A3000T Help

[don27dog]

I finally got around to replacing the blown power supply in my 3000T with an ATX power supply. All seemed to go well until I tried to boot. I hear the HD spin up but I have a black screen staring back at me. After a couple of tries I went into early startup and sure enough the hard drive was there. I then tried booting with no start up sequence. When I type loadwb I get a system request saying "please insert volume ENV in any drive". I click retry several times to no avail. Click cancel and I am stuck at a command prompt. I then try two or three more HD's and another controller with the same results. I then booted to workbench off a 3.1 floppy and sure enough the HD shows and I can access all the files. After playing around for a few hours I am getting no where so I format another drive and do a fresh install of 3.1. Everything installs smoothly but when I try to reboot of the HD same results. Black screen. One more time boot with no startup sequence same system request saying "please insert volume ENV in any drive". I click cancel this time and WB loads but I have no ram I reload off 3.1 floppy and I am showing 2 megs graphics and 8 megs other. I am open to any ideas as I am stumped.

[don27dog]

I checked all voltages with multimeter before I connecting to the MB. Have not tested under load. All expansions show under early start up but I have stripped every one out with the exception of GVP SCSI controller. I have also tried booting from fastATA controller with same symptoms.

[don27dog]

When you set the drive for the 3.1 install, did you check the bootable box???

Just for my info, Why the gvp scsi controllor, why not the on board scsi?

I am using the GVP controller because it has 8 megs of ram onboard. Years ago I tried adding zipram to the motherboard and either the ram is faulty or I don't have it configured properly but either way the machine has booted for years without the onboard zips.

Yes all drives I have been trying are checked as bootable and show in early startup as bootable.

[don27dog]

I would try to test under load, and feel if the connectors on the ATX adapter ends (either the motherboard side or ATX side) are getting hot.  This may seem like a little thing but this could be something as simple as a continuity problem.

Also do you have another ATX power supple to try?  Some of the older or  cheaper supplies have issues with proper voltage or noisy voltage.  I don't know how sensitive the A3000T motherboard would be.

I also suggest looking for blown Caps on the A3000T.  The old power supply may have damaged a cap or two when it blew.

I will check caps when I get home tonight. The original power supply died when two cards connected to the mediator shorted against each other.

[don27dog]

Good job on the PSU, I am also running my A3000T on an ATX supply.

Depending on which SCSI controller(s) you use, you should see if they are all terminated properly.

You can 'assign env: ram:' before loadwb to get pass that requester.

I will try assigning env again tonight but I think I have tried that already. What I can't figure out is I have ram when I boot from floppy but when I boot from HD memory is gone.

[don27dog]

Thank you for the responses. I am only using the GVP controller temporarily  because it has a 4 pin molex connector I can use to power the hd until I can get an adapter to connect to whatever the name of the new connectors on the atx supply are. I have zorram 256k, progressive perferial proram 3000, or warpengine 4040 I can use as a source of ram in the future. Also I have 3 known working installs of plain 3.1, 3.1 classic wb and 3.9 on 50 pin SCSI drives. I have a ton of ide drives laying around but none are clearly marked what is on them so I have avoided try to boot off fastATA until I know the new PS is working. Hopefully my daughter will go to bed shortly and I can continue testing some more tonight. Thanks again for the responses. Keep them coming. I will let you know how I make out with it.

[don27dog]

Probably SATA power connectors.  These are what I use to convert:

http://www.neweggbusiness.com/product/product.aspx?item=9b-12-816-038

Thanks Mike. Yes that is what I need.

[don27dog]

I found a SATA to molex adapter and had some time to work on this this morning and I finally got it sorted. I removed all zip ram, removed 040, and all cards from the system and went back to the onboard scsi and it booted from HD first try. I will no try adding pieces back one at a time. Thank you for all the suggestions.