I fried my A3000 PSU!

[Blatboy]

That's a good idea.  I've yet to get the floppy to boot from a disk, but I'm using 20 year old WB disks.  I'll make a new on on my 1200 and give that a go.  Not 100% sure the floppy drive is good.  I don't remember it reading anything correctly in the short window I had the computer working.  That said, I had 2 other floppy drives hooked up at the time and I didn't make good notes of what worked and what didn't.

Thanks

[Blatboy]

One problem leads to more...

Seems the floppy drive doesn't want to play nice.  I created new 3.1 Install and WB disks using my 1200.  DF0: on the A3000 keeps saying "Not a DOS disk in device DF0".  I took an old floppy drive from an A500 that I know isn't working (gee I wonder where this is going) and it almost worked...at least it got to the WB screen... but then I got errors.

I guess if I'm going to go this route to see if the HD shows up with the 3.1 install disk, I'll need to pilfer a working floppy drive from my 500 or 1200...

My gut still thinks it's a PSU issue, especially since the power and drive lights aren't lighting up on the front panel.  When the computer worked magically before, those lights came on. I think perhaps the HD isn't getting enough juice or something. I'll take the PSU apart again and test the rectifier, which I neglected to do before.  That said, if the rectifier or the power transistors were failing, I wouldn't be getting correct voltages on the outputs, right?  

I don't really have a way to test the drive, as I don't have another machine that takes SCSI drives (ok I have a Mac Classic II but I don't think that will do me any good at all.)

[Blatboy]

Yeah, I figured out the way the drive cable goes in.  That original df0 is toast.  No good.

The computer's not seeing the hard drive.  The light on the drive itself is on, but that's it.

I was finally able to load the HDTools utility, (after trying 3 external floppy drives and re-creating the install disk twice) and, unfortunately, no hard drive shows up on the list after the SCSI scan.  It also doesn't show up as an option when I go through the boot option screen (2 mouse buttons down)

I double checked all the HD connections, and unless I have the SCSI cable in backwards (which actually looks hard to do, one would really have to twist the ribbon cable around to do that..)

Again, since the power light on the front panel refuses to turn on I'm still leaning towards that PSU.  Yet... maybe it's a scsi issue?  I noticed the SIL sockets right by the HD connector on the motherboard weren't populated.  Looks like some resistor networks would go there... perhaps some sort of SCSI termination?

[Blatboy]

Of course I'm in the middle of a big deadline, so this is how I'm spending my time.  Oy.  I'll never learn.

Regardless...  

Yeah. You're right. The unpopulated sockets are probably a red herring I shouldn't even consider...

More clues:

Clue 1:



Bootup sequence colors.  Regular colors not happening.  I get black screen with stripes before I get the enter disk screen (or WB screen if booting from floppy.)  According to Castellen's page that points to a ROM/CIA issue.  How to go forward with this?  Order new ROMs?  Call the CIA?  The FBI?  Oy bad joke.

Clue 2:



Battery:  Reading up on this, the battery, if not working, could be a source of SCSI woes.  I attempted the setclock command, which, when used without arguments gave me no error, which I think would seem to say the battery is ok.  For a second opinion, I ran the time prefs program off the 3.1 extras disk.  The time was set to sometime in 1994.  I changed the date and saved.  I powered down the computer, and unplugged the power from the PSU.  I rebooted.  It seemed to remember the new date.  Does that prove the battery is operational?  I may consider putting a new one in regardless.  Maybe even the same kind since it looks like a solderless solution, and he's had put some slick velcro holding it in place.

Anyway... I hope I'm not babbling too much here and being a nuisance..  You don't hear from me for years, then I come on and bug the living daylights out of you.

[Blatboy]

thanks Mechy

Just measured the battery.  Outputting -15mV.  I'd say that thing is toast.  I've been able to run HDTools, and it just doesn't see the HD.

I'll see if I can order another battery like the one I have.  That'll make for easy installation.

I'll check out the CIA chips.  I'm not sure where they are, but it's nothing the internet (the oracle) can't tell me.

Thanks again

[Blatboy]

So, I was able to get it to boot up from the HD, but there is still some SCSI voodoo going on.

It won't boot up from the HD if there is no external SCSI device attached.  If no SCSI device is attached externally, the HD won't spin up at all (power light on tho.) And, even if there is an external SCSI device attached, sometimes the power supply doesn't come on at all, and sometimes it does, and the HD boots up.  I can't find a rhyme or reason to it.

I swapped out the CIA chips... no change there.  I still get a black screen with vertical stripes when booting (see earlier photo), and I don't seem to get a typical set of boot sequence colors.  I have no idea if this is also an issue.  

Front panel power lights and HD lights not coming on.  I seem to remember they did come on in the past when it booted via the HD.  I could be wrong on this though.

A fresh battery was installed and it tests at a nice 3.6v.

I've downloaded setbatt from Aminet, and unpacked it onto a floppy.  I've not tried it yet, as I'm not quite sure what I should do with it after reading the docs.

I did enough testing on the HD to feel pretty sure it's ok... and so is the power supply methinks.

So, it kinda works... I had to put the computer away for now though and who knows if it will work when I get it out and wire it up again...

Thanks again for all your help :cool:, and of course if any of this SCSI weirdness sounds familiar to anyone, any suggestions would be welcome.  

I had some fun snooping around that HD.  There's lots of good stuff on it.  Up to now, I've never dealt with any WB past 1.3.  So, this is all fairly new to me.

[Blatboy]

Hmmm.  I have one terminator and it's one of those Centronics jobs... to get that directly on a DB25 takes about 3 adaptors (as I don't have the correct one) and goodness knows if it even does what it's supposed to do with all that extra stuff attached.  My SCSI issues have been so whack, it'd be best to get one of yours.  I'll send a PM.

That said, when I attached the Centronics one hooked to the CD drive I had attached to the A3000 when it the computer worked, there was no change in behavior.  (First time it worked it wasn't attached...I think.) It seemed to have acted the same way whether I attached that sucka or not.  That said, I'll do it again to be triple sure.

I did test pin 25 again and it checked out ok.  That said, who knows what I've shorted in the past with my poking and prodding.  Haha.

the WD -04 chip is known to also have problems with multiple devices, i dont recall if you said it already has the latest -08 or the amd 33c93a.

Oooh.  I have no idea.  I'll just look for a chip labeled WD33C93? And if I don't have a more recent chip, can I just source one and plop it in?  I've found some threads more or less explaining it.  Where do I find the chip on the board?   (I'm outta town at the moment and will be back to look Wednesday)

Thanks again!

[Blatboy]

Good Day,

The Led's have polarity, I've mistakenly plugged in some wrong way around before, they don't work.

I never unplugged the board, so in theory that shouldn't be the problem.

That said, I'm not sure if my memory is failing me here.   I think I remember those lights coming on at some point since I've had that computer, but I'm not sure.  Maybe I'll flip the connector and see what happens.

Thanks!

[Blatboy]

Just a note that I picked up a couple active SCSI Terminators from Mechy and sure enough, that cleared up my SCSI issue.  So, I more or less have a working A3000!  Yay!  Thanks to Mechy and everyone for all the help.

Now, I have a whole new slew of issues I'll be dealing with trying to get some of these SCSI devices to work.  I'll start a new thread.  That's a threat.

Thanks again!