A4000T appears to be dead

[X-ray]

Well, it was a day that started happily enough: I bought a PPC from one of the users here and it arrived today. It came with a 9gb UW SCSI drive that had been attached to the PPC when it had been in his A4000T. He had a PIV and I have a PIV, so it should have been a simple case of plug and play.
Anyway I put the PPC in, attached the drive and booted. Well, I got quite a few gurus and then a series of recoverable alerts, and after clicking them away the system booted. PIV worked fine, I ran some tests, it all seemed okay, but only 64mb of ram showed on the PPC and the guy told me it has 128mb. Also, if I attached my old drives to the onboard SCSI of the A4KT, then I would have a situation where the machine wouldn't boot (I made sure the PPC drive had the highest priority). After a while, I decided to ditch my drives for the time being and just modify the PPC boot partition so that I could get my CD-rom recognised  and then adapt that Workbench from there. (I was going to do a fresh install from my OS3.9 CD) But when I tried to boot again, all I was getting was gurus. It got so that the only success I had was to remove all the HDs and then I could see an insert disk screen. I took the PPC out and put my MKII 060 back, and.....nothing.
The Amiga will not boot. Its a black screen that doesn't change, there is no floppy drive activity, no insert disk, nothing. These are the things I have tried:

MKII and floppy disk only
PPC and floppy disk only
Spare 030 and floppy disk only (changed clock jumpers temporarily to test the 030)
All three CPU cards with one HD
All three CPU cards with my original CF boot partition
Checked all the ribbon cables, power cables, simm modules (on the mobo too)
Tried to feel for hot chips (I don't have any diagnostic tools)
I even tried a spare disks and AV module, no joy

Nothing.

Is there anything I may have overlooked? Has anyone had a non-booting Amiga after installing a PPC card?

Any suggestions are welcome, no matter how simple or obvious they may seem.

(I haven't tried my spare CIAs yet because that will involve some poking and prodding because I don't have a puller, but they are new and they don't feel hot.)

[X-ray]

@ metalman

Yep, all SCSI devices removed, even the cables.
I have found out one dunce-worthy thing I did: I thought my MKII was running on EXT clock jumpers, so I didn't change them for the PPC.
This means I ran the PPC on INT jumpers. I don't know if this could have damaged the mobo, but I'm surprised the PPC worked how it did.
Anyway, setting the jumpers to EXt and trying again with the PPC yields nothing, and setting the jumpers to INT and trying the MKII yields nothing.

I am beginning to think to myself "that's another fine mess you've landed us in, Stanley"

[X-ray]

A few other things I have tested:

Repeat toggling of the Caps Lock key: works. I can do it as often as I like, it doesn't freeze.
Also I can now get the rainbow reset pattern on the MKII, but that is all. No floppy access, no Kickstart screen, just black.

And here is a strange thing: there is a 'static' sound coming from the internal speaker. I only noticed because the speaker led was flickering and when I toggled the button to make the sound come through the internal speaker, there was the static. It comes and goes though. Very weird. Maybe I should call Mulder and Scully?

[X-ray]

@ Argus

The floppy is connected correctly, no missed pins. If I change the connection around I get a solid drive access light, so it must be right how it is now.

[X-ray]

@ all

I don't know what's going on but ten minutes ago I got the 030 to work (I had a kickstart screen) but now it won't work. And the other 2 cards won't work.

I've checked what I can (cables, SIMMS nicely socketed), removed everything, even the battery and the speaker, checked under the mobo for signs of trouble, and still I have no luck. I couldn't ahve toasted both 060 cards, because the MKII hasn't been used with the wrong jumper settings/any other kind of potential damage, so I must guess that there is an intermittent problem with the mobo that is stopping it from booting.

@ metalman
the only soceted chips I have are my CIAs (and that is not usual for an A4000T, but I doubt they are to blame.

What I want to know is whether any chips can produce intermitent problems

[X-ray]

Last thing I tried before going to bed:

spare AT PSU (new old stock)

No change, I'm still bootless  

 :-(    

[X-ray]

@ Karlos

I also think it is a mobo problem. This morning I tried the 030 again and it worked. I tried the MKII straight after and I got nothing.
So the question is: what is there on the mobo that is likely to affect an 060 but not an 030 card?
Can the Buster do that?


Edit: tried the 030 again straight after the MKII and it doesn't work

 :-?  :-?  :-?

[X-ray]

Well, folks, I don't know what's going on here but it is all systems green.

