NO expansion cards will work...

[Mitsurugi]

Okay, my Amiga revival started a few months ago and I've hit a brick wall.

I bought an Amiga Technologies A1200 from Vesalia because I wanted a new-looking machine with no yellowing or damage.  Got it and it worked fine.

I bought a 4GB hard disk from eBay with lots of games preinstalled, very happy with it.  Got it and it worked fine.

But I CAN'T use ANY expansion cards.  First I tried a Blizzard 1230, I put it in, turned it on and all I got was a black screen.  Wouldn't boot.

I figured either the card was faulty or there was a power issue, so I recently bought an AmiTek Hawk 8MB memory card like the green one here:

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=944

I KNOW this works, the seller assured me it was tested.  Again, BLACK SCREEN.  Won't boot.

Surely this can't be a power issue any more.  All I've got in is a hard disk and a memory card.

I've run out of options.  Is my A1200 just b0rked?  Or are all AT A1200s incompatible with everything?  I'm thinking of buying yet another A1200, but from eBay, and putting the insides into my new AT A1200 case.

But before I take that drastic step I'd really appreciate some advice from you guys!  Thanks.

[Mitsurugi]

Impossible, but let's assume the card is fine.  The guy who sold it guaranteed it as working, and it's too much of a coincidence that the Blizzard didn't work either.

[Mitsurugi]

Checked, it's not.

[Mitsurugi]

UPDATE:

Okay, I had a thought.  I took the 8MB memory off the card and tried to boot.

THIS TIME:

I get a brown screen with white text, and the words:

Expansion Board Diagnostic

Board Number --- Manufacturer --- Product --- Status

1 --- 2194 --- 1 --- Defective

Continue

When I click "Continue", AmigaDos starts and outputs:

C:CardReset failed returncode 10

Now I don't know if the brown screen is common to all cards, and I also don't know if it is showing as "Defective" just because I took the memory off it.  Any ideas?

[Mitsurugi]

OKAYYY...!!!

Interesting.  I DO have a PCMCIA card, an MA401, which I'd taken out before I installed the card.  I'd forgotten about the "CardReset" command.

If I put the card back in, I get to workbench with no memory detected.

If I take the card out and remove "CardReset" from my S:startup-sequence - you guessed it, I can boot and I have my memory.  

Which is good news, I have a working card.  But it seems that it's either one or the other.  The memory card or the network card.

The memory card is an 8MB card.  I recall issues with addressing memory over 4MB, and it clashing with the PCMCIA slot.  Maybe this is it.