A1200 Slow Boot

[scuzzb494]

Hi

Stock A1200 basic machine and when firing up takes a good while to boot. Eventually does so and runs the OS from the disk without fault. Has Power Computing 4MB RAM card fitted.

Just slow to get going and wondering if that indicates anything.

[scuzzb494]

Could you be more specific?  What part of the boot process is taking a long time?  Right now we'd just be guessing - could be anything from an IDE error to having a bunch of crap in your Startup-Sequence or WBStartup drawer.  

Slow boot. Switch machine on. No disk in drive and takes way too long for the disk request to appear on the screen. If I boot with a standard OS3 Amiga Workbench disk you wait a very long time for the drive to kick into gear and fire up the OS.

There is no hard drive. There is only a Power Computing RAM board with 4MB RAM. From my experience the computer is taking way too long to kick in with the boot. Just sits there waiting for some reason.

Stock Amiga 1200. Other than that works like a dream. Once it gets to the boot process the drive clicks in and then without disk clicks regularly. You can put a floppy in the drive at that point and will be recognised straight away.

This has nothing to do with software from media. Its a hardware issue or maybe the card and I guess that is what I will do today. Remove and see. Plus check the motherboard over. I don't really like to mess too much when I have machines working. Playing Uridium and running like a dream.

[scuzzb494]

Sounds like failing capacitors. Best to get them replaced! Amigakit provide such a service.

I guess that is what I fear. Trouble is I have so many computers I just don't have the resources. I am going round the 1200s at the moment and they are probably starting to show signs of this being an issue.

Thanks.

[scuzzb494]

When you power up machine do you hear drive doing "click click" or
is it just silent ? I mean without floppy disk inside ?

Maybe it's hacked PC Floppy drive or Escom so it's missing this feature or
it developed fault over time ? Check connection between floppy and
motherboard.No matter how bad PSU is I think stock Amiga with low-profile
turbo card shouldn't be the cause.You'd get no picture then.

Any way to check your Kickstart version (if it's 3.1 or 3.0) ?

Not that caps aren't a concern.

The computer is an original Commodore 1200 and was working fine up to around August 2010 when she went into store. I label all the machines and log any issues. There is no activity on the computer other than the power light for a good time before the computer finally kicks into gear. Once it has registered the activity the computer works fine. I have had only one or two minor glitches with game loading, otherwise mouse and joy ports plus video and sound are all working fine. Once the boot screen appears the floppy works without fault. 3 ROM.

[scuzzb494]

This is normal, the 3.0 Kickstart has a large reset delay to give any attached hard drive time to spin up. When the A1200 was designed back in 1992, hard drives took a long time to spin up.

As already stated in this thread, if you add a hard drive, the reset cycle will complete much quicker.

I remember bring freaked out by the huge reset delay when I first switched my A1200 on (23 years ago almost to the day!), after having just upgraded from an A500.

Sadly in this case it's not normal. The boot from cold to get to the disk insert screen is way way too long. Had it been it's normal cycle I wouldn't have posted here.

I was only reflecting yesterday on the age of my first 1200. My original A1200 is 22 years old next month. Bought for £550 back in November 1993 as part of a Desktop Dynamite pack and fitted with an 80MB hard drive. Still used daily and currently running in the workshop though now with external SCSI drives, CD, ZIP connected via the SCSI KIT on the Blizzard. Still using the original Microvitec monitor. I did order the machine with an Amiga monitor, and even paid a £50 deposit. Sadly Commodore went bust and I couldn't get a monitor for love nor money at the time.

Anyway... the faulty computer will be fitted with a 2.5" when I can find one. I did fit a 2.5" to another A1200 this week and that's been a dream though the floppy decided to play up. Never a dull day. Been like that since I bought my first ZX81... which I also still have and was working last time I fired her up. Don't you just love computers.

This is my ZX81... I actually fitted a proper button press keyboard rather than the flush type that was really annoying.

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/a_scuzz_oct02/a_scuzz_oct10_44.jpg

You can see the flush type keys on the box image.

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/a_scuzz_oct02/a_scuzz_oct10_42.jpg

And here is my original Desktop Dynamite box. You can just read the 80MB on the label. I still have the original 80MB drive. Sadly I bust a pin trying to fit it the wrong way round in an MTEC external casing. Broke my heart. Never mind.

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/boxes/a211_box07.jpg

And this is my A1200 which will be 22 next month. Has worked without fault for all those years. Amazing really. Nothing but nothing has gone wrong... touch wood.

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/my_amiga_large.jpg

All the best.

[scuzzb494]

I noticed you had this picture on your website:

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/car_m2015_03/car0615270.jpg

Is it this A1200?  What is the motherboard mod seen in the picture?  Could your issues somehow be related?

I believe that is an A1200 sitting on the bench awaiting a floppy drive. Not the one in question. I have like over 25 A1200s so tricky sometimes working out which one is which. I have seen quite a few mods to 1200s over the years. I discovered a very strange one the other day just south of the PCMCIA which was busted on a machine.

The motherboard probably came from this old tower that was faulty....

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/a_scuzz_jan05/a_scuzz_feb10_01.jpg

I swapped the boards out at the time and may have left it out. Dunno, I have a load of motherboards. For some reason it found its way back into a case and when I tested was working.

My cardboard Amiga [ joking ]

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz185.htm

The computer that has the slow boot has become the games machine for a while, mostly Chaos Engine at the moment. Without the hard drive no great issues. Working without fault. Have my A2000D and A4000D on test at the moment and they are working.

I think I am starting to realise that its hard drives on stored machines that are going to kill the collection. I am now going to have to put them on rotation to make sure they are all still working.