A500+ won't boot - flashing power LED

[r_welfare]

Hi there

Bought an old A500+ from a boot sale to relive some old memories this morning.  When I got it home, powered it up but there is no screen output or drive clicking.  The power LED performs a cycle of one long and ten short flashes.

Looking at old posts on the subject here, it was suggested that the chips should be reseated or inspected for frying.  I've opened up the case but nothing seems to be hot or have fried and everything seems to be seated correctly.  Should I go around levering up the chips and reseating them anyhow?

Could the problem perhaps be with the power supply unit itself?  It makes a strange whistling sound just after it's turned off...

Any help appreciated!

Cheers
Richard

[r_welfare]

patrik wrote:
@r_welfare:

The A500+ has a NiCd clock-battery that leaks and eats away the tracks of the motherboard when it gets old, you better check it.

/Patrik

Patrik, you could be onto something here.  I whipped the case off and there's lots of 'fur' around the battery at the terminals.  Looks like there may be a bit of 'track eating' around some tiny components near the battery.  Is it easy/worthwhile to clean up?

Thanks to everyone else for your suggestions.  On the PSU front, I will try and borrow a friend's PSU from his A500.  I'm not getting any colours on the monitor at all.

[r_welfare]

Patrik

Thanks for your tip.  I will have a go at cleaning up the circuit board.

I've been round and tried pushing the chips down (I actually removed the ROM chip and re-seated it) but to no avail.

Richard

[r_welfare]

Don't have a multimeter...but I do know someone with a working A500 PSU.  A trip to him is in order!

I have now removed the old RTC battery (covered in fur...ugh) and cleaned up that area of the motherboard with methylated spirits.  All the chips seem to be correctly seated.  The machine still doesn't work...but on the upside, it's still flashing the same error so I haven't done any more damage :-)

[r_welfare]

As it was only £3, have bought a standard A500 motherboard from eBay.  Hopefully now I can get it working, should also mean I get to play more fun old games...

[r_welfare]

Well, a happy ending to the story - after retrofitting the machine with an A500 Revision 6A motherboard, it finally works.  Thanks to everyone for their help.  I'm off for a game of Hunter!