I have a "spare" Amiga 500 that I haven't tested in quite a while. The system powers up and I hear the floppy drive being accessed (although the sounds are pretty faint). No red light for the drive access and no video. I removed the A501 expansion card. The battery has leaked so I will remove that and attempt to clean the PCB. All of the chips appear to be seated properly.
Please advise regarding next steps to troubleshoot this system.
Sincerely
Derek
Hi,
First order of business. Visual inspection is non distructive. Closely inspect the A500 motherboard for leaking capacitors. Electrolytic caps will have a powdery look at the base of the legs or the top will bulge if they are leaking or bad. Ceramic disc caps will be burnt or cracked. Bad traces. Cold solder joints. Loose chips (found by pressing down on them). There is also a weird thing that takes place with socketed chips - leg corrosion (you can't see). Simply and very very carefully removing these chips and reinstalling them mysteriously fixes enigmatic problems. Same for the floppy connectors and keyboard connection. Agnus is a PLCC chip. Hard to remove carefully without a PLCC chip puller but it can be done. Pull up and out carefully and evenly. Same with the other chips. Hope this gets you in the ball park to troubleshoot further. Side note - The RF composite video RCA connector is not very reliable. An A520 or a monitor connected to the RGB connector is the best way to go. We all know this I am just throwing it out there. Leave your 501 expansion out as you troubleshoot. Focus on the A500. Get it going, then work on the 501. One thing at a time.
Cheers!!