I got home today and had given up, because all I could get to work was the 030 and the floppy. I switched off, put the MKII back in, said to myself this is the last thing I wil try before I have the mobo checked by somebody else, and the thing worked. Attached the drives, all okay. Then I tried the PPC: also worked.
I am happy because it all works now, but I'm unhappy because I tried so many things last night and found nothing. I checked connectors, seating of the CPU cards: everything I could. I must have tried each card at least 5 times, with different combinations of floppy and HD drive, barebones etc.

So, this is weird. I gave the MKII ample chance last night to work: left it on for ten minutes (that should be long enough to exclude a SCSI problem) and it didn't boot. It didn't like any drives either. But today, it's all good.

 :-?  :-?

I'm beginning to think this Miggy is definitely female and is doing this for attention. (My ex used the same tactic  :-)  )

[X-ray]

But that's just the thing: I had a look at the connectors on the cards and the CPU slot: all perfectly clean, and the 030 worked. I think something else screwy is going on, and it bugs me that I haven't found it.

[X-ray]

But what I don't get is the 030 was the only card that worked, and I tested the cards sequencially. The 030 card went in (and was removed) at least 5 times. And it worked, so I don't think this is a CPU connection problem.

Well, I haven't done anything special with the CPU slot, other than make sure that the cards were in securely, just like I was doing last night.
I actually got a flashlight and peered under the edge of each card I tested to make sure the card connector edge was flush against the CPU connector edge. No dirt or dust inside, I checked that.

Well, thanks for helping, guys, I'll just run this with an open case for a few days and see what happens.

(By the way I still have the strange static sound from the internal speaker. I don't mind about that because I've attached the speaker LED to the drive LED jumper on the PPC board, and turned the internal speaker off for now)

[X-ray]

@ X56

Is there a specific brand you recommend?

[X-ray]

@ X56

Thanks  :-)

I will look for something similar.
It's all in now, I had several non-boots (without touching the CPU card) and they seem to be related to other HDs on the onboard scsi device. But it's sorted out now. All the devices are there. Just have to sort out software / dosdrivers now (no more MKII cyberSCSI, no more OS3.1, no more CF on IDE)

[X-ray]

@ PaSha

If you were a woman I would kiss you, mate!!!!

 :banana:  :banana:  :banana:

You nailed the first half of my problem exactly.

For the benefit of any poor sod other than myself, this is what happened:

The PPC card has its own plastic spacers, but the spacers on this card were so loose that they came off very easily. However the spacers on the A4000T motherboard are 'dug in like Alabama ticks'...I didn't have any reason to suspect that the mobo spacers were of a different length, so I installed the card on those spacers. And that is why I had no boot (on most occasions). I will post pictures of this problem, to save some other ignorant SOB the same woes as I have had in the past few days.

I have now pulled the A4KT spacers out (was like pulling the teeth of a granite gorgoyle) and installed the loose PPC board spacers. I'll have to get a special adhesive to (non-permanently) secure these spacers.

Of course, this all makes sense now because the 030 card doesn't rest on any spacers, that's why it worked most of the time. Add to this the other variables of SCSI cables unplugged, IDE cables plugged/unplugged, (insert any variable you like here) and there are quite a few variables and its not surprising I didn't spot the problem. I was doomed to failure because of the spacers. When I checked that the CPU card was properly seated, I checked the alignment of the two connectors, and they were exactly aligned. I didn't look at the case from the other angle to see if the CPU card wasn't parallel to the mobo: after-all, I thought if the spacer ends were secure to the mobo and the CPU card, and the edges of the connectors were flush, it must have been secure, yes??? And from the top, the CPU card looked flush and secure: the focus was on the connector, not the other side of the card.

Ha!!

Seecond problem: (nobody here would have guessed, it was my own fault) when I finally had the CPU card properly seated (just by luck/pressure) I had several no-boot problems if SCSI 2 devices were attached. I had to boot from the PPC UW drive because I didn't have the proper OS installed on the SCSI 2 drives: I had been booting from a CF card that had OS3.1 on it before I got the PPC.
Bottom line: I checked SCSI IDs, boot priorities, and got the machine to boot, but not all drives were visible on the Workbench, although they were seen by HDToolbox. That's when I realised it was a filesystem problem and remembered that the 'problem drives' were SFS.

DOH!!!!

Installed SFS...and all is well.

I think I will entitle this little incident "X-ray's folly"

An amusing tale, now that the facts are known  :-)

[X-ray]

@ Doobrey

Highly annoying, especially when the difference in length between the two spacers is less than  3mm !!!!!

[X-ray]

@ Fallen One

The problem was spacers (see earlier posts)

I tested the PSU when all this happened, because I have a spare.