max ram a few years
ago. I have seated and reseated the cpu card with no
results. I am afraid the problem lies in the A/V module
(the machine will not boot without it) or possibly on the
motherboard. I have a PIV graphics and have also tried
booting the machine using the native display.
C Snyder
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billchase wrote:
I disconnected the scsi and floppy cables, still
no kickstart screen.
Dunno about the 4000T, but my desktop A4000 wont boot with the floppy removed.
Have a look on aminet for happyharddrive.lha , it shows a mod to remove the floppy (AFAIK it`s just 1 resistor) then if it boots after that, you`ll know the floppy is dead, or the cable is duff.
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the A4000T (amiga version - not modded A4000D) had the chip ram souldered onto the mainboard, and the battery isn't really an isse so that should be cool.
a Cyberstorm1/2/3/PPC equipped machine _WILL_ boot with no fast memory installed, do this to check its not dodgy memory... do any of the simms get real hot real quick after turning on? (obvious sign of dead ram chip). tho it might be good to stick a known good simm in a mainboard slot just to help it out (it will be dog slow tho ;)
remove all IDE/SCSI devices and set termination accordingly.
power on, and after a few seconds to half a minute, does the floppy drive click? (the machine polls the drive to see if its got a disk in there). this indicates that the machine has passed all power on/reset tests has probed the scsi and IDE busses looking for devices with bootable partitions, couldn't find anything, and is waiting for a bootable disk/drive even if there is no video (duff I/O board)
as you said the the caps lock light was working, i take it then it wasn't flashing by itself? there is a document somewhere that explains not only the amiga's boot colours, but the caps lock flash sequence too for trouble shooting
i can't think what else to check other than the CPU/BUS clock jumpers (for Cyberstorms, both set to external. numbers J101/J104 i seem to remember. prolly wrong there :-) )
the mainboard is properly mounted and not shorting against the case? the CPU board is mounted with those plastic standoffs, and not just hanging off the CPU slot? ;-)
if you sniff the mainboard, nothing smells burnt?
it could be your PSU is cooked. tried another one? My A4000T CybPPC with a shed load of zorro cards had eaten about three PSU's in the time i had it. (the drives were run from another PSU.. there is space enuff in the case for two.)
anything else i can't think of at the moment... good luck!
----additional thought----
whenever i booted with DF0: disconnected, it would boot, but complained about no disk in device DF0: and workbench would show "DF0:????" so as for not booting without a floppy drive, you got me there....
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The A4000T doesn't need the Audio/Video module to boot. I have been booting without it for months.
BUT It can't boot without the scsi/floppydisk module, and if it isn't correctly seated my A4000T won't boot.
I can boot without the floppy disk connected.
I can't boot from cold if I have an IDE hard disk connected, I have to do a reset. That doesn't seem to happen if the IDE device connected is a CDROM.
I usually boot from scsi drives