Can someone please help me

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When turned on, the Amiga should wait for a floppy disk... The disk drive will click every few seconds (that's just the system checking for a disk insertion)... If you don't hear the floppy drive click, very likely there is something wrong with the computer.

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Thanks heaps for the quick response, when i turn it on, the disk drive (or maybe harddrive) clicks once and the caps lock key flashes but no more clicking after that? oh maaaan, so I probably have a dud?

Very unlikely to be a hard drive, there is very little space inside the A500 and there is no IDE interface (though one can easily be hacked onto the CPU socket).

Power light should go bright and dim, but not cycle... Try putting a disk in the drive and see if it boots

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Hmmm, I didn't notice any fuzz when pressing keys or clicking the mouse, I just tried booting with another random disk and I could hear the disk drive reading it? it almost sounded like the drive did something else when i clicked the mouse but maybe I'm being too optimistic.

If the disk was recognised and something loaded, then this is a good thing... What you need to do now is connect the A500 to a TV... I think the monitor is duff (or some setting is off).

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Sorry, what do you mean by 'shorting out'. If by that you mean are any pins touching,then no, but there are a lot of missing pins. Just tried connecting to the TV with the monitor cable unplugged but same result. I'm not atually sure about the PAL or NTSC thing, how do I determine whether the A500 is PAL or NTSC? Thanks so much for your help, its like 2.30 in the morning where I am and all I wanna do is make music on my new toy.

I think even if the Computer is the wrong signal type (NTSC or PAL), it should still give some kind of image on a TV...

The single RCA video output is a Composite output, make sure the TV can take that type of signal.

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I think my TV does support composite input, it's the standard yellow connection for video and red/white connection for audio setup. I believe that's usually for receiving composite signal from the likes of DVD players etc?

That does all sound correct... Have you plugged it all up, turned it on and then left it for a minute or so? I don't know but, perhaps some capacitors have dried out and could take time to charge or something, I'm grasping at straws here... I think the TV connection is where you should start though

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No I haven't tried that but I definitely will, I'm all for straw clutching. I was just reading about the a500+ battery and now I'm really nervous about it having eaten away at the mobo.

The leaking battery is a very real possibility... But let's not go there until we have exhausted all other options

That said, it is easy enough to pop open the case and look for any signs of damage

-edit- just thought, the ROM chips could be loose... Might be an idea to pop the case and check the chips

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Bah! I guess music_liker has passed out or gone to sleep... And this thread was just getting exciting!

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So I opened the computer up today and looked round, all the chips/ram seem to be in place. I removed the battery as it had started to leak, there was a bit of blue crust around where the battery was. I have taken a few (not very good) photos of the slight corrosion crust on the mobo which I will upload soon. Other than that I don't know what to look for

While the lid is off, gently push down on the tops of the chips to make sure they are actually seated in their sockets, oh and get the battery out ASAP!

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Any updates?